Catastrophe of Flight 587 was shadowed by 9/11over

2001 TRIUMPH OVER TRAGEDY Another air disaster so soon after 9/11

Flight 587 killed 265, including five on the ground, in the Rockaways

by David Russell Associate Editor

American Airlines Flight 587 took off from runway 31L at John F. Kennedy International Airport at 9:14 a.m. on Nov. 12, 2001, bound for the Dominican Republic.

It never got anywhere near it.

The plane crashed in Belle Harbor minutes after takeoff, killing all 260 people on board and five more on the ground.

Coming so soon after 9/11, the tragedy immediately caused fear that it was more than an accident.

“People were looking more at a terrorist attack than an aviation accident at the time so there was a lot of confusion around when it occurred and what was going on,” former National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Jim Hall told the Chronicle.

State Sen. Joe Addabbo Jr. (D-Howard Beach) was flying from JFK to Arizona that Monday morning with his wife. The then-city councilman-elect was looking for a break after a summer of campaigning.

His flight arrived in Arizona 40 minutes ahead of schedule.

“I was like, ‘Wow. The plane made great time,’” Addabbo said.

In an era before social media, he turned on his flip phone and saw plenty of messages and missed calls from people who knew he was flying, asking him if he was safe.

“As I’m talking to this individual on the phone, I’m looking at a bar screen in Arizona and I see Newport Avenue and I see flames,” Addabbo said. “And I’m like, ‘What is going on?’”

His first reaction was that he should go back immediately, though flights were grounded. Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark International airports were shut down before reopening later in the day. Major bridges and tunnels were closed for several hours. The Empire State Building was evacuated and the United Nations was sealed off as terrorism fears spread.

“We’re not supposed to speculate at early stages of any investigation,” retired NTSB investigator Robert Benzon said during an episode of National Geographic’s “Mayday” in 2014. “It was very hard not to in this particular case.”

Addabbo kept his Rockaway campaign office open so first responders could grab what food and drinks that were available.

“It was such chaos because, again, on the heels of 9/11 my people in Rockaway who were already obviously affected emotionally ... now we’ve got Flight 587 ... It was traumatic,” Addabbo said.

He said he has heard accounts from residents who saw the plane twisting and turning in the air, with the nose going up.

“It’s a vision that many people will never forget,” Addabbo said.

Some schools, which were closed in honor of Veterans Day, narrowly avoided being struck. One became a triage center but was abandoned because of a lack of survivors, according to The New York Times. The gym of one school served as a temporary morgue.

“All scenes smell like the same mix of pungent, burned material: jet fuel, hydraulic fluid, and of course human smells always come from the wreckage,” Benzon said. “In this case, the fire was so bad that the deceased were barely recognizable as human beings.”

Addabbo said the damage could have been even worse, as the plane landed near a gas station.

“If that fuselage hits that gas tank on Beach 129th Street, God knows how much Just two months after 9/11, 265 people were killed when Flight 587 crashed in Belle Harbor, including all on board and five on the ground. FILE PHOTO / NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION

more devastation,” the lawmaker said.

The NTSB ruled the crash was caused by a co-pilot’s error in moving the plane’s rudder too rapidly as it was experiencing turbulence shortly after takeoff because of the plane in front of it.

The board found that First Officer Sten Molin used “very aggressive” rudder movements to stabilize the plane as it encountered bad air in the wake of Japan Air Lines Flight 47, a 747 aircraft, which took off ahead of it.

The rudder movement “essentially snapped the vertical stabilizer off and as a result the plane could not fly,” Hall said.

During investigations a former colleague recalled Molin once aggressively using the rudder though there had been no apparent risk to the plane. Molin explained that he had been taught to use the rudder in that way by American Airlines.

“One would assume that if many pilots go through the same training program with some flaws in it then a lot of pilots have wrong ideas about how to fly an airplane,” Benzon said.

American Airlines revised its training manuals to show manipulating the rudder system at any speed could do damage to the plane.

Hall said it’s lucky that this type of crash did not occur earlier.

“It’s unfortunate that the severity wasn’t really detected before that,” he said.

The crash was the second-deadliest in American history, behind only the 273 lives lost in 1979 when Flight 191 crashed just outside Chicago’s O’Hare Airport.

Despite the massive casualty count, Flight 587 has become a footnote to many.

“All the information around 9/11 sort of blotted out the attention this accident would have normally received,” Hall said.

The Dominican community was stunned by the crash. The three-and-a-half-hour flight to Santo Domingo had been a regular occurrence for many and was the basis of the 1997 song “El Vuelo 587” by merengue singer Kinito Méndez.

In 2017, 181st Street and Amsterdam Avenue in Washington Heights was co-named “Flight 587 Way” in honor of the victims and their loved ones.

A memorial at 116th Street in Rockaway Park was constructed by Freddy Rodriguez in 2006.

“I felt responsible as a Dominican artist to participate,” he told the Chronicle.

Rodriguez came to America in 1963 in fear for his life amidst political turmoil. He had no relatives in the country and didn’t know the language.

“The first few years were very, very complicated for me,” Rodriguez said.

The gateway of the memorial is oriented toward the Dominican Republic.

“The gate. Here and there,” Rodriguez said. “But in religion they also talk about the gate of paradise.”

The main element of the design is a 72-foot-long, 16-inch-thick, curved granite wall set on a round platform. The wall is 11 feet high on the south end and slopes to 6 feet high on the north end. The wall has several openings along its length to allow light to filter in to the inner space.

On the wall in Spanish and English is a line from “Afterwards I Want Only Peace” by Dominican poet Pedro Mir: “If the only prayer you say in life is thank you, that would suffice.” Q

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