Plane crashed because of fault in rudder controls

Haiti News.Net
Tuesday 10th August, 2010

Federal officials in the US have put a plane crash down to a rudder system design fault.

The National Transportation Safety Board said the fault, which turned up in various Airbus models, was to blame for the crash of American Airlines Flight 587, which went down in a residential area of Belle Harbor, New York, soon after taking off from John F. Kennedy International Airport on November 12, 2001.

All 260 people onboard the Airbus A300-600 died, along with five people on the ground.

The NTSB this week said the plane's vertical stabilizer had separated due to "unnecessary and excessive rudder pedal inputs" from the pilot’s cabin to counter wake turbulence.

The safety board explained that some Airbus planes use a system design that limits available rudder pedal deflection as airspeed decreases.

Aircraft tail fins are designed to withstand full rudder deflection in one direction at maneuvering speed.

They are not normally designed to withstand an abrupt shift in rudder from one direction to the other.

Consequently, at high airspeeds, lighter pedal forces are required to obtain maximum available rudder.

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