TWA Flight 800 investigators break silence in new documentary, claim original conclusion about caus

reply to post by Zaphod58


Zaph, the 1983 shootdown of the KAL 747 provides a wealth of details that support your position.

KAL 007 was struck by 2 AA-3's, one radar guided and one thermal seeker respectively. The warhead alone on an AA-3 weighs more than most complete MANPADS yet the damage was lots of holes in critical systems, not Hollywood style chunks of structure being blown off.

Both missiles were fired from below and behind with the The IR seeker going for the wing and the radar seeker proximity fuse exploding near the tail.

Here is the heavily sourced wiki link.... Korean Air Lines Flight 007

The electro magnetic centre of a 747 is probably the engines - the generators on them are very large and put out a powerful field - smaller a/c will routinely upset TV & radio signals of houses under approach paths from 2-3000 feet - eg Fokker F-27's and B737's that used to fly over my place!!

747-100's had 4 engine driven generators rated at 60 kVA each.

reply to post by TheEthicalSkeptic


The CWT on a 747 is, for a commercial aircraft, fairly well protected. It has the air conditioning unit that sits under it, that would absorb any blast from directly below (I'm still trying to find the drawings that show how it sits), and the main wing and fuselage spars run around it, along with other structure. It's not armored, or impervious, but it does have some protection around it.

Originally posted by Aloysius the Gaul
The electro magnetic centre of a 747 is probably the engines - the generators on them are very large and put out a powerful field - smaller a/c will routinely upset TV & radio signals of houses under approach paths from 2-3000 feet - eg Fokker F-27's and B737's that used to fly over my place!!

747-100's had 4 engine driven generators rated at 60 kVA each.

We are way into speculation, but I would imagine that the centroid would be the center of all four engines, i.e. the fuselage. And yes, it is one whopper of an EM signature! LOL!!

But back to our original point. To claim that "it could not have been a MANPAD" is incorrect.
I am not saying that it indeed was one....just making sure we don't over-skepticise our argument into invalid domains of consideration.

reply to post by Zaphod58


Page 66 of the heat tests done on 747-100 CWT's in 2000 has a general arrangement drawing - the document is a 7mb download

reply to post by TheEthicalSkeptic


I've said as the day went on that it was possible that it was a MANPAD, but that it was highly unlikely that it was a MANPAD. Even a pair of SM-2s detonating next to the fuselage of an A300 didn't break it into pieces like TWA did though.

While I do admit the possibility of a shoulder fired missile is there, I don't think it's likely, as the damage was disproportionate compared to other shoulder fired impacts I've seen.

Originally posted by TheEthicalSkeptic

Originally posted by Aloysius the Gaul
The electro magnetic centre of a 747 is probably the engines - the generators on them are very large and put out a powerful field - smaller a/c will routinely upset TV & radio signals of houses under approach paths from 2-3000 feet - eg Fokker F-27's and B737's that used to fly over my place!!

747-100's had 4 engine driven generators rated at 60 kVA each.

We are way into speculation, but I would imagine that the centroid would be the center of all four engines, i.e. the fuselage.

And yes, it is one whopper of an EM signature! LOL!!

the centre would not stand out any more than any of the extremities - and if the APU generator was going then the geometrical centre would be to the rear of the centre section.

Note that the Russian radar guided missile that shot down the Korean airliner exploded under the tail -as soon as the proximity fuse thought it was close enough - with a large signature the missile is going to explode sooner than with a small signature.

reply to post by Zaphod58


Wth respect to your obvious great knowledge on these matters.
And admitting I haven't read the whole thread but glanced over much of it.

I wonder if there is a possibility of rigging a homing device for a
shoulder launch that may have been placed on board ?

Also would some high tech type stingers with a high rate of devastation like we see with flight 800 be possible ?
Forgive me if already asked and just ignore me.

reply to post by randyvs


It would theoretically be possible, but most shoulder fired missiles are infrared guided. It would have to be something that would generate enough heat for the IR seeker to home in on.

Originally posted by KewlDaddyFatty
reply to post by elouina

 

Good diggin!

If accurate it looks pretty conclusive to me. Primary return of unknown object.

Except, didn't they say that it was an unidentified USAir plane? Can you tell if that is a plane or not by looking at the radar?

reply to post by NickDC202


I remember the video as well. I did save a few pictures from that time and have had them on an old hard drive
saved from places I cannot find as well.


This is the Kabot Photo (or Cabot Photo, as labeled in other docs on this photo) . This was taken on the deck of a house overlooking the ocean on that night.



This is the Krieger Photo taken by Heidi Krieger onboard a boat that was in Long Island Harbor.



I will see what else I can come up with, as at one time I had a great deal of early info on this terrible incident.



Found full Frame of Kabot photo:

Originally posted by Zaphod58
reply to post by TheEthicalSkeptic

 

I've said as the day went on that it was possible that it was a MANPAD, but that it was highly unlikely that it was a MANPAD. Even a pair of SM-2s detonating next to the fuselage of an A300 didn't break it into pieces like TWA did though.

While I do admit the possibility of a shoulder fired missile is there, I don't think it's likely, as the damage was disproportionate compared to other shoulder fired impacts I've seen.

