TERRORISM: Airline Crew Reports Missile Attack

To be fair, a MANPAD is not a big missile, then why would a model rocket not reach a ceiling of 5000 feet?

Originally posted by snafu7700

Originally posted by justme1640
Well my perspective on this may be a bit different from most -- but I live a few towns over from where flt 800 went down and I know some witnesses including the National Guard Helicopter Pilot who said that was a missle -- and believe them.

yeah, but the difference between that and what majic and icarus are talking about is that twa800, if indeed it was a missile, was probably an accidental lock and fire by our own military.

Actually there are a lot of people here who still feel that it is likely that there may have been a boat that the missle was fired from - not our own military. But that is only opinion based on people living on the water and seeing where they felt the trail went up from.

I said earlier that I would talk about this thing with my friend and next-door neighbor Matt, who flies for Alaska Air Lines and is a major in the Arizona Air National Guard, and flies KC-135 tankers when he's playing weekend warrior.

Last night I did. He'd been about an hour out of LAX at the time of the putative missile firing, and no one had mentioned it to him, either on the air, or in any of the pilots' lounges during subsequent layovers.

He mentioned that LAX has about 2500 takeoffs/landings a day and that every time he's been in a pattern he has about ten other aircraft for company. Given that, he finds it rather odd that no other aircraft in the vicinity ever saw anything.

I have to agree with him on that.

Even if it really was a missile, we still don't know who shot the missile, or what their goal was. They could've been trying to assasinate someone on the plane or they could've been trying to cause general terror. They could even be other reasons for it.

If they give the story big press, and definitely determined that it was missile, than they have to catch someone responsible. Letting the terrorist get away is not popular. Although, I suppose they could 'find' someone responsible.

seems that more people are picking up on this:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

I have provided more information regarding this threat in the following thread:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

1. SAM booster motors are so loud that anyone on the plane would have heard the passing threat, assuming a functional missile guidance system.

2. The pilot never suspected he was under attack.

3. A vertical contrail was reported only. The contrail stopped several thousand feet into the air. The was over a mile of vertical seperation from the end of the contrail to the airline. There was at least 3 miles of lateral seperation.


For suspicious people, you sure aren't very suspicious.

Au Contrail

Originally posted by missile_tech
For suspicious people, you sure aren't very suspicious.

On the contrary, I tend to be very suspicious of those who make sweeping assumptions about me.

I also tend to be suspicious of those who present assumptions as if they were authoritative facts.

If you have evidence to support any of your claims, that's great.

I'm sure SAM boosters are loud, but I'm not aware that anyone has definitively reported what sort of missile -- if any -- actually may or may not have been involved here. If you are, please share what you know.

In particular, I would like to know why you think this incident would have involved a boosted SAM, or consider the possible absence of one to somehow discredit the pilot's statements.

I am curious how you know what the pilot was thinking. Have you spoken with him? A source would be far more convincing than a hand-wave on that point.

Most commercial pilots are military veterans, many with combat experience. I don't know this pilot's background, but who here is qualified to gainsay from afar the assessment of someone who was actually there?

Whoever this pilot may be, he's licensed to pilot commercial aircraft with hundreds of people aboard, and does so for a living, day in and day out. That's a far more exclusive and convincing credential than access to the Internet.

Also, what is the source for your description of the contrail profile? I hope you can understand my confusion in light of the conflicting information so far presented.

What I Know So Far

For my part -- since I am one of the people you are addressing by speaking to everyone reading this thread -- I don't know what happened in this case.

It may be nothing at all. Or it may be something. I don't know.

That is, in fact, my complaint, because it's a situation that is unlikely to change -- particularly when unsourced “facts” cloud the air.

You have not substantiated your claims with verifiable sources, which makes them opinions no more valid than those of anyone else.

That's a very weak basis for pointing a finger at us and claiming we aren't suspicious.

