posted on Apr, 24 2009 @ 04:00 PM
June 24, 1982 British Airways flight 009 entered an ash cloud subsequently loosing all four engines. They managed to turn around and make an
emergency landing after leaving the cloud and restarting the engines.
While watching the documentary about this incident, I noticed somthing a little interesting.
At 5:50 into the video, the First Officer (co-pilot) tells ground control that they are turning back to the airport. The controller states, "...we
can not see you on radar...".
Also on the
Wiki listing:
On the flight deck the crew attempted to contact Jakarta for radar assistance, but could not be seen by Jakarta, despite their transponder being set
to 7700, the international "general emergency" code.
When this incident started (upon entering the ash cloud) they describe what looks like St. Elmo's Fire. Again from
Wiki:
St. Elmo's fire (also St. Elmo's light[1]) is an electrical weather phenomenon in which luminous plasma is created by a coronal discharge
originating from a grounded object in an atmospheric electric field (such as those generated by thunderstorms or thunderstorms created by a volcanic
explosion).
So, is this evidence of an electrical field making a large aircraft invisible to radar? I think it is strange no further investigation was done on the
fact that the plane was lost to radar. The crew and ground was clearly surprised by this. I can understand the transponder not squawking, or it not
being picked up, but not the radar signature of the aircraft itself. It should be noted that the ash was not picked up on radar because it was dry,
and had no moisture to be picked up by radar.
Any further thoughts on this from minds smarter than mine? Could some kind of electrical field be used to make an aircraft completely invisible to
radar?