US Government considers suspending flights
An official said the Bush administration was considering suspending the take off of flights nationwide but there had been no decision.
The administration source said the FBI believes there was an explosion on board the plane, and was investigating whether it was an accident or an act of sabotage.
The key areas on which investigators will want to focus while probing the latest US air crash disaster are terrorism, the engines, the wreckage, black boxes and mechanical failure..
:: TERRORISM - Given the events of September 11, this is the first thing that investigators will want to look into. Could, given the extremely tight security now existing at US airports, an explosive device have been taken on board? Could the plane have been deliberately crashed?
:: THE ENGINES - If the September 11 attacks had not taken place, the circumstances of this crash would have led investigators to look first at the engines.
When a plane goes down in good weather so soon after take off, it would suggest there was lack of, or loss of, thrust from the engines;
:: WRECKAGE - Early reports suggested that one of the General Electric-made engines fell from the aircraft before the plane went down. If this engine can be recovered reasonably intact it might be possible to determine if there had been some form of engine failure;
:: BLACK BOXES - If recovered, the boxes - actually orange in colour - could hold the key to the accident. The boxes will contain a record of the way the aircraft was being flown and the way the instruments were behaving in the moments before the crash.
Even more crucially, the cockpit voice recorder box will tell investigators what was actually said by the pilots just before the crash. This will be of particular interest as it is not thought that any emergency was declared by the cockpit crew.
:: MECHANICAL FAILURE - The plane’s maintenance record will be thoroughly scrutinised to see if anything could have been left undone which would have resulted in the sort of massive mechanical failure needed to bring the plane down.
