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Article: Air Crash Investigators Focus on Carbon Fiber; Composites in Flight 587's Tail Fin May Hold Key to Finding Cause of New York Plane Disaster
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- November 18, 2001
- Author:
CopyrightThis material is published under license from the Washington Post. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Washington Post. (Hide copyright information)
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It took only a few seconds. Just after takeoff, American Airlines
Flight 587 lurched twice to the right and once to the left. Suddenly
its tail sheared off and the plane plunged out of control, crashing
and killing all 260 people aboard.
Nearly a week after last Monday's accident, the National
Transportation Safety Board has all but ruled out terrorism as its
cause. Instead, investigators are looking at why the Airbus A300's
carbon-fiber, reinforced composite vertical tail fin broke off --
almost certainly the final casualty that doomed the aircraft.
The key question, several experts say, is whether the fin broke
because a freak combination of torque and turbulence stressed it
beyond ...