Thanks for your comments and corrections to Marshall Smith's article, which I'll accept without further comment.

However, I would like to know how the errors you've cited in Mr. Smith's analysis impact on his reference to the case of the JAL 747, which apparently was able to continue flying without its vertical stabilizer and rudder>?

Do the issues you've raised completely destroy his argument that F. 587, which is an Airbus 300, should have been able to continue flying rather than coming apart in midair and crashing? Wouldn't the JAL 747 have used hydraulic FCS too, rather than fly-by-wire?

In response to Mr. Smith's assertion that

"Any theory blaming the failure of the vertical fin and rudder assembly as the cause cannot account for why the engines would fall off the plane."

You've responded:

"Wrong. Loss of the vertical stabilizer and rudder would lead the plane to yaw rapidly. That would impart sideloads on the engine pylons in excess of what they were designed to handle, leading to failure."

Fair enough, but from the AviationNow article you linked above, I get the idea that the vertical stabilizer is being ruled out as the primary cause of the accident:

"In an unusually direct opening statement, NTSB kicked off the American Flight 587 hearing yesterday in Washington by all but ruling out a structural flaw in the plane's all-composite tail as the cause of the crash."

So the NTSB says that the tail didn't break off first, to put it into laymen's terms.

Marshall Smith has said he believes the crash was caused by sabotage to the thrust reversers since they never fail. You've cited one case on a different make of plane where there wasan apparent thrust-reverser failure leading to a crash, and you've also stated here that "...there is no evidence to support the inflight deployment of a thrust reverser on this flight."

Forgive me if I'm missing something here, but despite the objections that you've raised about Mr. Smith's analysis, isn't it true that the errors he's made do not fatally undermine his theory that sabotage to the thrust reverser system could account for the recorded flight dynamics of the doomed plane in its final seconds?

sp