Disaster in Queens Gets Some New Light

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has released the air traffic control audiotapes and transcripts associated with American Airlines Flight 587, an Airbus A300-600 that crashed soon after takeoff from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York on November 12, 2001. 

The FAA released the tapes without comment, since the National Transportation Safety Board is still investigating the accident. Total running time of the tapes is approximately 52 minutes.

There's some dialog, starting out routine, and getting very, very dark:

1415:05 J108 [New York TRACON, JFK Departure] american five eight seven heavy new york departure radar contact climb and maintain one three thousand

1415:11 AAL587 one three that's for american five eighty seven heavy

...and a little later,

1415:37 J108 american five eighty seven heavy turn left proceed direct wavey

1415:42 AAL587 [the accident flight] uh uh turn direct wavey american five eighty seven heavy

...then, just two and a half minutes later,

1418:02 J108 american six eighty six heavy go ahead

1418:04 AAL686 [American Airlines Flight 686] A just to let you know we saw a huge urn tremendous amount of black smoke uh south of long island uh we're turning to the south of it now it's uh on the very southern portion of long island

1418:39 J108 american six eighty six that smoke that you see where is it right now

1418:45 AAL686 ok it's uh, about five miles behind us um looks like um if you're coming in uh runway four left it's uh right off to the left of the um of the of the approach end of the runway but uh all the way on the southern portion of long island uh right where the shore line is

1419:07 J108 ok so it's it's (unintelligible) in the water or on the land

1419:10 AAL686 it's on the land and it's uh looks uh tremendous like uh it's a huge fire a tremendous amount of black smoke ­ uh kennedy tower would probably be able to see that with no problem

1419:24 J108 roger thank you 

...a short time later, another confirmation of the terrible news:

1422:31 J108 one zero charlie what do you see off to your left

More reports started coming in...

1422:34    N3810C [Beechcraft Baron N3810C] a big column of rising brown smoke just about in the middle of the land mass uh south southeast of the old uh floyd bennett field

1422:44 J108 alright thank you

1422:58 J108 alright bernie thirty ones no right turns robbinsvilles to eleven uh ten charlie is on a two seventy heading right now this guy's still doing the victor sixteen i didn't give him a heading yet these are the only two i'm working and all the p ds are (unintelligible)

1423:11 J108-2 [New York TRACON, JFK Controller #2] alright

1423:12 N3810C approach that smoke is now directly off our nine o'clock

1423:16 J108-2 say again

1423:17 N3810C that smoke is now directly off our left wing at nine o'clock

1423:20 J108-2 roger

...and another sighting...

1423:55 N888PD [Cessna Skylane N888PD] eight papa delta direct dixie

1424:20 N3810C and approach ten charlie is now looking uh right down at that uh smoke column now and it's a big intense fire down there

1424:25 J108-2 okay uh we've got helicopters there

The whole text can be seen at http://www.faa.gov/apa/AAFlt587.doc.  

FMI: www.faa.gov, http://www.ntsb.gov/events/2001/AA587/default.htm