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 o matter what the
NTSB determines to have caused the crash of American Airlines Flight
587, the event will have a significant impact on airline travel.
Taken in the broader context of the September 11 attacks and a world
now at war against terrorism, the loss of another large airliner
full of passengers has no doubt penetrated the consciousness of
a country even somewhat numbed by tragedy.
Who will not
think twice about airline travel now, especially out of New York
or on American? Who is convinced that the crash was truly an accident
and not another sinister act of terror somehow linked to 9/11? There
are too many coincidences. New York City again. American Airlines
again. Veteran's Day. The FBI and other law-enforcement professionals
don't like coincidences.
So far, the
authorities have gone to great lengths to assure the public that
this looks like an accident, some massive mechanical failure of
an extremely safe and reliable aircraft, the Airbus 300. Fortunately,
it appears all the pieces of the puzzle are going to be available
to the investigators. Both "black boxes," the cockpit
voice recorder, and the flight-data recorder, have been recovered
intact. The wreckage of the fuselage and the two engines are accessible,
as are the vertical tail and rudder, both salvaged from Jamaica
Bay. Accident investigation is a sophisticated science and, given
the availability of evidence, will definitively identify the actual
cause of the crash.
In light of
the preliminary evidence to date, there are many perplexing questions
regarding both aviation and law-enforcement considerations. With
apparently no damage to the bolts that held it in place, why did
the tail come off the airplane? With both engines found relatively
intact, why did they both separate from the aircraft when it appears
there was no massive engine failure? Why would an aircraft with
a solid safety record over many years come apart so catastrophically,
especially at such a low speed where airflow forces and wake turbulence
are not especially hazardous.
From the law-enforcement
perspective, who had access to the plane prior to its last flight?
Who completed the preflight mechanical inspection? Could a skilled
mechanic have sabotaged the tail or engines? Who loaded the cargo
and baggage? Who cleaned the passenger cabin and stowed the catering?
Could one of these people have planted a bomb? After all, JFK is
known throughout the industry as an airport where English is not
a second language, but a foreign language; where the security and
other airport personnel are predominantly foreign. The law-enforcement
side of the investigation may ultimately not reveal the cause of
the crash, but still uncover concrete systemic problems at JFK that
would indicate that the airport security system in the United States
is broken, perhaps broken beyond the scope of the fixes in the legislation
now being debated before Congress.
It is really
too early to assign causes for the crash. There is much investigative
work to be done before the NTSB can definitively say what went wrong.
According to the Marion Blakely, the NTSB chairman, they are still
in the early stages of the investigation and it may be months before
the accident report is complete.
Without speculating
about what actually caused the crash, the administration must examine
its options on how best to present this new catastrophe to the people.
On the one hand, a straight mechanical malfunction that kills hundreds
of people may be more palatable than an act of terror that kills
the same because it assumes that we have some sort of handle on
homeland security, that since 9/11 our efforts have been effective.
On the other hand, such a catastrophic loss of life due to what
is ultimately human error by the airline industry certainly undermines
confidence in the industry.
In light of
its two lost aircraft from 9/11, for American Airlines, like other
major airlines fighting for economic viability, could this be its
undoing? Will the government choose further to assist American,
either economically or politically? For if American Airlines, perhaps
the most respected carrier in the business, were to fail, what bodes
for the rest of the industry?
Another strategic
perspective is that if it were a terrorist attack, would it serve
further to galvanize American spirit and resolve for the long and
difficult war on terrorism? Or would it cause the naysayers to encourage
a curtailment of the active prosecution of the war? Already we see
fissures in what had been rock solid support of the administration's
course of action, especially from the academic elite. Will they
seize on this incident as an opportunity to drive the wedge in American
resolve by shuddering about the demise of the airline industry should
we continue the war on terror?
Perhaps the
intrinsic delay in aircraft accident investigation will provide
the needed breathing room for the industry and the country to come
to grips with these questions. But it is likely that the crash of
American 587 will have ramifications far greater than that of a
terrible airplane accident in a simpler time.
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