November 13, 2001	Tuesday	Shaba’an 26, 1422

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NEW YORK, Nov 12: An American Airlines flight with 255 people on board crashed in a nosedive on Monday while taking off from New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport, setting fire to a swath of nearby homes and sending new fears through a city still jittery from the Sept 11 attacks.

Officials said early information suggested the crash was accidental.

The plane was carrying 246 passengers and nine crew members, according to American Airlines.

But with concern over fresh assaults on nearly everyone’s minds, on news of the crash they immediately sealed off New York City, closing airports and sealing off bridges and tunnels. However, all were reopened after a few hours as security concerns eased, said Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.

But authorities later scaled back the high security alert.

“You always have to assume the worst, that maybe something like this is going to happen again,” he said. “As soon as we were able to get all the facts, we de-escalated, I guess is the way to call it, and the city is open.”

News of the crash prompted higher security responses not only around the city but also around the United States.

UN security chief Michael McCann announced that authorities had sealed off the United Nations compound, but the complex was not evacuated.

In Washington, President Bush postponed a meeting he had scheduled with reporters before his summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Empire State Building, New York City’s tallest after the collapse of the twin towers, was evacuated and would be closed all day as a precaution, a spokeswoman said.

Family and friends of people thought to be on the flight were arriving in Santo Domingo. Some people cried hysterically, and several fainted.

There was no word of any survivors from Flight 587, an Airbus A300, that was bound for Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, and crashed three minutes after taking off at 9.14am (7.14pm PST), according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The extent of casualties on the ground was unknown.

“I don’t believe there are any survivors at this point,” the mayor said.

Investigators said they recovered the flight data recorder from the flight.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Federal Aviation Administration said there was no immediate indication of the cause, but said it did not appear to be a deliberate act.

The FBI, on high alert following the Sept 11 attacks, said there was no indication that the crash was a terrorist attack.

“Right now we don’t believe it is (a terrorist incident) because we don’t have any information indicating that it is,” Federal Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman Tracy Ballinger said.

The National Transportation Safety Board, which investigates aviation accidents, was in charge of the investigation and said all information available indicated the crash was accidental.

“At this time we have absolutely no indication of what caused the accident,” said Donald Carty, chief executive of American Airlines.

Two American flights were among the four planes that were hijacked and crashed on Sept 11. Two of the planes struck the World Trade Center, a third hit the Pentagon and a fourth crashed in Pennsylvania.

POWELL: US Secretary of State Colin Powell said the crash was apparently an accident.

“The reports that I have so far suggest, apparently, that it is an accident,” Powell said at a public meeting of the UN Security Council, called to discuss the consequences of the Sept 11 attacks. A White House spokesman also said the federal government is investigating the crash as an accident.

Still, because early data can turn out to be wrong, “We have not ruled anything in, not ruled anything out,” spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters at a hastily arranged briefing. Fleischer said authorities had not received any threats prior to the crash. “Were there any conversations between the pilot and any of the towers or the communications facilities that would have indicated any trouble that the pilots were aware of? The answer to that, based on all preliminary reviews, is no,” he added.

ENGINE FELL OFF: Eyewitnesses reported seeing an engine fall off the plane, which was on fire. Then, they said, the plane plunged nose first into the residential neighbourhood of the Queens borough.

Dark clouds of smoke billowed over the neighborhood, where several houses and a gas station were in flames.

Scores of firefighters worked at the scene, a working class neighborhood that was home to many of the firefighters lost in Trade Center collapse.

Retired firefighter Tom Lynch, who lives in the neighborhood, said he saw what appeared to be the plane exploding and one of its wings fall off.

“It definitely exploded in the sky,” he said. “It wasn’t that loud. ... I saw a whoof, a flame, and looked like a wing falling off the airplane and it nosedived right down.”

Another unidentified witness told NY1 that from the window of her home, she could see “the plane going down, nose first, belly facing us, going straight down”.

“It was intact. The wings were there, the tail was there, the nose was there, no smoke coming from it, against the blue sky,” she said. “It was a huge silver plane going straight down.”

Giuliani said there were “no unusual communications between the tower and the aircraft”. Upon hearing the news, he said, his first thought was “Oh my God”.—Reuters