Will Say Copilot Overmanipulated Rudder

The National Transportation Safety Board will reportedly lay the blame on the pilot of an American Airlines A300-600 that went down in Queens three years ago.

Flight 587 went down three years ago in Rockaway, Queens (NY), killing all 260 people on board and five on the ground.  The New York Times quotes federal investigators who say, after the Airbus flew into the wake of a Boeing 747, the copilot aggressively worked the rudder pedals back and forth until the vertical stabilizer completely delaminated from the aircraft.

The copilot's father, himself a retired airline pilot, is highly critical of the leaked report. After talking with witnesses to the November 12th, 2001 accident, Stan Molin thinks the plane might have suffered some sort of electrical or mechanical failure. 

"I can't imagine him really creating this crash. I can't picture that," he told WABC News. There was something that was happening to that airplane. I don't think that my son, or the captain, knew and understood what was going on, on that airplane. Regardless of what it was."

The soon-to-be-released NTSB report will reportedly partially vindicate the plane's manufacturer, Airbus and will reportedly not mention a 1997 incident over Florida where an Airbus flight crew overworked the rudder pedals, almost causing the very same sort of delamination.

Flight 587 was bound for the Dominican Republic when it went down on November 12th, 2001.  The NTSB will meet in Washington, DC on October 26th to release its final report.

FMI: www.ntsb.gov