Whereas the people of New York and communities throughout the United States experienced a terrible tragedy when American Airlines Flight 587 crashed in Belle Harbor, Queens, claiming the lives of 260 individuals onboard and 5 bystanders on the ground;

Whereas Flight 587 took off at 9:14 a.m. from John F. Kennedy International Airport bound for Las Américas International Airport in Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic, with 260 passengers and crew on board;

Whereas the disaster hit Rockaway especially hard, as the community was still reeling from the September 11 attacks, in which 65 area residents lost their lives;

Whereas around 90 percent of the passengers on the flight were of Dominican descent;

Whereas the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) 2004 report determined that the probable cause of this accident was the in-flight separation of the vertical stabilizer as a result of the loads beyond ultimate design that were created by the first officer’s unnecessary and excessive rudder pedal inputs;

Whereas contributing to the rudder pedal inputs were characteristics of the Airbus A300–600 rudder system design and elements of the American Airlines Advanced Aircraft Maneuvering Program;

Whereas, since the 2004 NTSB report, American Airlines has modified its pilot training program;

Whereas, on November 12, 2006, on the fifth anniversary of the accident, a memorial was constructed in Rockaway Park, in memory of the 265 victims of the crash;

Whereas a ceremony commemorating the disaster is held annually at the memorial every November 12, featuring a reading of the names of those killed aboard the aircraft and on the ground, with a formal moment of silence observed at 9:16 a.m., the estimated time of the crash;

Whereas the memorial wall, designed by Dominican artist Freddy Rodríguez and Situ Studio, has windows and a doorway looking toward the nearby Atlantic Ocean and angled toward the Dominican Republic; and

Whereas November 12, 2025, marks the twenty-fourth anniversary of this tragedy: Now, therefore, be it