| Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, November 13, 2001 |
New York Crash 'an Accident': BBC Report |
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Investigators say preliminary evidence points to mechanical failure rather than terrorism as the cause of Monday's air crash in New York.
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Investigators say preliminary evidence points to mechanical failure rather than terrorism as the cause of Monday's air crash in New York.
Emergency workers in New York have so far recovered 265 bodies from where the American Airlines jet crashed, near the city's John F Kennedy airport. Up to nine people were still missing on the ground.
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).
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) joined the FBI and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in stressing that there was no indication that the crash was anything other than an accident.
"Everything we have learned... says we are proceeding appropriately, considering this an accident," Marion Blakey, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board, told a news conference.
Officials said the cockpit voice recordings, which yielded good quality data, indicated that the co-pilot had been at the controls. They said this was not unusual.
The search continued for the companion flight data recorder.
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.
President Bush offered condolences to the families of victims.
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