Thursday, November 15, 2001

Plane shaken by turbulence before
By Jonathan D. Salant
Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Safety records show the American Airlines plane that crashed in New York Monday was severely shaken by air turbulence seven years earlier in an episode that injured 47 people.

One possibility safety investigators are considering is that the Airbus A300 broke apart Monday after hitting turbulence from the plane taking off before it at Kennedy International Airport.

An aviation consultant said the plane could have been weakened by the earlier encounter.

“I would expect that the airplane underwent inspection after the turbulence encounter to verify that it hadn’t been damaged and any damage that was incurred was fixed,” Jim McKenna said.

National Transportation Safety Board investigators are reviewing records and interviewing maintenance employees who worked on the Airbus A300, and are asking questions about the 1994 incident.

“We look at the history of the aircraft and any unusual events it was involved in,” board spokesman Keith Holloway said.

American Airlines officials declined comment, citing the NTSB inquiry.

The pilot of American Flight 587 mentioned encountering the wake of another plane, according to cockpit voice recordings. The NTSB said the first plane was a Japan Airlines jetliner that lifted off two minutes and 20 seconds before the American Airbus, 20 seconds longer than guidelines require.

In the earlier incident, 47 passengers and crew members were injured on Nov. 28, 1994, Federal Aviation Administration records show. The Airbus, flying from Barbados to Puerto Rico, had just reached cruising altitude at 35,000 feet. The seat belt sign had just gone off.

Without warning, the plane hit air turbulence, sending the nose up and down. The plane landed in San Juan without any other problems, but some of the passengers required hospitalization.

Though the plane has undergone major maintenance since then — the latest in December 1999 — aviation experts say the earlier turbulence could have created some unnoticed cracks.

“Certainly the investigators need to take a look at that to see if there is any damage that went undetected,” said Tom Ellis, a spokesman for the Nolan Law Group, a Chicago firm that represents victims of airline accidents. “With any maintenance, there is always the possibility of human error. You would think it’s unlikely, but it’s still possible.”

Still, David Stempler, president of the Air Travelers Association, an advocacy group, said the plane would have been inspected several times since 1994. “The plane probably went through major overhauls since then,” Stempler said.

Even if a crack caused by the turbulence initially went undetected, subsequent inspections should have found any problems, said Dean Headley, associate professor of marketing at Wichita State University and co-author of an annual study of airline quality.

“Assuming that all of those inspections were done as they were supposed to be and signed off on, you assume they would find any damage,” Headley said.