Talk:American Airlines Flight 191/Archive 1

Airframe

Is it worth mentioning this incident was described in Airframe? Nil Einne 19:13, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Photos

I did a major update with photos I culled from an FAA website and put on Commons. Unfortunately these are the best I could do, could find very few images at all, the FAA website that uses this crash analysis for online learning is quite detailed with many photos, just not very high resolution. --Wgfinley 05:33, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

CCTV option on the plane

The below posting was taken from [1]. I have also read that another plane was landing at the same time. It seems that the live footage option for passengers may well have been watched by the passengers. -- max rspct leave a message 18:17, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

"I was aboard American Airlines Flight 191 on May 24, 1979. They had a live video feed from the cockpit and I was able to watch the take-off from over the pilot's shoulder. I thought it was amazing and very cool at the time.

The following day, that very same flight had an engine fall off on takeoff and it killed 273 persons. I thought about the view that those passengers had of the plane rolling and the ground in windshield and the pilot vainly fighting for control. I didn't think it was so cool after that.

As long as everything is working correctly, I would imagine this would be fairly interesting to the passengers. But, "According to the Federal Highway Administration, a train strikes a vehicle or a pedestrian at a rail crossing approximately every 2 hours in the United States." The view of that could be very disturbing to passengers. Klaatu, May 03 2004"

Crash or accident

According to my dictionary, an accident is: 1. mishap causing injury or death ; 2. event happening by chance. -- Collins English Mini Dictionary 1998. It lists mishap as a minor accident. Can we really call it an accident? By chance? Especially in the light of the NTSB report. The crash was caused 'structural failure' brought on by AA's deliberate ignorance of the maintainence/saftey advice from McDonnell Douglas, corner-cutting AND design flaws by McDD -- max rspct leave a message 18:42, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

• It was an accident in that it was not overtly purposeful (as far as we know) unlike 9/11, which was deliberate sabotage. Wahkeenah 21:26, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

overtly purposeful! i LIKE IT! Well ...maybe it was.. pretty blatant stuff plus what happened to Joe White. Calling it an accident isn't really necc and is a bit misleading at least. -- max rspct leave a message 21:59, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

• Negligence, not warfare. However, maybe "crash" is indeed the better term. But what to do when someone interposes the 9/11 stuff again? Wahkeenah 22:03, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I am NOT talking about 9/11 anymore.. I removed the ubiquitous 9/11 preamble. 9/11.. big xxxxing deal -- max rspct leave a message 22:26, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

It would be faintly appropriate to put in 'disaster' but this would again confuse with aircraft 'disasters' in general prob including 9/11. -- max rspct leave a message 22:33, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

• Roger. Wahkeenah 23:28, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

this http://vtvt.essortment.com/americanairline_reuj.htm introduces similaritys in reporting over the actual location of the catastrophic event, namely before but after take off. Just like with todays 191 case. The '191' page myth of the celebrity that died, seems also awfully conspiracious. Like if it is a test of the single pylon motored dc10 eg. 80.57.242.87 22:23, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Fatalaties of 191 vs 9/11.

The lead paragraph as it was changed was just plain incorrect based on the way the NTSB and FAA account for airplane crash fatalities. The figures include not only those killed on board but those on the ground. Therefore, the death toll from each of the WTC planes exceeds those killed in this crash given the many ground fatalities (neither of the other two 9/11 crashes exceeded Flight 191's fatalities). While part of a coordinated attack each one of these crashes was a single aircraft crash. I think it also gives the reader perspective -- this was the deadliest crash in US history for over 20 years and was only exceeded by planes being intentionally flown into buildings causing massive fatalities. When you consider the cause of this accident -- cost cutting by an airline as opposed to pilot error, etc, makes it all that more significant. --Wgfinley 07:04, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and I believe the word "crash" is more than appropriate, the American OED defines it: " (of an aircraft) fall from the sky and violently hit the land or sea." I don't believe the word "crash" has any indication of whether something is accidental or not. --Wgfinley 07:10, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Anyone read the Accident Reports for the 9/11 airplanes?

There are none. They were not accidents, they were criminal cases of murder.

Killing The Lead and Inaccurate

The lead as I have changed it back to again, as it stood for well over a year, is the only accurate and clear summation of the fatality count from this disaster. The following changes are not:

Combined 9/11 Fatalities Exceed AA191

While true it's not very precise, both AA11 and UA175, individually caused more fatalities. Were there some fatalities co-mingled in here? Almost certainly amongst emergency workers who were working the crash site but the fact is whichever plane or tower you pick, both of these crashes exceed the fatalities in AA191. Mucking up the lead with parentheticals doesn't clarify anything, it mucks it up, there are links to the articles fo AA11, UA175 and 9/11 if people want to learn why those were deadlier air disasters.

