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Widow of Trade Center victim refused to be silenced after attacks
One of the passengers aboard the plane that crashed into a house 10 miles from Buffalo, New York, airport late on Thursday was a 9/11 widow who had questioned the official account of the attacks, sued the government and consistently lobbied for an Investigative Commission. Beverly Eckert was flying to the city for a celebration of what would have been her husband Sean Rooney’s 58th birthday, reports the Press Association. Mr Rooney died on the 98th floor of the World Trade Center’s south tower. She was among the 44 passengers and four crew on board the Continental Connection flight operated by Colgan Air when it crashed in the Buffalo suburb of Clarence Center. After 9/11, Ms Eckert refused to accept a cash settlement as compensation and instead sued the government.
“I am suing because unlike other investigative avenues… my lawsuit requires all testimony be given under oath and fully uses powers to compel evidence.” Eckert wrote in December 2003 in a statement entitled My Silence Cannot Be Bought. “The victims’ fund was not created in a spirit of compassion.… Lawmakers capped the liability of the airlines at the behest of lobbyists who descended on Washington while the September 11 fires still smoldered.” she wrote.
Other September 11 relatives who accepted settlements forfeited their right to sue the airlines, airports, security companies, or other US organizations that could have been faulted for negligence and inadequate security measures. This ensured that very little detail of the attacks emerged outside of the government appointed 9/11 Commission. In the same statement Ms Eckert also wrote: “I want to know what went so wrong with our intelligence and security systems that a band of religious fanatics was able to turn four U.S. passenger jets into an enemy force, attack our cities and kill 3,000 civilians with terrifying ease. I want to know why two 110-story skyscrapers collapsed in less than two hours and why escape and rescue options were so limited.”
As a co-founder of the steering committee group “Voices For Sept. 11” Ms Eckert joined other activists in pushing for an Investigative Commission. Only because of the consistent efforts of the relatives groups were the deaths of more than 2800 Americans ever formally investigated by a government who would have rather kept the truth about 9/11 buried. In 2004 the Ms Eckert also successfully lobbied Congress to pass a sweeping reform of the U.S. intelligence system. Last week, Ms Eckert was at the White House to talk with President Barack Obama about how the new administration could deal with terror suspects. According to reports, the Colgan Air flight was on final approach to Buffalo airport, 5 miles from the runway, when the control tower lost all contact. Weather was reported as light snow and fog and a 17 MPH wind. There was no radio message indicating a problem, so whatever happened happened in an instant. Only one house on the ground was destroyed, so the aircraft was on a nearly vertical path when it hit.
Source: http://www.prisonplanet.com/911-activist-who-sued-government-killed-in-buffalo-plane-crash.html
In Plane Crash, the Loss of Momentum Is Still a Mystery
The commuter plane that crashed near Buffalo on Thursday night slammed to the ground flat on its belly, with almost no forward momentum and facing opposite its intended route, seconds after two automatic warnings to the pilots that the plane was not moving fast enough to stay aloft, the National Transportation Safety Board said on Saturday. The description indicates that the plane, a Bombardier Dash 8 Q400, suffered an aerodynamic stall, meaning the flow of air over the wings was either disrupted or too slow to sustain flight, but the reason why remains a mystery. Icing, which the crew of the plane reported shortly before the crash, is one possible reason, but Steven Chealander, the safety board member assigned to the investigation and a retired airline captain, said the aircraft had a sophisticated ice protection system.
The plane was equipped, he said, with pneumatic boots, which are a bit like tires, on the front edges of the wings, the tail and the vertical stabilizer, that inflate and contract twice a minute to break ice accumulations, as well as electrically heated propellers. The system gives an indication in the cockpit if any boot is not working, and so far, investigators have found no sign of such an indication, Mr. Chealander said. “This Dash 8 is a workhorse airplane,” he said. “It’s not really susceptible to ice.” Investigators searching the crash site for evidence have described a fire so intense that on one of the plane’s two propellers, all six blades were completely destroyed. The blades are made of a mixture of polyurethane and carbon. Past crashes have been caused by broken blades. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has been scouring the neighborhood for parts that were thrown off before the plane hit the ground but have not found any, investigators said.
