This article from NYTimes.com has been sent to you by psa188@juno.com. Drama, but No Clues, in Tapes of Jet Crash February 21, 2002 By MATTHEW L. WALD WASHINGTON, Feb. 20 - Radio transmissions between air traffic controllers and pilots as American Airlines Flight 587 took off from Kennedy Airport give no apparent clue about the cause of the ensuing crash, but do offer dramatic descriptions of the scene. "Tower, look at to the south, there's an aircraft crashing," said one transmission, from a source that did not identify itself but probably was another pilot, a few seconds after 9:16 a.m. on Nov. 12. The transmission was on the same frequency that Flight 587 had used, less than three minutes earlier, to acknowledge receiving its takeoff clearance. "Affirm a fireball," said another transmission a few seconds later. The crew of American Flight 686, which had acknowledged its takeoff clearance from Kennedy 93 seconds after Flight 587 did, told a controller at the New York Terminal Radar Approach Control, or Tracon, "O.K., just to let you know, we saw a huge, tremendous amount of black smoke, south of Long Island." A controller asked, "O.K., so it's, it's [unintelligible word] in the water or on the land?" "It's on the land," replied the crew of Flight 686, "and it's, looks, tremendous, like, it's a huge fireball, a tremendous amount of black smoke - Kennedy tower would probably be able to see that with no problem." In fact the plane, an Airbus A-300 carrying 260 people on a flight to the Dominican Republic, had crashed in Belle Harbor on the narrow Rockaway Peninsula that divides Jamaica Bay from the Atlantic Ocean. In addition to everyone on board, five people on the ground were killed. The Federal Aviation Administration, which operates the tower at Kennedy and other parts of the air traffic control system, released transcripts this morning and played tapes for reporters. Also on the tapes are communications between the plane that crashed and the Japan Airlines flight that took off right ahead of it, a Boeing 747-400. The American plane ran across the wake of the 747 just before the crash. But the role of the wake in the crash has not been established. The tapes, like those of other crashes, contain a mixture of unsolicited reports from pilots about the crash interspersed with routine instructions to other planes to change heading or altitude. The tape from radar approach control also captures three brief instances at about the time of the crash in which someone on the frequency appears to click on a microphone, but there are no intelligible words. It is not clear if the plane that crashed is the source of these transmissions. Some people who witnessed the crash from the ground say they saw fire before the plane hit the ground. Safety Board investigators have been skeptical about these reports. The comments captured on the air- traffic frequencies do not mention a precrash fire. They also do not mention a precrash breakup. But the A-300 shed its rudder and the vertical piece of the tail, the part to which the rudder is attached, before it crashed. Based on the location in which they were found, in the bay, it appears that these came off the airplane first. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/21/nyregion/21CRAS.html?ex=1015328328&ei=1&en=794a3cfa799813a8 HOW TO ADVERTISE --------------------------------- For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact onlinesales@nytimes.com or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help@nytimes.com. Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company