the sun will rise at 5:39. a moment ago we were showing those red severe thunder cells that this plane was flying into when the pilot requested to fly to a higher altitude. talk about a plane breaking up that air algier. what about airbus planes. back in 2001 american airlines light 587, it wasn t even a severe storm. it took off from an active runway in jfk in the vortex of a boeing 747. because it started to buffet as it was taking off apparently the co-pilot took a hard turn on the rudder and that tail came right off. that s unbelievable. you would think they would have solved that issue by now. is that a possibility here when you re dealing with composite elements, the new things that airbus and other manufacturers use. eric, what they ve done, because of we learn from these accidents, and because of
are the storms strong enough at 34,000 feet to literally break a plane apart? are there other factors assuming that you are conducting the normal cockpit operations? well, normally again, you would not overstress the airplane. that s what we always talk about. putting metal to a position where it wouldn t stand anymore stress. there are situations in updrafts and downdrafts that the weather alone could induce that stress that would be beyond the capabilities of the pilots to control it. i mentioned southern airlines flight back in 1977. there were thunderstorms up to 58,000 feet at that point. hail. hail just was ingested into the engines and damaged the fans and they weren t able to maintain thrust. tragically they tried to land on a highway and that didn t work. we ve seen this before.
there was a vortex from a boeing 747 that took off before it and apparently the co-pilot yanked the yoke too much to one side and the tail late lititerally fell off. do you think there s a problem number one we re looking now at the scene of the american airlines flight that crashed in queens just after takeoff. two questions, john. number one, are we dealing with crews that even though they have thousands and thousands of hours of flying time, they rely too much on the computerized systems. number two, is there an issue with the composite materials of these airbus which is they went away from aluminum fuselage and metal into this glue type composite that could potentially break apart in mid air? well, as you call them the blue comeposites have proven to be very strong.