A306, vicinity New York JFK, 2001

A306, vicinity New York JFK, 2001

Summary

On 12 November 2001, an Airbus A300-600 encountered mild wake turbulence as it climbed after departing New York JFK to which the First Officer responded with a series of unnecessary and excessive control inputs involving cyclic full-deflection rudder pedal inputs. Within less than 7 seconds, these caused detachment of the vertical stabiliser from the aircraft resulting in loss of control and ground impact with a post crash fire. The Investigation concluded that elements of the company pilot training process and the design of the A300-600 rudder system had contributed to this excessive use of the rudder and its consequences.

Description

On 12 November 2001, the crew of an Airbus A300-600 (N14053) being operated by American Airlines on a scheduled international passenger flight from New York JFK to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic lost control of their aircraft just 1½ minutes after takeoff during the second of two minor wake turbulence encounters and the subsequent destruction of the aircraft by ground impact forces and a post crash fire led to all 260 occupants and five others on the ground being killed.

Investigation

An Investigation into the accident was carried out by the NTSB. The FDR and CVR were recovered and their relevant data were successfully downloaded. Radar surveillance data for the departures of both the A300 and the preceding 747 were also available. A video-referenced study was undertaken to compare elapsed time information taken from available video recordings with that of the radar/CVR/FDR data and to thereby calculate the position of the aircraft after the loss of FDR and radar data. Because the CVR was powered from the emergency bus bar, it continued to record data after the engines separated from the aircraft.

The full content of this page is available to registered users only.
Please Log in or Register

SKYbrary Partners:

Safety knowledge contributed by: