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Aircraft Accident Investigation on American Airline 587 crash
- 1. 1
- 2. American Airline Flight 587 AIR CRASH INVESTIGATION 2Eagle investigation Services BY: SUHAIL AHMED BSAMT02161001 SEMESTER#03 BS AIRCRAFT MAINTENANCE TECHNOLOGY
- 3. Introduction November 12,2001 American airline flight 587 Airbus 300-600 2 flight crew member 7 flight attendants 251 passengers Flight origin –John f. Kennedy international airport Jamaica, New York city Destination- las Americas international airport saint Domingo, Dominican republic No survivors All 270 people were killed in this incident 3
- 4. Flight 587 4
- 5. American Airline flight 587 On November 12, 2001, about 0916:15 eastern standard time, American Airlines flight 587, an Airbus Industries A300-605R, N14053, crashed into a residential area of Belle Harbor, New York, shortly after takeoff from John F. Kennedy International Airport, Jamaica, New York. Flight 587 was a regularly scheduled passenger flight to Las Americas International Airport, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, with 2 flight crewmembers, 7 flight attendants, and 251 passengers aboard the plane. At 9:13:28, the A300 was cleared for takeoff on Runway 31L. The aircraft left the runway at 9:14:29, about 1 minute and 40 seconds after the JAL flight. From takeoff, the plane climbed to an altitude of 500 feet above mean sea level (msl) and then entered a climbing left turn to a heading of 220°. At 9:15:00, the pilot made initial contact with the departure controller, informing him that the airplane was at 1,300 feet and climbing to 5,000 feet. The departure controller instructed the aircraft to climb to and maintain 13,000 feet. American Airlines Flight 587 crashed into the Belle Harbor neighborhood of Queens in New York City shortly after takeoff. This was the second deadliest U.S. aviation accident to date 5
- 6. 6 The plane’s vertical stabilizer and rudder separated in flight and were found in Jamaica Bay, about 1 mile north of the main wreckage site. The plane’s engines subsequently separated in flight and were found several blocks north and east of the main wreckage site.
- 7. All 260 people aboard the plane and 5 people on the ground were killed, and the plane was destroyed by impact forces and a post crash fire. 7
- 8. Aircraft and Crew The accident airplane, N14053, serial number (S/N) 420, was delivered new to American Airlines on July 12, 1988 At the time of the accident, the airplane had accumulated 37,550 flight hours and 14,934 cycles.34 All applicable FAA airworthiness directives (AD) were accomplished on the airplane. The captain, age 42, was hired by American Airlines in July 1985. The captain received a type rating on the A300-23 in September 1988 while serving as a first officer and received a type rating on the Boeing 727 in December 1991. He completed initial operating experience as an A300 captain in August 1998. Captain had accumulated 8,050 hours total flying time,25 including 3,448 hours as pilot-in-command and 1,723 hours as an A300 pilot-in-command. He had flown approximately 146 and 52 hours in the 90 and 30 days, respectively, before the accident. The first officer, age 34, was hired by American Airlines in March 1991. The first officer received a type rating on the A300 in November 1998. American Airlines records also indicated that the first officer had accumulated 4,403 hours total flying time,26 including 1,835 hours as an A300 second-in-command. 8
- 9. Reason and Crash investigation Report The official National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) report of October 26, 2004, stated that the cause of the crash was the overuse of the rudder to counter wake turbulence. The A300-600, which took off just minutes after a Japan Airlines Boeing 747 on the same runway, flew into the larger jet's wake, an area of very turbulent air. The first officer attempted to keep the plane upright with the rudder. The strength 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. 9
- 10. 10 Investigators were concerned regarding the manner in which the tail fin separated. The tail fin is connected to the fuselage with six attaching points, each set has two sets of nuts, one made out of composite material, another from aluminum which is connected by a titanium bolt, however damage analysis showed the bolts and aluminum lugs were intact but not the composite lugs. There were fears that the composites were faulty because they are used in other areas of the plane including the engine mounting and the wings, however examinations of construction and the materials gave the plane a clean bill of health.
- 11. Vertical stabilizer of Airbus 300 11
- 12. After crash A 300 Fin mounting 12
- 13. Dispute between American airline and Airbus industry Airbus and American are currently disputing the extent to which the two parties are responsible for the disaster. American charges that the crash was mostly Airbus's fault, because the A300 was designed with unusually sensitive rudder controls. Most aircraft require increased pressure on the rudder pedals to achieve the same amount of rudder control at a higher speed. The Airbus A300 and later A310 do not operate on a fly-by-wire flight control system, instead using conventional mechanical flight controls. The NTSB determined that "because of its high sensitivity, the A300-600 rudder control system is susceptible to potentially hazardous rudder pedal inputs at higher speeds." 13
- 14. Airbus charges that the crash was mostly American's fault, because the airline did not train its pilots properly about the characteristics of the rudder. Aircraft tail fins are designed to withstand full rudder in one direction at maneuvering speed. However, they are not usually designed to withstand an abrupt shift in rudder from one direction to the other. Most American pilots believed that the tail fin could withstand any rudder movement at maneuvering speed. 14
- 15. Airbus A 300 modification Airbus Changes to the A300-600 Rudder Control System Design In designing the A300-600 rudder control system, Airbus made two changes to the rudder control system that was used on the airplane’s predecessors, the A300B2 and A300B4. First, Airbus decreased the forces required to depress the rudder pedals on the A300-600. At the public hearing, the vice president of Airbus’ flight control and hydraulic department stated that pilots suggested that roll control (aileron) forces be reduced to allow for more precise piloting. As a result, Airbus decided to reduce control wheel forces by about 30 percent and to reduce rudder pedal forces to maintain consistency with control wheel forces. 15
- 16. Findings The National Transportation Safety Board concluded that the cause of the crash was purely human error: overuse of the rudder mechanism leading to mechanical failure and not—as the public had first feared—a terrorist attack. According to the official accident report, after the first officer made his initial rudder pedal input, he made a series of alternating full rudder inputs. This led to increasing sideslip angles. The resulting hazardous sideslip angle led to extremely high aerodynamic loads that resulted in separation of the vertical stabilizer. If the first officer had stopped making these inputs at any time before the vertical stabilizer separation, the natural stability of the airplane would have returned the sideslip angle to near 0°, and the accident would have been avoided. Contributing factors include the following: First, the first officer's predisposition to overreact to wake turbulence; second, the training provided by American Airlines that could have encouraged pilots to make large flight control inputs; third, the first officer likely did not understand an airplane's response to large rudder inputs at high airspeeds 16