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Tuesday, November 13, 2001, updated at 10:50(GMT+8)

225 Bodies Recovered in Passenger Jet Crashes

Emergency workers in New York have so far pulled 225 bodies from the wreckage of an American Airlines passenger jet which crashed near the city's John F Kennedy airport, killing all 260 people on board.


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Emergency workers in New York have so far pulled 225 bodies from the wreckage of an American Airlines passenger jet which crashed near the city's John F Kennedy airport, killing all 260 people on board.

Flight 587 was bound for the Dominican Republic when it lost an engine and nosedived into the Rockaway Beach residential area of the borough of Queens four minutes after taking off from JFK at 0913 local time (1413 GMT).

New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said there were no survivors among the 251 passengers and nine crew.

He revised an earlier figure of 246 passengers to take account of five infants being carried in the laps of their parents.

Between six and eight people who were residents of the Rockaway Beach area have been reported missing.

President Bush offered condolences to the families of victims.

"The New York people have suffered mightily and they are suffering again," he said.

"There is no doubt in my mind that they are a strong and courageous people."

The FBI and the Federal Aviation Administration have stressed that there is no indication the crash was anything other than an accident.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said nothing had been ruled out, but added that no terrorist threat had been received.

"There were no unusual communications with the cockpit beforehand," he told reporters.

Latest Development

  • As part of the increased post-September 11 security environment, the Pentagon ordered additional combat air patrols over the United States and its coastlines after Flight 587 crashed.


  • There is "no indication" of what caused Flight 587 to crash, American Airlines chairman and CEO said Monday. Donald Carty said the crash came at a "difficult time" for the airline and the nation -- two months after four jets, including two American Airlines planes, were hijacked and crashed by terrorists.


  • Carty said the last maintenance "A-check" on the plane was performed Sunday. A heavier maintenance check was done October 3, and the jet last underwent a major overhaul in December 1999. Another overhaul was scheduled for July 2002.


  • All three New York-area airports -- Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark -- closed after the crash. They later reopened to accept incoming flights, and LaGuardia and Newark also began allowing departures.


  • All of New York's bridges and tunnels were closed after the crash, but they were later reopened to outbound traffic.


  • A senior FBI official said there had been no intelligence gathered and no threats made, "nothing to indicate this was an act of terrorism."


  • Armed F-15 Eagles were already airborne over New York at the time of the crash and fighters were flying Combat Air Patrol (CAP) over Washington, senior defense officials said. News of the crash sparked the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) to scramble jets already on "strip alert" at a number of other bases around the country.


  • The United Nations went into a partial lockdown after the crash. The U.N. Security Council's president issued a statement expressing shock at the news of the crash and offering "heartfelt sympathies to the people of the United States and families of those who lost their lives."


  • The Empire State Building was evacuated as a security precaution.

    About 200 family members of passengers on the plane were waiting at the Las Americas International Airport in Santo Domingo, said Dominican customs official Evelyn Aredondo. "People are watching TV, waiting to hear something," she said. "They are very upset."


  • American Airlines set up a telephone number for family members to call for information. The number is 1-800-245-0999.





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