Montreal man downed U.S. Plane, CSIS told(AA587 11-12-01)

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.canada.com/national/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=a4f777f9-958a-4538-9c71-7f6d797676e8

A captured al-Qaeda operative has told Canadian intelligence investigators that a Montreal man who trained in Afghanistan alongside the 9/11 hijackers was responsible for the crash of an American Airlines flight in New York three years ago.

Canadian Security Intelligence Service agents were told during five days of interviews with the source that Abderraouf Jdey, a Canadian citizen also known as Farouk the Tunisian, had downed the plane with explosives on Nov. 12, 2001.

The source claimed Jdey had used his Canadian passport to board Flight 587 and "conducted a suicide mission" with a small bomb similar to the one used by convicted shoe bomber Richard Reid, a "Top Secret" Canadian government report says.

But officials said it was unlikely Jdey was actually involved in the crash, which killed 265 people and is considered accidental. The fact that al-Qaeda attributed the crash to Jdey, however, suggests they were expecting him to attack a plane.

[karlrschneider]

1. "My neighbor's cousin's barber knows exactly what happened!"

Really!

[RamboLiberal]

2. Karl - You're a pilot correct?

Or any DU aviation expert.

Did you think the NTSB explanation for this crash was plausible? I could understand a mechanical malfunction that caused the tail to come off (especially interested in the composite materials in the tail and how attached). But didn't they attribute contributing factor to wake turbulence from previous planes taking off? That always seemed bogus to me.

I know a lot there were :tinfoilhat: 'ers that this crash so close to 9-11 and in NYC who believe this crash was terrorism covered up by the Bushies so the airline industry wouldn't be crippled.

I always respect you and DemoTex's opinions on aviation matters here.

[karlrschneider]

8. Yes, been a commercial pilot since 1963 and an aero engineer...

but I haven't read the NTSB report and haven't really researched it. But I do know how the tail feathers are attached to the typical large airplane...and the bolts that hold them are actually pretty small, however they are designed to withstand any expected forces. One thought I've had on this is that vibration may have worn and weakened some of the attach points which obviously makes them susceptible to fracture.
I've encountered some pretty significant wake turbulence, obviously not enough to tear my aircraft apart, but I can't rule it out. I'll try to look up the report and see if it gives me any clues. You might DUmail Mac and see what he has to say about it (or maybe I will and drag him over to this thread.)
KS

[AP]

14. I have a question for my benefactor:

I was on a 737 (I think) recently. We're flying along at cruising altitude with an hour to go until the scheduled landing and the plane jerks pretty seriously to the left. If I had to guess, I'd say the wings went from horizontal to about 25-30 degrees counterclockwise. I think the plane remained at roughly the same altitude. The pilot corrected, but, after momentarily holding the wings horizontal, it jerked even more to the right -- maybe as much as 35 or 40 degrees. You could feel the nose dip pretty dramatically. The pilot corrected again.

Over the PA the pilot announced that we hit jet wash. Then the cabin crew started reading the gate numbers for connecting flights. I didn't notice that the plane picked up speed, but they certainly cleared a runway for us at the airport. We were a half hour ealry into one of the busiest airports in America. (And, after landing, we realized that there were planes were forty minutes to an hour late and circling the airport.)

So, what happened? I've been in some awful turbulence, and this wasn't as bad as the worst weather-related turbulance I've been in, but it was probably the most rapid shift from horizontal I've ever experienced on an otherwise smooth flight. I've also flown alot, and have never experienced jet wash, as far as I know.

The person with whom I was travelling was sure that something very serious had happened. They wouldn't clear a runway for a plane just because it hit some jet wash, he said.

So, my questioins: is that what jet wash would be like? Under what circumstances would an airport clear a runway on a very busy day?

My theory was that the plane got knocked off of autopilot and the pilot had to jump to correct it. But why would a broken auto pilot mean such a fast landing? I know nothing about planes.

[karlrschneider]

17. Gosh, it could have been any of a hundred things...

sorry to be so late, have been away since last evening. One possibility would be a failure in the primary hydraulic system, perhaps a jammed valve or regulator --- which could have caused the sudden roll motion and the autopilot may have ended up overcorrecting. It takes a bit of time to diagnose this kind of problem and to switch to a backup system, in which case you would want to get on the ground as soon as possible although it isn't a true emergency. That's just one possible scenario, I tend to agree with you that merely encountering some 'jet wash' (which certainly can cause what you described) wouldn't dictate any sort of priority approach and landing unless it "broke" something.

Reading your post again, I'm wondering if one of the engines may have flamed out...that can cause the motion you describe and would certainly prioritize the landing sequence (and it's very difficult to tell when one engine on a large plane isn't running, sitting in the pax cabin)

But really I honestly have no idea. :eyes:
;-)

[AP]

19. thanks for the reply.

That's all interesting stuff.

[FormerOstrich]

20. You can see if it made to the

incidence database.

http://www2.ntsb.gov/ntsb/query.asp

[WillyT]

3. And Here's Another Theory:

Link: http://www.rense.com/general17/terrcc.htm

:shrug:

[RamboLiberal]

5. Great article - Makes sense to this layperson

But would love to hear our DU aviation experts on this.

