The Crash of AA587: A Guide

American Airlines Flight 587 (AA587) was an Airbus A300-600 which encountered some wake turbulence from a preceding aircraft on climb out of JFK New York airport in 2001. During the second wake turbulence encounter, the rudder experienced 5 full deflections in opposite senses in about 7 seconds, and the vertical stabiliser (the fin at the back of the aircraft) broke off at its root due to overload. Control of the aircraft was immediately lost and it crashed into houses in the Belle Harbor area of New York City, in the borough of Queens, killing over 250 people on board and five people on the ground. The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) public hearing on the crash of AA587 on November 12, 2001, was held on October 26, 2004. Such a public hearing consists more or less of a presentation of a draft of the final report, in particular the conclusions (Findings, determination of probable cause and contributing factors, Recommendations), and comments from attendees. The NTSB’s preparatory work and presentations at the hearing were summarised in [DF04, Fio04]. This note considers some of the technical and sociotechnical aspects of the accident uncovered by the three-year investigation.