Reply #66: Sorry, I saw this on a TV news report in passing.. [View All]

[Almost_there]

They replayed interviews with people on the scene that November, I have no links, therefore, my information is obviously suspect and faulty. As to the UFO's, I was being facetious, however, this was reported about flight 587.

Yes, I do say things tongue in cheek, however, I see people often looking to find massive conspiracy behind virtually everything in life, and that is simply ridiculous. I find the information about flight 800 and the conspiracies to border on some realm beyond paranoia. The crash occured about what, 10 miles off shore, immediately after take off. 10 miles off shore. On a July evening right off of the largest city in the country, with the single most populous county (Queens), with literally dozens of small craft, totally beyond the control of the Coast Guard (unless they were all in cahoots, and the small craft owners decided to play along with the USCG, USAF & USN), the US what? Navy? Air Force? Were shooting missiles in a live fire exercise in the flight path of the nations 3rd busiest (though at the time I think it may have been 2 behind O'Hare) airport, and they missed and shot a jumbo jet out of the sky? That's the part that I can't buy. Why are you so suspicious of an empty fuel tank? The tank wouldn't have been full for a short hop to Paris, would it? That is at least plausible. The part about the missile? Oh, come now. Who saw the missile? Some saw it fired from land, some from the air, some from a boat. Let's examine shoulder fired missiles, shall we?

Obviously, a shoulder fired missile would have come up short if fired from the beach, right? The crash happened 10 miles off shore, so, it must have happened from a boat. A stinger missile has a range of 8km, but, let's be generous and say 12km. That's still only about 7 miles, plus, toss in altitude, and it would wind up short. So, shore is out for shoulder fired. Let's go with a shoulder fired from a boat. Nice and close.

Now about that explosion. Virtually every missile launched from land (or sea in this case) is infrared, or heat seaking as it were. On a 747-100, there are 4 massive heat sources, let's call them Rolls Royce engines, RB211-524H2-T, 59,900 Lbs of thrust per engine, weighing let's just use a round number of 9,000 pounds. So, you take a warhead streaking towards a massive engine weighing 9,000 pounds (notice, the seaker does NOT go for the plane itself, since it is infrared, and designed to go for the heat source) with roughly 30 pounds of high explosives and a missile weight of 5 pounds. So, kaboom goes the rocket, proximty fused to go off about 5 feet from its target, inflicting maximum damage, shrapnel slicing the engine to bits, igniting the fuel from the now missing engine, probably ripping into the cabin if it was the inboard engine, or, maybe taking out both engines if the rocket rolled a 7.. So, now the 747.. explodes? Why? It is a plane designed to TAKE OFF with only 2 engines turning.. I think (if I recall my discovery channel correctly) it can fly and make an emergency landing with only one, though that might not be correct) So.. why did the plane blow up? The rocket would have sheered the engine to bits, torn the wing apart, and sent the thing tumbling into the ocean (assuming catastrophic wing damage, loss of hyrdraulics, etc etc), but, not I just can't see it blowing it out of the sky. It would go down, but, from the programs I've seen, commercial aircraft are designed to fly if an engine falls off the wing.

So, I don't think a small shoulder fired missile wouldn't work. Let's call in the big guns.. we'll call it a Navy SM-2, medium range radar controlled missile. Meant to go for the plane, not the engines necessarily. Proximity fused to explode just before hitting the target, several hundred pounds of high explosives and solid rocket fuel to go with it, the perfect weapon. Of course, the missile is 15 feet long, requires a navy Aegis cruiser at what? 300 feet long? to launch from, leaves a HUGE trail of black smoke in its wake from the solid propellant that everyone in New York harbor would have seen. So, yes, am I looking at these things very skeptically? Yes, I am. Why? Because I don't view life as a massive conspiracy, with every car accident, plane crash, explosion, etc as a cover up. I've read through so much information on Flight 800, I knew someone (not closely, but, I knew her) on the plane, and I still just can't see it as a Navy exercise gone awry. I don't see Flight 587 as anything other than the screw up of a plane taking off into the turbulance of another heavy craft and reacting badly, putting stress onto the tail that was never designed properly to handle that sort of lateral stress. Am I being some sort of lemming in following the reports of 9/11, not really believing all of the dozens of DIFFERENT rumors out there? That's for you to decide. But, even paranoids have enemies, and just because someone's paranoid doesn't mean they aren't being followed.

And as far as Pan Am 103, how quickly did that get out that it was a terrorist act? They found explosives, they announced it. If all these other flights were taken out by terrorists, or a ship hitting "Launch" instead of "Lunch", wouldn't you expect either a claim of responsibility from the terrorists, or a leak from some disgruntled person in the Navy? We see the folks in Iraq aren't happy, and they are killing Iraqis! Think of what they might feel if they just took out 300 of their own citizens by accident. I think it might just leak. I do enjoy your discussions, Media, you always bring a great perspective to things, and I don't want to piss you off, or make others think I am trying to discredit them or anything, but, I am very grounded in reality, it is my nature. Peace.

~Almost