FAA releases audio tapes and transcripts from flight 587.

AIRLINE INDUSTRY INFORMATION-(C)1997-2002 M2 COMMUNICATIONS LTD

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has released audio tapes and transcripts of radio communications between air traffic controllers and the crew of American Airlines flight 587, which crashed in New York on

The tapes, released on 20 February, reportedly offer no clues as to the cause of the crash, which killed 265 people. The majority of the tape records the pilot and air traffic controllers going through routine pre-flight checks. There was a general caution from controllers to crews of the big aircraft waiting to take off on Runway 31 Left to watch out for a potentially dangerous kind of turbulence that flows from the wake of large aircraft. An unidentified voice is heard telling controllers that an aircraft is crashing, shortly after the Airbus A300-600 took off from John F Kennedy Airport in New York. Thirty-six seconds later, a controller called flight 587 and told the pilots that the tower was not receiving signals from the aircraft's transponder. In the next two minutes the controller tried three more times to raise the pilots but got no answer. The pilot of another American Airlines aircraft, flight 686, is then heard reporting black smoke.

The accident is being investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board. The investigation is focusing on the aircraft's vertical stabiliser and the possible impact of wake turbulence generated from a Japan Airlines Boeing 747 that took off nearly two minutes ahead of flight 587 and headed out on the same initial flight path.

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