As it turns out, that claim is demonstrably false. I, for one, am very suspicious not only of the information provided so far, but of your claims as well.

Can you back them up with facts?





P.S. Readers may want to examine the source link given for the original article again. There has been a change. Try a search for “missile” on that site and see what results, then compare it to this search. Probably just the usual weekly clearance of stories from the site. Nothing to see here.

Blowing Smoke

Originally posted by missile_tech
3. A vertical contrail was reported only. The contrail stopped several thousand feet into the air. The was over a mile of vertical seperation from the end of the contrail to the airline. There was at least 3 miles of lateral seperation.

On another note, and overlooking the unsubstantiated nature of this claim for now, let's examine it as if it were fact.

A contrail which is thick enough and dense enough to be seen from three miles away from within the cockpit of a moving jetliner is one hell of a contrail -- and certainly not an indication of a “bottle rocket” or anything I'm aware of that is legally available to unlicensed citizens anywhere in the United States.

So assuming this claim is true, it indicates the launching of a substantial missile of some kind.

Again, a source for this is crucial.

I realize that you are new here and that this was your first and only post to ATS. I don't want to give the impression I'm “newb bashing” or any such nonsense. It's not tolerated here.

Rather, you are making some strong claims about this incident and the ATS membership of which I am -- shall we say? -- suspicious.

If you can offer a means to corroborate what you're posting, then good for you!

If not, then I encourage you to endeavor to do so going forward and join us in seeking to Deny Ignorance.

Either way, welcome aboard.



[edit on 12/6/2005 by Majic]

Originally posted by Majic

P.S. Readers may want to examine the source link given for the original article again. There has been a change. Try a search for “missile” on that site and see what results, then compare it to this search. Probably just the usual weekly clearance of stories from the site. Nothing to see here.

WTF?

i have never seen this kind of action on any site. you look for an old article from 3 years ago on cnn and it will be there. what is up with this? you search for missile, it gives you a snipet of the story in the search engine results, but no story on the source page?

if i wasnt suspicious about government coverups before, i sure as hell am now!

www.worldnetdaily.com...

"For starters, the flight was AA 612 and not AA 621 as reported. Lahr and Schulze checked its progress using the LAX airport monitor. (www4.passur.com...) Those interested in doing the same can enter Nov. 26, 12:49, 20-mile range, and then click on "start."

You will see every airplane aloft in the Los Angeles area on the map. In about a half minute, "AAL612" appears as a green aircraft crossing the shoreline. If you click on the aircraft, it will turn red, and the flight data will appear in a box to the right. Over the next few minutes, the aircraft turns south. At approximately 6,000 feet and off the coast of Redondo Beach, a new target will appear.

"The unidentified target's altitude does some funny things," observes Glenn Schulze, "from a constant 1,500 feet to suddenly showing 7,500 feet where it remains, which is the same altitude as AA FL 612 at this point in AA FL 612's climb-out."

According to Lahr, AA 612 seems "to split and become TWO! It remains TWO for a while, both targets moving together, then they separate, the mirror target fades, and AA 612 (thank God) is alone again, heading slightly south east."

The unidentified target appears for 12 to 13 sweeps of the FAA LAX TRACON radar rotating at a 4.7-second sweep rate. "This target can not be easily explained away as a radar ghost or artifact or swamp gas," adds Schulze, "as it exists and tracks over the ground for almost 50 seconds as it travels along with AA FL 612. Dynamite evidence!"

Good Find... I didnt know you can find stuff like that on the net.

The Case Of The Missing Missile

messmerizer, thanks for pointing this out. It adds an important dimension to the story.

While I often find WorldNetDaily to be questionable on some things, the truth is that I am increasingly finding that to be the case with so-called “mainstream” news organizations as well.

Caveat reador.

In this case, the radar track data can be independently examined online, and I recommend that anyone interested in this case do exactly that, as I just did.

