page_title: American Airlines Flight 587
section_title: NTSB investigation
hierarchical_section_title: American Airlines Flight 587 / Investigation / NTSB investigation
caption_attribution_description: National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) employee Brian Murphy (second from right) updates NTSB Chairman Marion Blakey (third from right) on the investigation of the tail fin and rudder from American Airlines flight 587 during her visit to Langley Research Center on Feb. 11. Also pictured are (left to right) Jim Starnes, a senior engineer in Langley’s Structures and Materials Competency; Carol Carmody, vice chairman of the NTSB; George Black of the NTSB; and David Mandell, Blakey’s counsel. Langley was selected to help in the investigation because of its expertise in composite materials.
context_page_description: American Airlines Flight 587 was a regularly scheduled international passenger flight from John F. Kennedy International Airport to Las Américas International Airport in Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic. On November 12, 2001, the Airbus A300B4-605R flying the route crashed into the neighborhood of Belle Harbor, on the Rockaway Peninsula of Queens, New York City shortly after takeoff. All 260 people aboard the plane were killed, along with 5 people on the ground. It is the second-deadliest aviation incident involving an Airbus A300 and the second-deadliest aviation accident in U.S. history behind only 1979's American Airlines Flight 191.
  The location of the accident, and the fact that it took place two months and one day after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center in nearby Manhattan, initially spawned fears of another terrorist attack. However, the National Transportation Safety Board attributed the disaster to the first officer's overuse of rudder controls in response to wake turbulence from a preceding Japan Airlines Boeing 747-400 that took off minutes before it.
context_section_description: On the afternoon of the crash, the NTSB launched an investigation in search for a probable cause. Over the next three months, they conducted 349 interviews, and collected and reconstructed pieces of the aircraft. The Airbus A300 took off shortly after a Japan Airlines Boeing 747-400 using the same runway. It flew into the larger jet's wake, an area of turbulent air. The first officer attempted to stabilize the aircraft with alternating aggressive rudder inputs. The force of the air flowing against the moving rudder stressed the aircraft's vertical stabilizer, and eventually snapped it off entirely, causing the aircraft to lose control and crash. The NTSB concluded that the enormous stress on the vertical stabilizer was due to the first officer's "unnecessary and excessive" rudder inputs, and not the wake turbulence caused by the 747. The NTSB further stated, "if the first officer had stopped making additional inputs, the aircraft would have stabilized".  Contributing factors were characteristics of the Airbus A300-600's sensitive rudder system design and elements of the American Airlines Advanced Aircraft Maneuvering Training Program.
  The manner in which the vertical stabilizer separated concerned investigators. The vertical stabilizer is connected to the fuselage with six attaching points.  Each point has two sets of attachment lugs, one made of composite material, another of aluminum, all connected by a titanium bolt; damage analysis showed that the bolts and aluminum lugs were intact, but not the composite lugs. This, coupled with two events earlier in the life of the aircraft, namely delamination in part of the vertical stabilizer prior to its delivery from Airbus's Toulouse factory, and an encounter with heavy turbulence in 1994, caused investigators to examine the use of composites. The possibility that the composite materials might not be as strong as previously supposed was a cause of concern as they are used in other areas of the plane, including the engine mounting and the wings. Tests carried out on the vertical stabilizers from the accident aircraft, and from another similar aircraft, found that the strength of the composite material had not been compromised, and the NTSB concluded that the material had failed because it had been stressed beyond its design limit.
  The crash was witnessed by hundreds of people, 349 of whom gave accounts of what they saw to the NTSB.  About half (52%) reported a fire or explosion before the plane hit the ground. Others stated that they saw a wing detach from the aircraft, when in fact it was the vertical stabilizer.
  After the crash, Floyd Bennett Field's empty hangars were used as a makeshift morgue for the identification of crash victims.
caption: NTSB employee Brian Murphy (second from right) updates NTSB Chairman Marion Blakey (third from right) on the investigation of the tail fin and rudder from AA flight 587 (February 11, 2002).
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