Single Largest Loss of Life for Any "Single" Airliner

Again, totally inaccurate. AA11 crashed into Tower 1, BUT FOR AA11 crashing into Tower 1 none of those people die. Their deaths are directly linked to the air disaster and so those fatalities, as per every NTSB report are duly noted and counted in the total. Same thing with UA175, UA175 crashed into Tower 2 and directly caused the deaths of those people. Other than the fact this was a coordinated attack neither of the crashes had anything to do with each other, i.e. AA11 crashing into Tower 1 didn't make Tower 2 collapse.

The lead as written is clear, concise, accurate, gives people a place to look for more info. To me, the only thing that could possibly be more specific is that AA191 resulted in the deaths of more passengers than any other US soil air disaster but, again, that bogs things down with wording that is not needed. It was the deadliest, these two crashes surpassed it, simple and concise. --Wgfinley 14:13, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

• Flight 191 was an accident. 9/11 was done on purpose. That's a world of difference. Wahkeenah 23:45, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Looks good now. Wahkeenah 05:14, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

AA Flight 191 relation with the Comair/Delta Connection crash

According to aviation hobbyists, the plane that recently crashed in KY was known at Comair to be Flight 191, while for ticketing purporses, Delta stamps it as Flight 5191. In any case, I think it should remain as part of the list of other accidents that have been tagged as a Flight 191. --Prn51 00:21, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

• Another item in the growing "jinx" list of 191's. If you can verify that, it would make an interesting addition to that part of this article. Wahkeenah 00:26, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
• P.S. If you find yourself booked on a flight labeled 191... take the train instead. Wahkeenah 00:27, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
• I think that with the Comair incident there will be a lot of talk on flight number 191 being a jinx. In any case I will take your advice and avoid any flight 191s.--Prn51 07:27, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
• Does any of this sound like it belongs in an authoritative reference? This is not about supernatural jinxes to numerical flight numbers. I removed this reference yesterday and it was immediately put back; this seriously hurts the credibility of this article. There is no talk on any serious aviation-related site that I frequent of any connection whatsoever between AA191 and Comair 5191. No connection exists. Basscadet 14:45, 31 August 2006 (UTC)basscadet
  • Nor does any connection exist with any other flight numbered 191. Either include it all as a grim kind of trivia, or take it all out. Wahkeenah 14:55, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Inconsistent

This meant that the pilots were unaware of the aircraft's true configuration. DC-10 aircraft engines are not visible from the cockpit windows and the control tower did not inform the flight crew of what they had seen.

But later on in the article it states the control tower did try and tell the pilots what had been seen but the pilots were too busy to listen. This makes much more sense since it would seem extremely unlikely for the control tower not to inform the pilots that their engine fell off... Also do whole thing seems a bit speculatory to me. Presemuably the pilots had some idea what had gone wrong, although whether they realised the engine had fallen off I doubt we'll ever know. I do also question the relevance of this factoid. Does it matter whether or whether not the pilots were aware their engine had fallen off? As I understand it, the problem was the damaged cause by the engine falling off and yet still the pilots might have been able to recover if they were aware of the limitations of the airplane (but in any case the pilots didn't do anything wrong) Nil Einne 18:00, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Reading and listening so more, I've now realised that it appears it wasn't actually inconsistent and the tower didn't actually inform the pilots they lost an engine. They simply asked them if they wanted where they wanted to land. I guess this has to do with what I was saying about the likely lack of importance of the fact an engine was lost to the pilots (assuming they really didn't know precisely)... Nil Einne 18:14, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Reading a bit more, perhaps I've misunderstood the IMHO poorly constructed sentences:

Unusually, the backup power to the captain's instruments was not engaged by the flight engineer. This meant that the pilots were unaware of the aircraft's true configuration.

Is this actually trying to say

Unusually, the backup power to the captain's instruments was not engaged by the flight engineer. This strongly suggests that the pilots were not aware of the aircraft's true configuration.

I.E. the fact that the backup power was not engaged suggests the pilots (and flight engineer) didn't realise the engine had been lost? Nil Einne 18:24, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Comment from anon

An anonymous contributor added this note to the article, referring to the first section:

Note: The above summary was written with too much emphasis on technical aviation jargon, and is not written in a style appropriate for an encyclopedia. The actual cause of the crash is not clearly articulated nor accurately reported, here or elsewhere in this entry, including the probable cause of the accident as determined by accident investigators. Additionally, a later DC-10 crash, which occurred July 19, 1989 in Sioux City, Iowa, is not mentioned notwithstanding the author(s) contention that the aircraft's safety had been markedly improved. The author(s) are hereby notifed that editing will take place within the next 30 days in order for the entry to be able to provide cogent and useful information for the non-aviation industry reader (Notice written October 24, 2006).

I have moved the comment to this talk page. -- FP ^{(talk)(edits)} 10:29, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

The article was excellent. I saw nothing which I though needed explanation.Mark Lincoln 16:47, 10 July 2007 (UTC)