The American Airlines flight from New York to the Dominican Republic with 255 people on board slammed into this residential area of Queens, N.Y., at 9:17 a.m., three minutes after takeoff from John F. Kennedy International Airport. The crash destroyed four houses and damaged more than a dozen other buildings. Some 200 New York City firefighters battled the flames, which burned for hours after the crash.
Federal aviation officials in Washington and American Airline executives say privately that initial information suggests the crash was caused by some sort of equipment failure, and not a deliberate downing of the plane. The Airbus A300 entered service in July 1988 and underwent a routine inspection the day before the crash. Officials on the scene have recovered the jet’s flight data recorder. In addition, New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani said the Coast Guard reported watching the jet dump fuel over Jamaica Bay prior to the crash, suggesting the crew was aware of a problem and hoping to attempt an emergency landing.
Nancy Breault was sipping coffee and e-mailing a friend when she heard the crash. “It was so loud, I thought they were dropping bombs from the sky,” she said. “My husband jumped out of bed. He went outside, came back and said, ‘A plane just crashed into the house.’ The phone lines died. My online connection died. I was trying to call 911 but the phone was dead. Smoke started coming into our house. I got worried, and packed a bag full of kids clothes, my phone book, a cell phone. I grabbed the kids and took them to a neighbor’s house, seven houses up.”
Ron Hollander and his father, Ron Sr., live next door to the McKeons. “I was asleep and it blew me out of bed,” says Ron Jr. “The engine flew right by my window.” He looked outside. “Whoa-there’s an engine in the backyard. The whole house was on fire on the left side. I was working in Miami until six months ago doing project management at construction sites. I’m ready to move back to Miami.”
Another McKeon neighbor is 39-year-old N.Y. corrections officer Michael Lonnborg, who has been working on the World Trade Center attack since Sept. 11. He has been assigned to a temporary morgue, cataloging bodies and body parts taken out of the sight. He had just gotten off a shift and was at home when the plane parts hit. “It was like an earthquake,” he says. “I heard nothing ahead of time.” A piece of the engine fell onto the sidewalk in front of his house; he put it into his garage to secure it for investigators.
September 11 is still very fresh to this neighborhood, which lost some 70 people that day. New York firefighter Rich McDonagh, 34, lives near the site of this morning’s crash. “That block where the plane went down, four or five people already died at the Trade Center. They just got hit a second time.” Accident or not, he says, “we’re feeling like the victims of another terrorist attack.”
