A few tidbits from stratfor.com (lotsa other stuff there, too): Bush administrations officials have reportedly said that the FBI believes there was an explosion on the plane and they are investigating, reports FOX News. 1606 GMT, 011112 The Federal Aviation Authority has said initial indications point to mechanical failure as the possible cause of the crash of an American Airlines flight Nov. 12. There are two crash sites, one where the plane hit and another where an engine apparently dropped from the plane. Twelve structures including several houses at one of the two crash sites are reported to be one fire. 1551 GMT, 011112 The American Airlines plane which crashed five miles from JFK Airport was carrying 246 passengers and nine crew members. A gas station in the heavily populated area of Rockaway beach is also on fire, in addition to several houses. WABC in New York cited an eyewitness who reported seeing the plane's engine fall off. Other witnesses recall hearing a loud noise before the crash. No reports of irregularities or distress calls at time of the incident were reported, the Pentagon reported. 1532 GMT, 011112 http://www.stratfor.com/home/sitreps.htm I don't know what to make of it... One thing that does kind of bother me about this is that if this was an accident, why didn't the pilot fly into the water? Looking at a map of the area, it seems like this would be relatively easy to do, and pilots will always try to crash into unpopulated areas if possible... Maybe the pilot had no control at all, but it seems a bit odd. It almost seems like it was aimed at that small strip of land that Rockway beach appears to be on... I dunno, maybe I'm just paranoid.
Government officials are reporting that it got a maintenance check, and one of the engines got an maintenance check, but the engine that fell off the plane was DUE for a maintenance check, but never got one. But somewhere in one of your post you said you were kind of paranoid and I completely agree. Because if this is conclusively proven to be an accident and not terrorist attack in someways this is worse because that means our maintenance and some of those planes are pure crap. treeman the reason that the pilot didn't fly into the ocean because officials are speculating that the explosion shorted out the system, that was allegedly electrical signal controlled, thus the pilot had no control of the plane.
Witnesses are now saying that they saw an explosion in the fuselage before the engine and tail sections separated. Since there is no fuel in the fuselage, that would imply a bomb. And of course, the FBI is saying that there is no evidence of terrorism...
I've found it best to not judge a situation before I understand it. Remember several things as this goes on: 1. Eyewitnesses are notoriously unreliable (especially for something so far away when they weren't looking for it. Why were all these people looking up at this particular plane before there was any problem with the flight? To have seen a bomb explosion, these people would've had to have been watching a perfectly normal flight and looked at the plane before they even heard any explosion coming from the sky or anything else out of the ordinary). 2. News reports are often incorrect in the rush to get the story. 3. There will be conflicting information that will need to be sorted out. 4. Your preconceived notions about what happened will bias your information gathering (like the fact that you keep pointing out things that you think imply a bomb while not pointing out things like reports that the pilot dumped fuel, which would imply a mechanical issue. Also ignoring the history of these engines, specifically the cracking issue that has caused previous explosions including the Sioux City crash). Maybe it will turn out that it was a bomb. Maybe not. But until all the evidence is sorted out, there's no way to know one way or another. Don't judge the situation before you understand it. By the way, when you say that there's no fuel in the fuselage, you mean aside from the fuel in the center fuel tank. While planes such as the 737 have only wing fuel tanks, I'm pretty certain that the Airbus A300 has a center fuel tank in the fuselage. But even if not, I would be skeptical of any report on the ground that claimed to locate exactly where any explosion originated.