[WillyT]

7. Yeah... That One Always Struck Me As Plausible !!!

And if the author's credentials are for real, it's certainly worth considering. But most people stop at, "Oh, that's from Rense.com, you can't trust it."

What's a tinfoiler to do, LOL???

:shrug:

And don't forget, the government had several MAJOR reason's for insisting that that crash was an accident. Like... the airline industry, the stock market, and our country's safety, were all hanging by a string at the time of that crash.

[karlrschneider]

10. I'm not much impressed by this theory...he writes:

"The Airbus A300 uses a modern "fly-by-wire" computer system and would fly quite easily with complete loss of the vertical fin and rudder. The NTSB's claim that the loss of Flight 587's vertical fin and rudder might be the cause of the loss of the control of the plane which caused it to crash is both misleading and deceptive. "

I do not agree the A300 could fly "quite easily" with no vertical stablizer/rudder...it was not -designed- to do so. The "flying wing" he refers to is (since it obviously has none to begin with.)

I had a total aileron failure on a -small- plane one time, and that is actually a LESS serious loss of control* than the rudder...it was pretty hairy, I can promise you but obviously not fatal nor was there any damage to the plane...but the landing was "interesting."

The difference between what I experienced and what happened to a relatively huge airplane has to do with inertia and momentum...a "big jet" is much harder to control because it requires comparatively huge control forces to overcome any unintended deviation in attitude. Over-controlling is almost impossible to avoid. I often think of
the ordeal the United flight underwent before and when it managed to "land" at Sioux City some years ago...no control surfaces at all were functioning, but at least they were still -there-...

Maybe I'll think of more later.

*edit: meant to clarify "much harder to control IF a control surface isn't functioning..."

[daleo]

4. National Post isn't exactly the most reliable Canadian source

They are very right wing, and love to bash Canada (even though they are a Canadian newspaper). I would wait until getting this from another source or two. Even at that, it might just be talk.

[RamboLiberal]

6. Thanks for enligtening me on the Post's RW stance

Still this is one of those crashes where the NTSB report leaves me skeptical, especially the tail being ripped of by wake turbulence. And I had forgetten about the engines being ripped off as well. The Rense article was a good refresher on the crash and possible alternate explanation.

I do wonder with the Bushies in the WH if the cause of the crash wasn't hidden from the flying public.

[daleo]

9. I have always had my doubts about the official explanation too

Maybe the BFEE is going to admit that it was not an accident, but give it a "blame Canada" (or maybe France, if this doesn't play out) spin, to satisfy the right wing.

[AP]

15. The thing that was most interesting about this one was how quickly

the media went about saying it was an accident when they had nothing to support that inference.

CNN was very quickly putting the "accident" spin on this.

Regardless of what the truth was, they certainly didn't want people thinking it was terrorism.

[karlrschneider]

11. Well, there's nobody on the planet I distrust more than the BFEE, but I

do know, and have worked with some NTSB people...they're fiercely independent and not generally political. I really don't believe (as much as I'm sometimes tempted to) that they would allow this kind of cover-up. But my experiences are several years old and I suppose anything is possible.

[RamboLiberal]

12. I agree with you about the NTSB

I'm probably one of the few DU'ers who believes that TWA 800 was what they said it was a center fuel tank explosion and not a shootdown by a terrorist or our own Navy.

[karlrschneider]

13. Sigh, Yeah I know...the way the world is, it's damn hard not to tinfoil

oneself. It seems to me there are plenty enough -real- conspiracies to go around, inventing more just as an exercise in Ockham's "blunt object" isn't really productive.

[JohnOneillsMemory]

16. Really? Ya think TWA800 was a technical? With all those eyewitnesses

on the ground who told the FBI they saw a missile go up and hit it? And were then shadowed and chilled by FBI agents who insisted they saw no such thing?

With former military pilots seeing the same thing from the air?

With both Clinton and Richard Clarke doing clumsy cover ups? Here's what Clarke wrote in 'Against All Enemies': What they really saw was a long fuel spill down to the water from the initial fuel tank breach that then ignited at the water (?!) and traveled up to the plane.

Really. That's what we are supposed to believe. Bullshit extraordinaire. And Clarke writes further that he sent an aide to Pierre Salinger's flat in DC to check out his claims of a shoot down. The only thing his aide reported back, according to Clarke's book, was "that guy's nuts." Well, that settles that, doesn't it?

That day, July 17 (1996), was a big day in Iraq for celebrating the Baathist rise to power and Clinton didn't want an overt war just before re-election. That's what the shot-it-down camp believes, anyway.

Politically, to have another terrorist plane downing in NYC so soon after 9/11 would be unacceptable to the White House.

Hmmm.

[Spazito]

18. The Post was also owned by Hollinger until relatively recently....

and is a right wing rag that I wouldn't use to cover the bottom of a bird cage for fear of infection to the birds.