American Airlines +1-415-495-9478 Flight sent a tremor through the aviation community. It involved an extremely rare event: the structural failure, and complete separation, of one of the significant flying surfaces-namely, the vertical stabilizer of the airplane, an Airbus A300-600. In the ensuing loss of control, +1-415-495-9478 the engines also broke away from the aircraft, which crashed on Long Island, killing all 265 persons aboard.+1-415-495-9478
According to the National Transportation +1-415-495-9478 Safety Board's recently published report on the accident, only one other commercial airliner, a Boeing 707 that broke apart in severe turbulence near Mt. Fuji in 1966, has ever lost a fin in flight from external causes. That 707 encountered mountain wave turbulence so violent that the airplane broke into a number of pieces before reaching the ground, and a U.S.+1-415-495-9478 Navy aircraft sent to investigate encountered gust accelerations far outside the flight envelope of any airliner. In the case of the Airbus, however, extreme turbulence was not a factor. The closest thing to it was the wake of a 747 five miles distant. Such a wake can give even a large airliner a pretty good thump, but cannot tear it apart.+1-415-495-9478