American Airlines Flight 587 was a regularly scheduled international passenger flight from John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York City, to Las Américas International Airport, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. On November 12, 2001, the Airbus A300 flying the route crashed into the neighborhood of Belle Harbor on the Rockaway Peninsula of Queens, New York City, shortly after takeoff, killing all 251 passengers and nine crew members aboard, as well as five people on the ground. It is the second-deadliest aviation accident to have occurred in the United States, behind the crash of American Airlines Flight 191 in 1979, and the second-deadliest aviation incident involving an Airbus A300, after Iran Air Flight 655.
The location of the accident, and that it took place only two months after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center in nearby Manhattan, initially spawned fears of another terrorist attack, but the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) attributed the disaster to the first officer's overuse of rudder controls in response to wake turbulence from a preceding Japan Airlines Boeing 747-400 that took off minutes before it. According to the NTSB, the aggressive use of the rudder controls by the first officer, the result of a flawed training scenario that exaggerated the effects of wake turbulence, stressed the vertical stabilizer until the rudder was ripped from the aircraft. The airliner's two engines also separated from the aircraft before impact due
Why this event still matters
Historical incidents shape the rules that protect people today — building codes, evacuation policy, warning systems and inspection regimes almost always trace back to a specific disaster. Studying American Airlines Flight 587 alongside current events is how preparedness improves.
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