Associated Press

A piece of metal believed to be from American Airlines flight 587 is carried away yesterday from the site of the remains of the aircraft's engine. The engine crashed behind a residence in the Belle Harbor neighborhood of New York's Queens Borough. The General Electric engines on the Airbus A300 model have drawn close scrutiny since the spring of 2000, when planes reported engine failures that sent metal fragments flying.

NEW YORK - The cockpit voice recorder from American Flight 587 indicates the pilots struggled to control the plane after a rattling was heard less than two minutes into takeoff, investigators reported yesterday.

George Black Jr. of the National Transportation Safety Board said investigators do not yet know what caused the "airframe rattling noise."

Also, the pilots spoke of encountering turbulence in the wake of a Japan Airlines jumbo jet that took off ahead of Flight 587, Black said. "Wake turbulence" is believed to have contributed to other deadly airline crashes.

But Black said it was too early to say if there was any relationship between the noises or the turbulence and the crash of Flight 587.

From takeoff to the end of the tape lasts less than 2 minutes, 24 seconds, Black said at a news conference.

The first portion of the flight to the Dominican Republic appeared normal, with the co-pilot at the controls. But 107 seconds after the plane had started its takeoff roll, a rattling was heard; 14 seconds later, a second rattle was audible, Black said.

Twenty-three seconds later - after "several comments suggesting loss of control" - the cockpit voice recording ends, he said.

The plane's other black box, the flight data recorder, was recovered yesterday after a 24-hour hunt through a Queens neighborhood staggered by a double dose of tragedy. At least 262 people were killed when the plane crashed.

The NTSB was also looking at whether the engines failed after sucking in birds, a phenomenon that has caused severe damage to airliners in the past. But Black said an initial inspection of the engines found no evidence of such a collision. He said a more detailed analysis still needs to be done.

All 260 people aboard the twin-engine Airbus A300 were killed, and five others were reported missing on the ground after the fiery crash Monday in the beachfront Rockaway section of Queens.

Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said 262 bodies had been recovered, along with dozens of body parts. Authorities were working with family members to identify remains through DNA.

The flight data recorder - one of two "black boxes" aboard the jetliner - tracks speed and the performance of the engine and instruments.

Authorities have not ruled out sabotage or other potential causes but said the evidence so far suggests it was an accident - perhaps a catastrophic mechanical failure in the engines.

The General Electric engines on the Airbus A300 model have drawn close scrutiny since the spring of 2000, when planes reported engine failures that sent metal fragments flying.

However, NTSB chairman Marion Blakey said yesterday that the engines were largely intact.

In 1995, an Air Force AWACS surveillance plane in Alaska sucked at least four geese into its engines during takeoff and crashed in a forest, killing all 24 people aboard.

Large flocks of gulls, geese and other birds abound around Kennedy Airport, which is next to Jamaica Bay and a federally protected wetlands.

At least 726 birds and other animals have been hit by aircraft at

Kennedy over the past decade, according to Federal Aviation Administration records obtained by The Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act.

Most of the incidents at Kennedy happened at Runway 31L, where Flight 587 took off. Pilots using that runway reported 139 incidents, at least 62 of which involved gulls. Other animals included barn owls, larks, sparrows, homing pigeons, a peregrine falcon and a jackrabbit.

For years the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the airport, has used cannon-like noisemakers and trained falcons to scare birds away. The Federal Aviation Administration also uses sharpshooters to kill birds.

The airport reported "light bird activity" on Monday, said Port Authority spokesman Alan Morrison.

Federal investigators, meanwhile, pored over a 20-foot-high chunk of fuselage that had sheared off the front of a home and was found on a front lawn. Investigators also pulled a section of wing out of a tree and examined other charred and twisted plane parts. A crane was brought to the scene.

The flight data recorder was found on the same street where four homes were destroyed.

The crash Monday engulfed houses in flames and rained debris on the neighborhood, an enclave of police and firefighters that lost dozens of residents in the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.

"To have them hit a second time is very, very difficult," the mayor said. But Giuliani praised the neighborhood - which is largely Irish Catholic, Italian and Jewish - and said of the people of Rockaway: "They're the strongest people you're ever going to be meet because of their strong religious faith."

Residents tried to get on with life yesterday, as children played in the street near police barricades and crime scene tape.

In Manhattan, in an all-too-familiar ritual of grief since the Trade Center attack, scores of family members gathered at a family-assistance center at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in hopes of giving their loved ones a proper burial.

There, a weeping Guillermina Roy hoped for word of her mother, who had been flying home to the Dominican Republic after visiting her optometrist. Eduardo Paradis came to learn the fate of his brother, Angel, who had been on his way to his native country to retire.

"It was just bad luck for him to be there," Paradis said. "I hope to God this was an accident, and not an act of terrorism."