Warning: This article contains graphic images and video content which some readers may find upsetting.
The eerie cockpit audio from the tragic flight of American Airlines Flight 587 was recently released, capturing the intense final moments before the crash.
On November 12, 2001, American Airlines Flight 587, which was en route from John F. Kennedy Airport in New York to Las Américas International Airport in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, met with a catastrophic fate shortly after takeoff.
The crash resulted in the deaths of all 251 passengers, seven flight attendants, and two pilots on board. Additionally, five individuals on the ground lost their lives, bringing the total number of fatalities to 265.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) concluded that the direct cause of the accident was the separation of the vertical stabilizer due to forces that exceeded the aircraft’s design limit, primarily caused by the first officer’s excessive use of the rudder pedals.
The NTSB explained, “Contributing to these rudder pedal inputs were characteristics of the Airbus A300-600 rudder system design and elements of the American Airlines Advanced Aircraft Maneuvering Program.”
The report further detailed that “Flight 587 was operating under the provisions of 14 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 121 on an instrument flight rules flight plan. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed at the time of the accident.”
The chilling cockpit recording reveals the tense interaction between the captain and the first officer during the flight’s final moments.
A National Geographic video shared on X provides a visual simulation of the flight’s struggles, overlaid with the actual audio from the cockpit.
In the recording, the captain urgently commands, “Full power,” while the co-pilot, also known as the first officer, checks in with, “Are we alright?” The captain reassures him, “Yeah, I’m fine.”
As the situation escalates, the first officer encourages, “Hang on to it, hang on to it.” However, chaos ensues as the vertical stabilizer fails, with the captain exclaiming, “What the hell were you do- […] I’m stuck in it.”
Despite the first officer’s desperate call to “Get out of it,” the plane rapidly descends amid alarming cockpit sounds, ultimately leading to silence after the crash. An X user described the recording as ‘chilling.’
The wreckage was located in Belle Harbour on the Rockaway Peninsula, Queens. The NTSB report adds, “The airplane’s vertical stabilizer and rudder separated in flight and were found in Jamaica Bay, about one mile north of the main wreckage site. The airplane’s engines also separated in flight and were found several blocks north and east of the main wreckage site.”