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Plane Crash in New York Treated as Accidental, No Survivors
With additional reporting by Neveen A. Salem
NEW YORK, Nov. 12 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani said Monday there were "no survivors" from American Airlines flight 587, which crashed into a residential area of Queens, in New York City at approximately 9:17 E.S.T. this morning.
"We know there are no survivors," Giuliani told reporters at the crash site in Rockaway Beach, Queens - within a five-mile radius of John F. Kennedy International Airport.
Immediately after the crash, the city went into "lockdown" shutting down all its bridges and tunnels into New York, fearing the worst. The United Nations, holding its annual General Assembly meeting, also went into "lockdown."
Giuliani said that it was as yet too early to tell if anyone was killed or injured on the ground.
The plane, carrying approximately 246 passengers and nine crewmembers, slammed into at least four houses in this New York City borough. The crash site is currently still burning.
"We don't know the casualties on the ground. We are very concerned about that, given the realities of these homes being hit but we are trying to determine that," the mayor said.
The plane was en route to Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic from JFK and only managed to reach a 3,000-foot altitude before its fateful descent.
The crash of an American Airlines plane in New York on Monday was apparently an accident, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell told the U.N. Security Council, convening at the time of the crash.
"The reports that I have so far suggest, apparently, that it is an accident," Powell told a public meeting of the Council, called to discuss the consequences of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States.
Reports of a number of pieces from the engine of the plane have scattered to different parts of the landscape, essentially creating three different debris fields.
A New York City rescue worker discovered one of the plane's black boxes a short time later.
It is now en route to Washington D.C. for analysis.
According to Marion Clifton Blakey, Chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), there is no evidence thus far to suggest foul play and that the crash is being investigated and treated as an accident.
American Airlines chairman Donald Carty said Monday the company had "absolutely no indication" why the flight crashed.
"At this time, we have absolutely no indication of what caused the accident," Carty told a news conference after speaking with officials in Washington and New York and shortly before heading to New York.
A spokesman for the airline, Al Becker, said the plane, an Airbus Industry A300-600, was 13 years old and was one of 35 in American's fleet, reported news agencies.
The engines, which separated from the plane's body, were made by General Electric, one of the nation's largest; it also serves as the parent company of the MSNBC news agency.
The jet in question last had routine maintenance on Sunday, Becker said, adding that it had undergone a more thorough check on October 3. The plane was next due for a complete overhaul in July 2002, he said.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said earlier there had been "no unusual communications" from the plane.
Fleischer said authorities had not received any threats prior to the crash, which came two months and a day after terrorists used hijacked airliners as guided missiles to strike the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
"Were there any conversations between the pilot and any of the towers or the communications facilities that would have indicated any trouble that the pilots were aware of? The answer to that, based on all preliminary reviews, is no," he said.
The Rockaway Beach area of New York has suffered a disproportionate number of losses in the attacks on September 11 as 75 firefighters and 20 civilians from this area were killed in the attacks.
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