The flight, Continental Connection Flight 3407, began from Newark Liberty International Airport and was headed for Buffalo Niagara International Airport. It crashed into a house in the hamlet of Clarence Center, about six miles from the Buffalo airport, killing all 49 people on board and one person in the house. Firefighters had pumped water on the smoldering wreckage for so many hours that the site became covered with ice, further complicating the investigation. On Saturday, volunteer firefighters and other workers used torpedo-shaped heaters to melt some of the ice, Mr. Chealander said. They were working in a cramped space in which the wreckage of the house is mixed with that of the plane and with the remains of the dead. The medical examiner expects to take three or four more days to remove the bodies, Mr. Chealander said.
Investigators are hoping to have all the wreckage recovered before Wednesday, when a major snowstorm is expected. According to investigators, the last minute of flight, as described so far, unfolded this way: As the plane flew about 1,600 feet above the ground, southwest toward a runway at the Buffalo airport, the crew lowered the landing gear. Twenty seconds later, one of the two pilots set a lever to extend the flaps, movable metal panels on the back of each wing, to 15 degrees, a standard step before landing.
Immediately, the airplane’s nose began to pitch radically up and down, and soon after, the airplane rolled left and right. A stick shaker, a device that warns that the plane is flying so slowly that its wings are about to stall, losing lift, gave its warning by shaking the yoke in the pilots’ hands. Then the stick pusher came on, a system that literally takes matters out of the pilots’ hands by pushing the yoke forward, to push the nose down and increase airspeed to avoid stall. The crew increased engine power, but never regained control: the plane hit the house, having spun around to face northeast, although it had been flying southwest. It happened so fast that the flaps never made it to 15 degrees. And the plane was moving so slowly that it hit only a single house in the densely settled neighborhood. A garage behind the house remained intact. The cockpit voice recorder, which investigators will examine more thoroughly on Sunday, recorded the captain and the first officer noting ice on the windshield and the leading edge of the wing.
The crews of other planes also noted icing conditions. But there is nothing yet to indicate that conditions were unusual for a February night in the Buffalo area. Icing could cause the pitch and roll investigators have described. In the past, icing conditions have caused problems with the tail of a plane when the flaps are moved on the main wing. In normal flight, the wing holds the plane up and the tail exerts a downward force. The plane itself is like a seesaw; downward force on the tail keeps the nose up. If the tail stops working properly, the nose drops. When the flaps are extended on the main wing, there are at least two possible effects on the tail. One is that as the shape of the wing changes — which is the purpose of extending the flaps — the nose on a plane like the Q400 will lower a bit. That changes the angle at which the wind hits the tail and at a new angle, ice on the tail may further disrupt the tail’s function. Extending the flaps also may slow the plane down. Every wing, as well as the tail, has a stall speed, a minimum speed below which it will not function correctly. As the wing is covered with ice, the stall speed increases. If the plane slows down, it may drop below the tail’s new stall speed.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/nyregion/15crash.html?_r=3&emc=eta1
A plane that crashed onto a house in New York state killing 50 people dropped by 800 feet (245 metres) in five seconds, officials say.
Air safety official Steve Chealander said the plane fell from 1,800ft to 1,000ft shortly before impact. He also said investigators had not found that there were "severe icing" conditions, which would have required pilots to fly the plane manually. The plane's autopilot was on until just before the crash, Mr Chealander said. Analysis of the plane's data recorders shows the crew noticed significant ice build-up on its wings before the crash. Mr Chealander, a spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), had earlier told the the Associated Press news agency that the NTSB recommended pilots disengage their craft's autopilot facility in icy conditions. Pilots using manual controls may be able to sense a problem sooner than the autopilot, he said. But in a press briefing on Sunday he said there was no evidence that the Continental Airlines pilot had done anything wrong. "The only restriction that they see - the manufacturer of this airplane - and that they write about is that disengage the autopilot in severe icing conditions," Mr Chealander said. "Thus far we haven't determined that it's severe icing so, so far we see that everything seemed to be normal in using the autopilot."
