U.S.

NTSB Asks For NASA's Help

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

November 12, 2001 / 9:26 AM EST / CBS

National Transportation Safety Board investigators have asked NASA to help them find out why the tail of American Airlines Flight 587 fell off.

The board said Thursday that the vertical stabilizer and rudder are being sent to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's research center in Hampton, Va. The center has expertise in analyzing nonmetallic composite materials of the kind used to build the tail on the Airbus A300, the board said.

"We know the tail came off in flight and we're trying to find out why it happened," NTSB spokesman Ted Lopatkiewicz said.

This is not the first time NASA has been asked to help with a safety board investigation, but it is the first time the focus has been on the lighter-weight composites increasingly used in airplane construction.

On Nov. 12, Flight 587 bound for the Dominican Republic slammed into a residential neighborhood shortly after taking off from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport. All 260 people aboard the aircraft and five on the ground were killed.

The fin and rudder, made of carbon fiber reinforced epoxy resin, appear to have come off the aircraft before the aircraft hit the ground.

Investigators have said they do not yet know the cause of the crash, but have focused heavily on the tail structure and some extreme rudder movements that occurred as the aircraft passed through turbulence from a bigger plane flying miles ahead.

Aviation experts have said that the tail should not have fallen off the plane even though the aircraft hit two wakes from a Japan Air Lines 747 that took off before it. The FAA has ordered inspections of all Airbus A300-600 and A310 planes, which have similar tails. France's civil aviation authority ordered similar inspections.

Other NTSB investigators are in Tulsa, Okla., looking at the plane's engines, which also fell off before the crash. And some are in Toulouse, France, at Airbus' plant, looking at the various tests and simulations conducted to make sure the airplanes can handle turbulence and other forces.