A Radar-Reflective “Vapor Trail”

The unidentified flying object appears at about 12:51:55 approximately 1.5 miles south and in front of AA 612.

It is given the same transponder data as AA 612 by the tracking program, with the exception of its altitude, which is initially shown as 1400 feet. The real AA 612 is flying at an altitude of 6200 feet at this point and is passing by the Channel Islands.

The airliner and the UFO converge laterally as AA 612 climbs slowly to 7300' and the UFO, after seeming to “loiter” at 1500' climbs suddenly to 7200'.

At this point both AA 612 and the UFO are very close, appearing “on top of each other” on the map.

At 12:52:36 AA 612 has “overshot” the UFO and proceeds south as the UFO seems to lose lateral velocity and “lingers” at 7500 feet.

At 12:52:54 the UFO disappears and AA 612, now at 8100', slowly turns SE as it passes around Palos Verdes at a distance of about six miles.

Here's an example of what the track map looks like.

Click on image for AirportMonitor LAX page

Conclusions

This could be some sort of tracking anomaly, or it could be something else. Taken alone, I don't think it would mean much.

But taken in the context of a pilot reporting a missile flying past his plane, that's a whole different ballgame.

I remain suspicious of the “official” story. I continue to suspect that there may be a concerted effort on the part of the U.S. government to suppress reports of terrorist activity in the United States.

There seems to be an emerging pattern of disturbing stories being reported locally and not being carried -- or carried only superficially and briefly -- by nationwide news organizations.

Of course I could be wrong about all this, but as time passes, I see only more evidence accumulating that fits the pattern, not less.

I encourage my fellow ATSers to consider the possibility that this is occurring, be vigilant for cases of possible terrorism being covered up in the press and share any such possible examples with us.

As President Bush has so often said, this is a “new kind of war”.

Just so.

Guys I just checked this, and after about a minute its says “Current Data Missing”, it also does not show any of the fight numbers and the rest on my screen for that day, only time, aircraft type and altitude. This is pretty weird…

The data comes back at around 12:56…
Is it normal for this to start purging data over time?

[edit on 12/15/2005 by defcon5]

no idea...this whole set up is new to me. normally, barring an incident that requires long term retention of the data, voice and radar tapes are kept for 15 days. they are then recycled for further use ....ie, recorded over.

so using normal air traffic procedures, we shouldnt be able to look at any of this anymore but its still there, so you got me.

I've reviewed the flight tracker again and noticed something odd that wasn't mentioned in the previous accounts. When the two flights get close to each other the UFO jumps to 7200 at about the same time AA612 crosses that altitude. On the map they appear to be a slight distance apart, probably due to the inaccuracies of such this software. I followed the original AA612 and it becomes the target that stops after a while, while the UFO continues on to Chicago. Going by the turn radius it seems unlikely that the target (ufo) that continues is the same aircraft as AA612. AA612 is already in a left turn across the UFO, but suddenly it stops and the UFO continues straight for a little bit before starting its own left turn.

This is all very strange. I could see how there might be a double image of an aircraft. I'm not sure if this is an independent tracking system or if it's linked directly to the LAX radar. But if it was a double hit, why would the UFO start down that low? And why do the vectors not match up when they cross over each other? And with the pilot claiming to have seen a smoke trail this is way too much of a coincidence for me. I just can't explain the way the two targets move on that tracker other than it was an inaccurate recording.

Any thoughts? I just wish the tracker showed airspeed.

even if it did show airspeed chances are it wouldnt show up for the anamolous target. air traffic radar systems would be quite confused by the high rate of speed produced by a missile. nor would it show the altitude, as the system would also be confused by the high rate of climb. if it were a false target, it most likely would be a mirror image of an object on the other side of the radar. this happens occasionally. however, i cannot correlate the target with any other traffic in the northeast sector of the data.

i agree with you husky. it's just too much of a coincidence to have a pilot report of a missile attack and the anamolous target.