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Tuesday, 13 November, 2001, 06:49 GMT
New York crash 'an accident'
![]() The pilot's nosedive averted a worse disaster
Investigators say preliminary evidence points to mechanical failure rather than terrorism as the cause of Monday's air crash in New York.
Emergency workers in New York have so far recovered 265 bodies from where the American Airlines jet crashed, near the city's John F Kennedy airport. Up to nine people were still missing on the ground.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) joined the FBI and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in stressing that there was no indication that the crash was anything other than an accident. "Everything we have learned... says we are proceeding appropriately, considering this an accident," Marion Blakey, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board, told a news conference.
The search continued for the companion flight data recorder. New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said there were no survivors among the 251 passengers and nine crew. He revised an earlier figure of 246 passengers to take account of five infants being carried in the laps of their parents. President Bush offered condolences to the families of victims. Early warnings There have been documented malfunctions involving General Electric's CF6 engines - the same model as that of the American Airlines flight - in the past.
The FAA set a 60-day period for industry feedback, which was to end on 4 December. The NTSB had also warned that failure of these engines during flight could send hot metal fragments tearing through important control systems or fuel lines, and could cause a plane to crash. The American Airlines plane had gone through routine maintenance tests overnight on Sunday, and investigators were checking who had access to it during those hours.
Click here for a map of the crash site
This was the first major airline crash in the United States since four passenger flights were crashed in suicide hijackings on 11 September, destroying both towers of the World Trade Center in New York and smashing into the Pentagon in Washington.
Fuel not dumped A spokesman for the plane's manufacturer, Airbus, said that contrary to earlier remarks by New York Governor George Pataki, the pilot could not have dumped fuel before the crash, since the version of the A-300 plane sold to American Airlines lacked that capability.
Mayor Giuliani praised the New York fire department for the speed in which the blaze was brought under control, and said it was fortunate that the crash site was relatively confined. "It could have been far worse, there are any number of ways that this could have been far worse. It was amazing how the plane just landed in one small defined area." About 150 of the passengers on the plane were Dominican citizens. The country's president has expressed his deep sorrow and the national authorities declared three days of mourning. In Santo Domingo's airport, distraught relatives of passengers broke down upon hearing the news. |
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