Harrowing recording captures final moments before plane crashed during takeoff killing 265 people
Topics: American Airlines, Travel, World News, US News
Poppy Bilderbeck
Featured Image Credit: National Geographic / NYPD/Getty Images
Topics: American Airlines, Travel, World News, US News
Warning: This article contains graphic images and video recording which some readers may find distressing.
The 'chilling' audio recording from the cockpit of American Airlines Flight 587 reveals the last moments before the crash.
On 12 November, 2001, passenger American Airlines Flight 587 took off from John F. Kennedy airport, New York, set to travel to Las Américas International Airport in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, but shortly after takeoff, disaster struck.
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The flight went down not long after taking to the air, killing all 251 passengers, seven flight attendants and two flight crew members on board. Five people on the ground were killed too - a total of 265 lives.
The National Transportation Safety Board determined the 'probable cause' of the accident 'was the in-flight separation of the vertical stabilizer as a result of the loads beyond ultimate design that were created by the first officer’s unnecessary and excessive rudder pedal inputs'.
A release on its website continues: "Contributing to these rudder pedal inputs were characteristics of the Airbus A300-600 rudder system design and elements of the American Airlines Advanced Aircraft Maneuvering Program."
"Flight 587 was operating under the provisions of 14 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 121 on an instrument flight rules flight plan. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed at the time of the accident," it adds.
And an audio recording from the cockpit during the plane's final moments has shed light on the heartbreaking incident.
A video by National Geographic and shared to X shows a visual recreation of what it would've looked like when the plane began to experience issues.
The audio recording from the cockpit can be heard playing over the top of the imagery, with the captain of the flight saying: "Full power."
The first officer - a.k.a. co-pilot - can be heard questioning the captain as to whether they're 'alright'. The captain responds: "Yeah, I'm fine."
The first officer continues his support, urging: "Hang on to it, hang on to it."
But then the vertical stabilizer breaks. The captain can be heard shouting: "What the hell were you do- [...] I'm stuck in it."
Despite the first officer shouting to 'Get out of it', the plane rapidly descends, alarms sounding in the cockpit, before it crashes and there's silence, an X user calling the recording 'chilling'.
The plane's wreckage was discovered in Belle Harbour on the Rockaway Peninsula, Queens.
The National Transportation Safety Board adds: "The airplane’s vertical stabilizer and rudder separated in flight and were found in Jamaica Bay, about one mile north of the main wreckage site.
"The airplane’s engines subsequently separated in flight and were found several blocks north and east of the main wreckage site."
UNILAD has contacted American Airlines for comment.