Word: ntsb
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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...
...time to be winging it. NTSB investigators haven't yet determined exactly why American Airlines Flight 1420 skidded off that wet runway in Little Rock last Tuesday night, but it seems the pilots are back atop the list of suspects. Sources close to the investigation told USA Today that chief pilot Richard Buschmann and copilot Michael Origel seem to have skipped all or part of their landing "checklist" that airlines use to make sure their pilots follow proper procedure, especially during takeoff and landing. (Buschmann was killed in the accident; Origel survived.) Did the pilots chuck the book when they...
...undeclared items as aerosol cans and plastic bottles containing acidic liquids, prompting the National Transportation Safety Board to warn that "the transportation of undeclared hazardous materials on airplanes remains a significant problem, and more aggressive measures are needed to address it." Lee Dickinson, an aviation engineer and a former NTSB member, cautions against premature comparisons. "We don't know yet whether or not the smoke cleared up in this case. We don't know how dense it was or where it came from." He adds, "Just because you see smoke doesn't necessarily mean there's fire." At week...