It sounds like an accident to me too. But, it is Veteran’s Day here in the U.S. The day we honor our military.
The NTSB and FAA are pretty damn good. It will take a while but we will find out what happened.
I dunno. You’re probably right, but the fact that it was in New York and it was on Veteran’s Day makes me suspicious.
Fenris, feeling very paranoid
Not just those that worked it, those that DIED on 9-11 were primarily from this area. Ditto on WTC office workers.
A plus though–as horrible as this is, I was relieved to hear it had hit houses. My first impression was that it had crashed into Apartment-type buildings. Also, a school that was hit/is burning was blessedly unoccupied.
True enough, and I didn’t mean to give that impression.
*crossing her fingers that this is a one-off
and desparately wanting this sinking feeling in my stomach to go away*
News from Howard Beach.
Co-worker’s mom was not worried about her house until 15 mins ago when she saw just how quickly the fire is spreading. Her brother is a firefighter, but he is unavailable (of course). Co-worker’s mom says people are calm, but very worried.
We’ve convinced co-worker that running home now is not even an option. Poor kid just came back from Mexico on American.
You didn’t. I wasn’t referring to your post, I was just speaking off the top of my mind. Specifically, I was thinking about the New Yorkers, and the world-wide airline industry.
BTW, just my luck to use a mis-spelled word (“neads”) in the one sentence somebody quotes.
Keep in mind that on 9/11 the planes were allowed to get past the critical takeoff procedural elements and arrive at cruising altitude before attempts to hijack were initiated.
It’s only speculation, of course, but this at first appears to just be a very tragic accident.
Of course, the presence of SkyMarshals and National Guards fighters might have caused hijackers to modify their methods.
FYI: I’m alive.
I work in Queens. Happened to be running a wee bit late today (as if that’s anything new) so I couldn’t make it in due to the bridge closures.
Don’t get too worried about this yet. From all of the descriptions of the incident some type of mechanical failure is the cause. Although that problem could have been the result of sabotage, it is not consistent with the recent terrorist attacks. There’s no need for hysteria.
Reports just came in that pilots of the plane scheduled to take off next noticed smoke coming from the engine of the AA flight. It appears that there was a fire in the engine, most likely due to some sort of mechanical failure.
Just out of curiosity–is this making the news overseas? If so, what’s the spin on it over there?
Non-US dopers–any info?
Pure speculation here, but the occurrence of this crash in NYC, two months and a day after 9/11, on a flight by one of the same airlines, and in the same time window as the previous event, seems a remarkable set of coincidences if it is only an accident.
Not to beat up on a previous poster, but as there was apparently some sort of major mechanical failure, I don’t see where previous “computer failures” (IOW, problems with the fly-by-wire controls) would be relevant.
The plane behind 587 had reported a smoke trail coming out of one of 587’s engines. Another indication that this was an accident. ABC’s aviation expert says the engines were designed to break away in the event of failure, as it would be better for the engine to come off than seize up and break off the wing. Given the high rpm’s of jet engines, this seems reasonable - but it ddn’t work out so well this time. The pilot would have had at best seconds to deal with this problem. This is a terrible thing, but it looks like an accident at this time.
Sorry for highlighting your mistake, aegypt. I’ll buy you whatever you’re drinking if I ever happen to run into you. 
…and now I screw up the coding… :eek:
Well, here comes my thought.
I’ve been wondering this for days now- wouldn’t it be possible for a terrorist or whoever to down a plane on take-off or landing by simply firing an AK-47 or some similar weapon from the ground up to the plane?
If you hit the engine or the wing, it seems to me you’d have something similar to what happened here.
Not a fun thought, I know, but something I can’t help but keep wondering lately with all the scenarios floating around.
German media has commented that there’s a UN conference today, but has stressed that not much is known, yet.
I don’t want to go through this again. 
Those poor people, what they must be going through. My heart bleeds for them. And for us, in general. No matter what the cause.
It is here (UK) on Sky Tv
Gp
Well, the BBC’s news site is the only one I’ve seen so far crass enough to mention that the Dow dropped 200 points on the news :(. So, yes, it’s making it oversees, but I’m not impressed with our reporters.
skynews.com mentioned it as well.