TWA 800

[billvon 2,991]

>>No it doesn't. It just goes with the most likely theory, which isn't
>>the same as eliminating a less likely theory.

>Occam, your razor is calling...

That's pretty much the definition of Occam's Razor.

[jtval 0]

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The government can cover up whatever the hell it wants.

My bet is Al Quaida shot the thing down with a Stinger missle...and we covered it up. Why? To save an already failing industry that we subsidize the shit out of with taxpayer dollars. And because it would be a nightmare explaing how a Stinger missle we supplied the Taliban made it into Long Island Sound and downed an airliner.

dude haven't you gotten the memo yet?
Bush is working with Osama. if the war machine wasn't turning we wouldn't be able to supply all the rich people witrh more money by buying the hiked up prices at the gas station. I mean duh if your going to go conspiracy theory, don't hold back.
Osama has lots of money invested in haliburton, too.
goo dthing he shaved his beard and now works on wall street. it makes it so much easier to keep his eye on his money while we are all up in arms about iraq

you should hear the real story on that russian submarine...it was a DOOSEY

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[kelpdiver 2]

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either way I dont think a meteor, a missle, an invisible phoenix would be able to break the sound barrier.

You don't think a meteor would be going faster than the speed of sound? Skydivers leaving still balloons at 100k are pretty close, and they didn't come flying out of space at high velocity. If these rocks were going that slowly they wouldn't burn up and we'd never see em.

Soon after canopy opening on my first night dive, I saw a meteor in the sky. Certainly it could be an explanation, but lacking any evidence to support it I wouldn't go so far as to make it a likely scenario.

[Meux 0]

Strongly disagree with the stinger theory.

The warhead on a stinger is not much bigger than a fart in a bathtub. The seeker looks for heat, like an engine. If a stinger hit an engine it would likely destroy it, but there are three others working and on a lightly loaded 747 that would be no problem. They would've just secured the engine controls and landed. Chance of fire or fuel leaks from the wing tanks, yes, but that isn't where the worst of the explosion took place.

Also, I would question where a stinger was fired from. What I'm getting at is the range of the missile. The aircraft was gaining altitude pretty quickly, I believe if Al Qaida was going to shoot a plane down they would position themselves much closer to the airport, better chance of hitting their target.

I say lightly loaded because the flight was not even carrying full fuel in its center tank. I can't find any of my old 747 manuals but that center tank carried a butt load of gas. Something like 50,000 pounds. If it were close to empty it would create an explosive situation if a couple wires sparked. Sort of like what happened to the Air Force Reserve Tanker on the ground at Milwaukee.

Meteor? maybe. Missile? not likely. Fuel Tank Explosion after two wires sparked due to worn insulation? I agree with that. I don't even work for NASA, NTSB, CIA or the Post Office.

Blue Skies,

Mo

[billvon 2,991]

>You don't think a meteor would be going faster than the speed of sound?

All meteors go much faster than the speed of sound. You don't hear most because they are so high. I've only heard one; it was huge, and got low enough that you could both see the smoke trail and hear the sonic boom (a minute later.) Ones that large/low usually make it to the ground in at least some recognizable form.

[cloudseeker2001 0]

Thousands of meteorites hit the earth every day.......It could happen. I personally think it was a military missile and the boom everyone heard was the missile launch. The Razor is pretty sharp on this one.....the military was playing games in the area.

"Some call it heavenly in it's brilliance,
others mean and rueful of the western dream"

[Everon 0]

The B&W nuclear reactors had an inherent design flaw, and would react quickly to any anomaly in the system itself. What actually happened was predicted by the head of the emergency-core-cooling-system engineer at B&W (Bert Dunn). Dunn sent numerous memos to the head management at B&W explaining that even if water level in the pressurizer is rising (an indication that the reactor core is completely covered with water), the water level may be receding in the core. The head of marketing never sent out this warning. The thing that I find unbelievable is that there were monitors indicating that the temperature was rising rapidly, and the pressure was falling like a loose toolbox. The only way this can happen in a "closed" system is that there is a LEAK!!!!

I live 1 hour away from the Davis-Besse nuclear reactor near Sandusky, and the first 20 minutes of an incident that occured in 1977 (B&W reactor) mirrored that of TMI. Luckily the shift supervisor recognized the relief valve had stuck open, and ordered the block valve to be closed. At TMI, it was a little too late.

There were many warnings about this situation from engineers too, and as I said earlier, mere inspectors - and none were heeded. TMI occured 2 years later.