Agreed. An orange fireball, as you well know - is fuel, not HE. A fuselage break is a large kinetic event which is unlikely to be caused by a MANPAD detonation. Of this I think everyone is agreed, including these NTSB officials.

BUT, to say that a MANPAD is unlikely to trigger a fuel tank explosion is not necessarily correct. It is a matter of the luck of the draw on the kill. Military fuel tanks can and do explode, and commercial fuel tanks can very easily explode from a missile detonation.

That is what you hope for in a combat air-to-air or surface-to-air engagement.

reply to post by Zaphod58


So the way you explain all this in what is obviously the truth as you know it to be.
Missles being used to bring down flight 800 being highly unlikely but possible.
It we consider the fact that to use shoulder launch missles leaves
a great deal to chance according to what you tell everyone here.
And people who take on such endeavors just do not employ methods with
so much room for error as indicated by your " highly unlikely but possible "
evaluation. in other words people like this don't employ the highly unlikely but possible.

This makes it all that much more less likely.

reply to post by TheEthicalSkeptic


Which leads to another problem. If it was an SM-2 launch, then it should have been seen as more than just a "few flashes near the horizon". The SM-2 has a huge launch signature that should have been seen by quite a few people, especially pilots in the area.

reply to post by randyvs


It could have been a missile, but even in Iraq the shoulder fired missile has been less than successful, especially against larger aircraft. I can think of possibly one C-130 that may have been hit by a missile that came down. The outboard portion of wing separated, taking the aileron with it (although they never really said what kind of fire hit them, an anonymous source said a ZSU-23 20mm cannon).

I found some computer enhancements of the Kobot photo. Plus they have a lot of the information that I have seen all around the web. All in a nice tidy spot.

#100: Earlier superficial analysis suggested these white dots were related to the dark object. However, according to Liz Edwards' enhancement and analysis, the white dots do not necessarily bear direct relation to the small, dark object. #101: Liz Edwards' first enhancement of the original NBC photograph shows the two white dots and the small, dark object just BELOW the white dot on the left.

#102: The second enhancement by Ms. Edwards shows an enlargement of the object which reveals what appears to be a clearly defined 'missile' shape flying from right to left in the frame. Notice what appears to be a reduced diameter of the 'fuselage' and almost conical ending, or exhaust nozzle, on the right end. Out of that 'nozzle' appears to be small round white 'flame' and a perfect stream of rocket exhaust extending directly away and to the right. #103: In this enhancement, Ms. Edwards has 'reversed' the black and white image and the object is seen to perfectly maintain its silhouette and 'exhaust' field as before.

#104: This is a special process employed by Ms. Edwards to bring out the pixel shape of the object in the picture. #105: A blow-up of the NBC photograph to show the area of the computer enhancement. The object is in the center underneath the smaller white dot. #106: An extreme close-up of the small, dark object. What do you think it is?

The Rant

reply to post by WASTYT
it is on youtube...44 minutes long....check under TWA 800 conspiracy...sorry I don't know how to link it

Originally posted by elouina
Except, didn't they say that it was an unidentified USAir plane?

I don't know, did they? Source?

Can you tell if that is a plane or not by looking at the radar?

The radar display is supposed to combine 2 signals:
1. The primary reflection that bounced off the object or plane, and
2. The secondary transponder signal

If you get both of those it shows the flight ID like we see for TWA800.
If you only get the first one, you see a blip with no flight ID. That could be any number of things. It could be something like an unidentified USAir plane if the transponder on the USAir plane wasn't working right, though I'd expect that to be an unusual event.

If the primary radar return is a missile or some aircraft debris from an aircraft that is breaking up, then that could be another reason for no transponder signal. I thought some were arguing for the latter saying it was traveling at mach 2, which is faster than a USAir flight which never goes over mach 1.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


Source? I think it was one of the zillion government papers I read. Groan... Let me look for a source for this.

Oh maybe it was with the pictures. This will teach me to get lazy. I figured the 4th picture wouldn't be any different than the third. But what do I know about radar. I didn't think this was important. I was wondering about the 4 blips that were mentioned elsewhere.

Seventeen seconds later. The red circle traffic has now been identified and matches the transponder ID of the USAir flight seen in the other video. It's data block shows an altitude of flight level 214, or 21,400 MSL.

Images from the Second Radar Tape.

Noteworthy is this ATC line that wasn't touched on in the documentary:

"Ah yes sir, it blew up in the air and then we saw two fireballs coming out of the water, there's a big smoke plume coming up from that. Also, there seemed to be a light, I thought it was a landing light [inaudible] it was coming right at us at 15,000 or something like that, so I put on my landing lights so [inaudible] but then it blew!"

It's the second recording in this video: www.youtube.com...

If anyone knows what the inaudible words are? Anyway what's that all about, what is that person describing? Two different things at least, an explosion, and a light moving toward them.

Also it was THIS video that brought me to ATS (It was in their media archive) and this video has always stuck with me, especially through learning about cases like TWA 800. Notice how there is no explanation for this whatsoever, as you might expect. I wonder if the denial over this clip is because of the necessary lid that needs to be kept on TWA 800. Personal speculation...ho hum!