`Plane crash may be an accident'

WASHINGTON, NOV. 13. U.S. investigators today said initial information from the cockpit voice recorder retrieved from the wreckage of the American Airlines plane that crashed in New York indicated that the crash was an accident. ``The cockpit voice recorder is the biggest information that we have and a quick listen to that last evening showed nothing that would imply any sort of unusual activity in the cockpit other than the accident sequence,'' according to an official of the National Transportation Safety Board, Mr. George Black.

Speaking on ABC's ``Good Morning America'' show, he said there were no unknown voices in the cockpit before the plane crashed, just minutes after taking off from John F. Kennedy Airport en route to the Dominican Republic. ``There was nothing on the tape that would lead us to believe that it was anything other than an aviation accident,'' he said, scotching speculation that hijackers might have been on board in a repeat of the September. 11 aerial attacks.

However, television network CNN quoting an unnamed transportation department official said investigators have not completely ruled out the terrorist hand.

Up to 269 people died in yesterday's crash in a residential area in the borough of Queens. Of those killed, 251 were passengers and nine were crew on board the plane while nine people are missing on the ground.

U.S. intelligence agencies had been warned of a terrorist attack coinciding with veterans day on November 11, but so far do not believe that yesterday's plane crash was part of an attack, according to media reports.

The Washington Times quoted one intelligence official as saying that a warning was sent to senior administration officials last week that unidentified terrorists were planning to carry out some type of mass attack at 11 a.m. on November 11. However, there was no attack at 11 a.m. or p.m. on that day. The warning originated in a north African nation that, in the past, had been associated with international terrorism, the newspaper reported.

``The problem with the time is that no one could figure out whether it was 11 here or overseas," the intelligence official said.

The US Secretary of State, Gen. Colin Powell, told the U.N. Security Council in an open debate yesterday that the crash looked like an accident.

``Let us hope that turns out to be the case, although it is none the less tragic for that," he told the Council, adding that most of those on board were Dominicans.

- Reuters, UNI, AFP

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