The difference here is that there was concrete evidence of design flaws that were completely ignored by those in upper management at B&W and the NRC - there wasn't even a debate. And there was a woefully inadequate training program for operators. C'mon. Anyone with a high school chemistry course is familiar with Boyle's law. Those at TMI obviously weren't. All the way up to the shift supervisor! If these are the guys in charge of our nuclear facilities, what does that tell you?

[sundevil777 102]

Other planes have had similar fuel tank explosions. The tank had little fuel, allowing it to be easily & significantly heated up by the air cond units that were on for a long time, making the center tank much more easily ignited. This is big evidence in support of the NTSB conclusion.

Aviation Week and Space Technology is a good source for real answers and informed speculation.
www.aviationnow.com

People are sick and tired of being told that ordinary and decent people are fed up in this country with being sick and tired. I’m certainly not, and I’m sick and tired of being told that I am

[Everon 0]

I had the same experience - it was awesome! That BOOM several seconds later is what caps it off, after the beautiful smoke trail. The universe is one wonderful entity, isn't it? I guess I'm diverging here a little, though....

[kallend 2,026]

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either way I dont think a meteor, a missle, an invisible phoenix would be able to break the sound barrier.

You don't think a meteor would be going faster than the speed of sound? Skydivers leaving still balloons at 100k are pretty close, and they didn't come flying out of space at high velocity. If these rocks were going that slowly they wouldn't burn up and we'd never see em.

Soon after canopy opening on my first night dive, I saw a meteor in the sky. Certainly it could be an explanation, but lacking any evidence to support it I wouldn't go so far as to make it a likely scenario.

A small meteorite hit about 4 miles from my house a few years back. www.meteoritearticles.com/colparkforest.html It made a huge sonic boom as it came in, and a very very bright trail.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[tso-d_chris 0]

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You don't think a meteor would be going faster than the speed of sound? Skydivers leaving still balloons at 100k are pretty close, even with a drogue, and they didn't come flying out of space at high velocity.

There, I fixed it for you!

[AlexCrowley 0]

Been a long time since TWA 800 has come up in conversation.

From my less then perfect recollection:

There were eyewitness reports of a shoulder fired rocket around the time. These were later discarded.

The official report did not match the available data, several hundred aircraft pilots put together a website, whos address I dont recall but should be easy to find, that discounts much of the official 'most likely scenario'. Mostly it was information about blast radius and reconstruction from available data, including the evidence collected by the official report.

I do recall some information about a breach that indicated an object entering the plane.

I probably should go read up on it, but for once I dont care.

The above is not saying there was a conspiracy theory, only that there seemed to be gaps in the official reconstruction that caused several hundred pilots to create a website to publicize that point.

Plus it gives the conspiracy theorists some homework.

Bush probably did it anyway.

TV's got them images, TV's got them all, nothing's shocking.

[billvon 2,991]

>The thing that I find unbelievable is that there were monitors
>indicating that the temperature was rising rapidly, and the pressure
> was falling like a loose toolbox. The only way this can happen in
>a "closed" system is that there is a LEAK!!!!

To be fair, the stuck PORV wasn't the only failure. The problem with the polisher caused the original trip that precipitated the problem. Ironically, had they left the system alone, the reactor would have shut down safely - even with the open PORV.

[Trent 0]

There is a great book about this incident called "Night Fall" by Nelson Demille. While it is a fictional account of an investigation into TWA800, it presents a lot of points based on actual eyewitness testimony and follows one of the theories pretty well. Even if you don't buy the story... it's a great read.

Oh, hello again!

[Everon 0]

Exactly - it was a common mode failure. There was a design failure that caused all of the polisher valves to slam shut cutting off water to the steam generators, AND both 12 valves supplying emergency feedwater to the steam generators were closed. So three "almost impossible" events occured within a few seconds. I guess I may be a little hard on the operators: Their training was woefully inadequate, and the pressurizer water level indicator was "keeping secrets" from them. But it's hard for me to accept that not one of them was familiar with Boyle's Law.

[cloudseeker2001 0]

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There is a great book about this incident called "Night Fall" by Nelson Demille. While it is a fictional account of an investigation into TWA800, it presents a lot of points based on actual eyewitness testimony and follows one of the theories pretty well. Even if you don't buy the story... it's a great read.

Great, another book to add to my reading list.........

"Some call it heavenly in it's brilliance,
others mean and rueful of the western dream"