American Airlines Flight 587 Memorial at Rockaway Beach

[shamrock838]

Greetings,

On Monday May 21 I took the Q53 express bus from Woodside down to Rockway Beach to see the memorial commemorating the tragic crash of American Airlines Flight 587 ... which come down in Belle Harbor so soon after 09/11. A mute, tasteful testimony to all those lost in the nation's second worst single aircraft disaster.

When I'm able to ... I'll upload some of the digital images I took of this.

Mike (shamrock838)

P S - On the way back "north" I visited the small parking field off Cross Bay Boulevard bridge directly across the channel from Howard Beach. Another bus up to 157th Avenue and a walk east to the Howard Beach terminous of the JFK AirTrain and a quick visit to Terminal 4 on the way home.

[AirtrafficController]

its a shame that it happned and almost after 9/11, i watched an avation video about the crash, terrrible experince

[kc2aqg]

I was in high school on long island at the time and that Monday, November 12, was a school holiday. I was listening to the live ATC feed (then through CUNY) that morning, kind of half asleep. I didn't really notice anything out of the ordinary until I heard the local controller repeatedly calling "American 587 Heavy". A short while later, every news station in the area picked up the story, and the rest is history.

I vividly remember NBC4 first reporting that the aircraft was a 767 and that he departed from runway 22R. I also remember being extremely frustrated at how they jump to conclusions!

Such a sad crash, not only because of the loss of life, but also because it crashed in an area that had just lost over a dozen firefighters in 9/11 just two months before. I remember nobody knowing what to think of the crash at first, whether or not it was terrorism. Such a strange time...