The A300, the first aircraft to be designed and built by the European aircraft maker Airbus, has suffered four major accidents since entering service in 1974, a record that compares favourably with other similar western-built aircraft.
A fifth A300, operated by Iran Air, was accidentally shot down by the US Navy frigate USS Vincennes in 1988, after being misidentified as an Iranian fighter about to attack the ship.
All four of the accidents occurred as the aircraft was coming in to land, with the subsequent air crash investigations choosing to blame the pilots, who in a number of cases appeared confused by the automated landing system.
Andrew Chuter of Flight International described the A300 as an "unexceptional aircraft with a pretty good track record". Aer Lingus does not operate Airbus A300s - its Airbus fleet is of the later Airbus 320 and 321.
The aircraft which crashed yesterday appears to have lost one of its engines as it took off.
Officials highlighted the apparent similarity with another American Airlines crash in May 1979 when an engine fell off a DC-10 on take-off from Chicago O'Hare. Crash investigators ultimately found that a stress fracture in the pylon holding the engine to the wing was caused by questionable maintenance procedures.
Mr Chuter said yesterday's crash was most likely caused by "catastrophic mechanical failure" but in the current climate he did not rule out the possibility of a ground-to-air missile hitting the wing, although none of the eye-witnesses reported seeing any telltale smoke trails before the crash.
The engine in the American Airlines' crash in New York had been involved in seven "fairly serious" incidents in the last two years, aviation experts said.
The CF6, made by America's General Electric company, has had a number of "fairly dramatic failures", Mr Kieran Daly, editor of the Internet news service Air Transport Intelligence, said.
In an incident in May this year, a Gambia-bound, CF6-engined Airbus A300-600, operated by UK holiday airline Monarch, had to divert to Casablanca after developing engine problems while cruising over Portugal.
An investigation discovered that one of the compressor blades within the engine had broken loose due to cracking and caused damage that was not just confined to the engine area.
Mr Daly said: "General Electric had warned about the cracking problem but neither the (UK) Civil Aviation Authority nor the (US) Federal Aviation Administration had mandated airlines to do the work." General Electric insisted the CF6 six engine was "the best in the industry". It has been in service since 1984.