Pitches and rolls
The Bombardier Dash 8 was approaching Buffalo's airport when it crashed flat on the house in Clarence Center, a suburb of Buffalo, last Thursday. The pilots did not tell air traffic controllers of any problems during the flight, and a recording of communications appears normal until shortly before the crash. At that point, the crew are heard discussing snowy and misty conditions and asking for permission to descend. The crew then discussed "significant ice build-up" on the windshield and leading edge of the aircraft's wings, Mr Chealander said on Friday. The plane's de-icing system had been switched on before the crew talked about the ice, he said. Preliminary investigations suggested the plane was pointing away from the airport at which it was meant to land when it crashed. Analysis of the data recorders shows the plane made a series of severe pitches and rolls seconds before plunging into the house. The dead include 44 passengers, four crew and one off-duty pilot on board, and one person on the ground. The twin-prop Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 aircraft, operated by Colgan Air for Continental Airlines, was flying from Newark airport in New Jersey to Buffalo Niagara International Airport.
A letter that was written by Beverly Eckert in 2003:
My Silence Cannot Be Bought
I've chosen to go to court rather than accept a payoff from the 9/11 victims compensation fund. Instead, I want to know what went so wrong with our intelligence and security systems that a band of religious fanatics was able to turn four U.S passenger jets into an enemy force, attack our cities and kill 3,000 civilians with terrifying ease. I want to know why two 110-story skyscrapers collapsed in less than two hours and why escape and rescue options were so limited. I am suing because unlike other investigative avenues, including congressional hearings and the 9/11 commission, my lawsuit requires all testimony be given under oath and fully uses powers to compel evidence. The victims fund was not created in a spirit of compassion. Rather, it was a tacit acknowledgement by Congress that it tampered with our civil justice system in an unprecedented way. Lawmakers capped the liability of the airlines at the behest of lobbyists who descended on Washington while the Sept. 11 fires still smoldered. And this liability cap protects not just the airlines, but also World Trade Center builders, safety engineers and other defendants. The caps on liability have consequences for those who want to sue to shed light on the mistakes of 9/11. It means the playing field is tilted steeply in favor of those who need to be held accountable. With the financial consequences other than insurance proceeds removed, there is no incentive for those whose negligence contributed to the death toll to acknowledge their failings or implement reforms. They can afford to deny culpability and play a waiting game.
By suing, I've forfeited the "$1.8 million average award" for a death claim I could have collected under the fund. Nor do I have any illusions about winning money in my suit. What I do know is I owe it to my husband, whose death I believe could have been avoided, to see that all of those responsible are held accountable. If we don't get answers to what went wrong, there will be a next time. And instead of 3,000 dead, it will be 10,000. What will Congress do then? So I say to Congress, big business and everyone who conspired to divert attention from government and private-sector failures: My husband's life was priceless, and I will not let his death be meaningless. My silence cannot be bought.
And the Human Rights Watch lady Alison des Forges who was widely hated by the American and British establishment for her criticism of their client state Rwanda's brutality. She died on the airplane as did four personnel from Northrop Grumman's Amherst Systems facility that builds electronics for the military. (The founder of Amherst Systems died a few months ago in a different, smaller plane crash.) Also killed was an Israeli who had served in their Lebanese puppet faction "South Lebanon Army" and was affiliated with the Chabad movement, widely suspected of being a front for Mossad. And the mouthpiece of the N.T.S.B. "investigation" has such a high security clearance that he was the one carrying the nuclear launch code "football" briefcase for Pres. Reagan.
ReplyDeleteAdd to all that the fact that the plane started acting screwy only after it was over a radio beacon on the ground and it sounds like this was most likely no accident. My guess is that there was something installed in the plane's avionics that was programmed to cause the plane to make erratic manuevers and crash as soon as it was triggered by contact with the radio beacon.