Date: 12 November 2001
Airline: American Airlines
Flight No.: 587
Aircraft: Airbus A300B4-605R
Location: Belle Harbor, New York
Fatalities: 260:260+5
Photographer: AP
American Airlines Flight 587 departed Runway 31L at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York at 9:13am local time on a flight to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Approximately three minutes later, while climbing through 2,800 feet and executing the left turn on the standard departure procedure away from Brooklyn, radar contact was lost with the aircraft. Witnesses reported seeing an engine fire develop on the aircraft's no.1 engine, followed by small pieces of debris breaking away from the left wing, and shortly afterward, a complete separation of the left engine from the aircraft's wing. The aircraft then reportedly entered a steep nose-down attitude and crashed into the borough of Queens near Rockaway Beach, destroying four residential structures, and severely damaging eight others. Separation of the vertical stabilizer, which was found over two miles away from the main impact site in Jamaica Bay, is suspected as the precipitating event, leading to an in-flight breakup of the aircraft.
