Donald Carty, the chairman and chief executive of American Airlines resigned as negotiators for the world’s largest carrier and two of its unions reached a tentative cost-cutting deal that was the airline’s last hope for avoiding bankruptcy.

Mary Blakey, of the National Transportation Safety Board, has said that the plane's wreckage has spread over a wide area of Queens.

A Washington meeting to discuss the proposed transatlantic link-up of British Airways and American Airlines turned into a grilling of US airline chiefs over security following the September 11 terror attacks.