Thirteen witnesses are now prepared to say that when Flight 587 out of JFK in New York crashed on November 12 killing all 265 on board, the tail did not mysteriously fall off. Truth will out! Maree Howard writes.

Scoop, along with a now increasing number of other media, has never been convinced with the explanations of the U.S. administration that Flight 587 simply came apart and crashed over Long Island.

Both then, and now, the explanations did not pass the smell test including by those in some of the media, the aviation industry and commercial pilots. (See… Howard's End - 20 November 2001)

Little wonder the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has now called on NASA to help them find the cause of the crash. The FBI has video tape footage of the take-off and climb out of Flight 587 which it will not, and has not, released or commented on.

But here they were, the NTSB, with 265 dead and God knows how many mourners giving us the claptrap that the tail mysteriously fell off.

"No tail fell off, not before the explosion. I swear that," said retired firefighter Tom Lynch, who was doing his exercise march along Rockaway Beach Boulevard on Nov. 12.

"I had my head up taking in that beautiful, clear day and was staring straight at the plane. It made a bank turn and suddenly there was an explosion, orange and black, on the right-hand side of the fuselage. It was a small explosion, about half the size of a car."

"The plane kept on going straight for about two or three seconds as if nothing happened, then 'vwoof' - the second big explosion on the right wing, orange and black," Mr Lynch said.

"It was only then that the plane fell apart. I'm telling you the tail was there until the second explosion," he said.

He has 13 other witnesses lined up to testify that they also saw the plane on fire before the breakup and before the explosion the tail was intact.

Mr Lynch has contacted the FBI, the NTSB, and New York Senators' Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer.

" I got no response from anyone," he said.

Sabotage? Cover-up?

Mr Lynch says "That's for other people to decide. At first, we hear there were seagulls in the engine, then the plane was caught in a jet stream and the tail fell off."

"Im telling you, no damn tail fell off until the second explosion," he said.

Then there's Jim Conrad - who retired last month as a police lieutenant after 34 years service.

He agree's with Tom Lynch. "I saw exactly what Tom saw."

"I was near a stop light at Marine Parway Bridge. First, the small explosion. The plane kept going, tail intact, then the big explosion and the plane nosedived."

The first thing I said was: 'The bastards did it again.'"

The NTSB now says it doesn't have any evidence of an explosion after searching the wreckage or from the cockpit voice recorder but concedes that that doesn't mean it didn't happen.

In the face of mounting evidence that there were two explosions on Flight 587 soon after take-off and that the tail did not simply fall off, the NTSB has a serious credibility problem. And the FBI? Well, it's conspicuous by its absence.