Word: ntsb
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...that the first EgyptAir Flight 990 black box has given us is another piece of the puzzle - but one that rules out rather than provides an easy solution. The NTSB announced Wednesday that analysis of the flight-data recorder reveals that the doomed plane's initial descent was a controlled maneuver by the pilot rather than a precipitous plunge, and that the Boeing 767's thrust reversers had not deployed in mid-flight, ruling out a hypothesis popular in media coverage immediately after the Halloween night crash. The big question, of course, is what prompted the pilot, eight seconds after...
There's no point trying to connect the dots, because they're all over the page. Radar data released by the NTSB late Wednesday showed that EgyptAir Flight 990 plunged precipitously at nearly the speed of sound for 16,000 feet, but then climbed about a mile - and possibly began breaking up in midair - before falling into the ocean. That might suggest a last-ditch attempt by the crew to gain control of the stricken craft, which could have broken up under structural stress if the pilot had attempted to pull too quickly out of a 700-mph dive...
Evidence is mounting, meanwhile, that pilot disorientation may have been the cause of the fatal crash. Radar data released by the NTSB Tuesday shows that Kennedy turned out of his descent 20 miles from the airport and climbed back to 2,600 feet, leveling off briefly before making a second turn to the right and starting a precipitous plunge that may have exceeded 5,000 feet per minute, 10 times the normal speed. "A pilot not rated to fly by instruments can very easily lose his orientation when the horizon disappears in the darkness and the haze," says TIME aviation...
...namely its pilots? The June 1 crash of Flight 1420 in Little Rock bookended a six-year period in which American jets were involved in six accidents ?- two of them accounting for 171 deaths ?- more than any other domestic carrier. Federal investigators are now looking for a pattern, said NTSB spokesman Paul Turk, "to see if there is something we need to do." American?s pilots ?- who probably have the industry?s prickliest relationship with their management ?- have been only too happy to provide some usual suspects...
...first and foremost the deployment of the wing spoilers -- apparently weren't performed. A mechanical postmortem may help them decide; the wrecked plane got the Flight 800 treatment on Tuesday and was moved to a hangar for autopsy. The plane's spoiler system will be removed and sent to NTSB labs for testing that, in a few weeks, could definitively decide between pilot and mechanical error. USA Today's sources may be trying to save us the wait...