- Two eyewitnesses to the November 12 crash of American
Airlines Flight 587 said over the weekend that investigators for the National
Transportation Safety Board are wrong to focus on potential structural
defects as the cause of the disaster - insisting instead that the plane's
tail came off over New York's Jamaica Bay only after it exploded in a fireball.
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- "It was after the explosion," eyewitness Tom
Lynch, a retired firefighter, told the New York Post. "I'm telling
you, the tail was there until the second explosion."
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- "No tail fell off, not before the explosion. I swear
to that," Lynch told the paper's Steve Dunleavy.
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- The eyewitness said there was absolutely no doubt about
what he saw.
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- "I had my head up taking in that beautiful, clear
day and was staring straight at the plane. It made a bank turn and suddenly
there was an explosion, orange and black, on the right-hand side of the
fuselage. It was a small explosion, about half the size of a car."
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- He continued:
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- "The plane kept on going straight for about two
or three seconds as if nothing had happened, then 'vwoof' - the second,
big explosion on the right wing, orange and black. It was only then that
the plane fell apart. It was after the explosion and I'm telling you, the
tail was there until the second explosion."
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- Lynch, who lives near the Belle Harbor, N.Y. crash site,
said he knew thirteen others who also saw the explosion and/or fire.
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- One, retired police lieutenant Jim Conrad, told Dunleavy:
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- "I saw exactly what Tom saw. I was near a stop light
at the Marine Parkway Bridge. First, the small explosion. The plane kept
on going, tail intact, then the big explosion and the plane nose-dived.
The first thing I said was: "The bastards did it again.'"
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- Lynch said he's tried to contact the FBI and the NTSB
but they weren't interested in his story. Ditto Sens. Chuck Schumer, Hillary
Clinton, and his congressional representative Anthony Weiner, who also
gave him the brush off.
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- "I got no response from anyone," he said.
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- Last week NewsMax.com asked New York State's newly appointed
public security czar James Kallstrom why a traffic surveillance video that
reportedly captured Flt. 587's mid-air break up has not been publicly released.
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- "I have not seen the tape. I heard some mention
of it. But I've not seen the tape and I really have no knowledge of it,"
Kallstrom said.
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- "Why it hasn't been released, I suspect, is because
the investigation is ongoing. But I don't know the answer to that."
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- All Rights Reserved © NewsMax.com Posted by permission
of NewsMax.com http://www.newsmax.com/showinside.shtml?a=2001/12/3/100718
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