The November 2001 crash, shortly after takeoff from JFK, of American Airlines Flight 587 sent a tremor through the aviation community. It involved an extremely rare event: the structural failure, and complete separation, of one of the major flying surfaces-namely, the vertical stabilizer-of the airplane, an Airbus A300-600. In the ensuing loss of control, the engines also broke away from the airplane, which crashed on Long Island killing all 265 persons aboard.
According to the National Transportation 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. 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.
