American Airlines Flight 587

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. According to the NTSB, the aggressive use of the rudder controls by the first officer stressed the vertical stabilizer until it snapped off the plane. The plane's two engines also separated from the aircraft before impact due to the intense forces.

More information

Comments Statistics

| | Public | Dutch • French • German • Italian • Spanish