Associated Press
WASHINGTON — National Transportation Safety Board investigators have asked NASA to help them find out why the tail of an American Airlines Airbus A300 fell off.
The board said Thursday that the vertical stabilizer and rudder are being sent to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s research center in Hampton, Va. The center has expertise in analyzing nonmetallic composite materials of the kind used to build the tail on Flight 587, the board said.
"We know the tail came off in flight, and we’re trying to find out why it happened," NTSB spokesman Ted Lopatkiewicz said.
This is not the first time NASA has been asked to help with a safety board investigation, but it is the first time the focus has been on the lighter-weight composites increasingly used in airplane construction.
Investigators have been focusing on the tail, which sheared off the plane before it crashed Nov. 12 shortly after takeoff from Kennedy Airport in New York. All 260 people on board and five on the ground were killed.
Aviation experts have said that the tail should not have fallen off the plane even though the aircraft hit two wakes from a Japan Air Lines Boeing 747 that took off before it. The FAA has ordered inspections of all Airbus A300-600 and A310 planes, which have similar tails. France’s civil aviation authority ordered similar inspections.
Other NTSB investigators are in Tulsa, Okla., looking at the plane’s engines, which also fell off before the crash. And some are in Toulouse, France, at Airbus’ plant, looking at the various tests and simulations conducted to make sure the airplanes can handle turbulence and other forces.
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