TWA Flight 800 | Page 2 | FerrariChat

TWA Flight 800

Discussion in 'Aviation Chat' started by Ney, Jun 19, 2013.

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  1. Tcar

    Tcar F1 Rookie

    You might check w/ other sites... airliners.net for instance. Or do a search.

    It very well might be. It often flew from Greece to NY and went back to Rome via Paris with just a short clean/refuel in NY.

    Plane was N93119.
     
  2. 2000YELLOW360

    2000YELLOW360 F1 World Champ

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    Flying magazine has an article about it on line. An interesting read.

    Art
     
  3. Tcar

    Tcar F1 Rookie

    #28 Tcar, Jun 20, 2013
    Last edited: Jun 20, 2013
    It was outbound. Had just fueled.

    Everything I've read said the center wing tank was partly full only.

    After the investigation, the NTSB recommended (besides wiring changes) that all new planes have a 'nitrogen inert gas' system to fill empty tanks. Also, recommended it be fitted on existing planes where feasible.
    Don't know if any were actually installed.
     
  4. Shane86

    Shane86 Karting

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    Leaving the center tank empty or partially filled is common on these wide bodies. Yes there is a fuel inert campaign out now for the B747 but I thin the compliance time is way out. As much as I hate to agree the Navy may be deep in the middle of this tragedy. The probes that they are pointing to are very low voltage. No expert but have been in the business for many years and have never seen anything in the fuel system that would have such an effect. The system is designed not to do that and has been in service on many platforms for many years with no events....just sayin.

    SW
     
  5. BMW.SauberF1Team

    BMW.SauberF1Team F1 World Champ

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    Cool. Will try to check when I have free time in a few weeks. Wish I kept my ticket stubs back then...all I've kept to this day was some Pepsi can I was given on the flight because it was some weird Arabic version with the strangest tab opening I've ever seen. I'm 99% sure I got that on flight 800 even though I flew on a 747SP (Iran Air) shortly after getting in Paris and they wouldn't serve something with Arabic on it.
     
  6. FERRARI-TECH

    FERRARI-TECH Formula 3

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    I just read something on another forum which sparked (sorry) my interest even more.

    Basically it said, if the whole 787 fleet was grounded for some overheating wiring and smoke, would the 747's have not been grounded to fix wiring that would destroy the aircraft. ??

    Everything I have read by people claiming to be 747 pilots or crew are with Bob Parks on this one and believe there is more to the story.
     
  7. Bisonte

    Bisonte F1 Veteran
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    But why cover up an accidental shootdown? To protect some weapons systems operators? A ship's captain? After 230 innocent people died? That doesn't make sense to me.
     
  8. TexasF355F1

    TexasF355F1 Seven Time F1 World Champ
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    Makes absolute sense when dealing with the government.

    Ive said it before but I know nothing about planes but to think this thing blew to high heaven like the Scotland bombing just doesn't add up from what I've read.
     
  9. James_Woods

    James_Woods F1 World Champ

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    Just look at the shuffling and dealing from the bottom of the deck on Benghazi. I used to think that such a thing was unthinkable, but not any more.
     
  10. Texas Forever

    Texas Forever Eight Time F1 World Champ
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    I don't know how old you are. But as someone who came of age in the late '60s and early '70s, you learned to never trust our government because they would lie even when the truth would do. The worst was discovering that they lied because they believed it was the right thing to do.

    My dad flew PBYs in the Pacific. He told me later that we gave the Japs almost as good as we got, and everybody, including the press, covered it up. Telling the truth would be bad for morale. This father knows best attitude continued on through Korea and Vietnam.

    So would the Navy lie about a bad missile shot? I dunno. I think that would be their first reaction. However, it would be difficult in the day and age to keep a secret like that. After all, there would be potentially several hundred people who would know at least some aspects of a cover up.

    My completely uneducated guess would be that this was a perfect-storm fubar. **** happens and sometimes we never know why.
     
  11. hans2

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    I’ve kept tabs on this since ‘96 and never fell for the official punch line. Too many witness accounts and leaks from those with insider info. Even read the fictional book by Nelson Demille, “Night Fall,” which was a plausible hypothetical story centering on this event. My take from years of reading:

    --Missile strike, perhaps kinetic, but from outside terrorist org. Those LI waters were a regular outbound flight path from Kennedy. Navy had the whole ocean to perform exercises with safe buffer. Not sure why there would be a surface-air installation nearby, doing active training at that time.
    --Read that real target may have been an outbound El Al 747. Israeli intelligence knew of this potential threat and had pilots stand-down from runway taxi and/or take alternate outbound course.
    --Acknowledging the truth—assuming terrorist rocket—would have dented flyers’ confidence in domestic air, exposed gaping holes in national security, and usher calls for immediate retaliation. The latter is something gov’t probably didn’t want to undertake until a bigger punch was landed. And it did a few years later.
     
  12. Tcar

    Tcar F1 Rookie

    #37 Tcar, Jun 21, 2013
    Last edited: Jun 21, 2013
    Where did you read that? Have not heard that before.

    Any documentation, or is it just some wild theory, like from deMille's book?
     
  13. tazandjan

    tazandjan Three Time F1 World Champ
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    Hans- Great theory shot down by the facts. First, they were well above SA-7/SA-16 max effective altitude (~15,000' for just about all ManPADS), and second, no warhead explosion pattern anywhere on the aircraft. Plus the warhead on an ManPADS is so small, a 747 would likely survive one hit and continue flying.

    Have a little experience with SA-16s since one was fired at me in Desert Storm. We were at 12,000' in an F-111F (killing tanks with GBU-12s), but outclimbed the little bugger. That 747 was still climbing, too.
     
  14. Chupacabra

    Chupacabra F1 Rookie
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    Not doubting your facts, but I thought 800 was just passing through 13k when she blew. Would that 2000ft still make a manPADS strike unlikely?

    Regardless, I tend to think the terrorist missile theory is pretty unlikely.
     
  15. Ney

    Ney F1 Veteran
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    #40 Ney, Jun 21, 2013
    Last edited: Jun 21, 2013
    I agree that it is extremely unlikely that it was a terrorist act from a known portable air defense weapon. There would have been a claim of responsibility immediately after that type of event.

    What is of interest is the vast number of eyewitness reports of from as far away as CT that state that they saw "something" come up and then the plane exploded.

    It is ironically circumstantial that the Navy was in the area with surface ships, three subs and air assets, conducting Classified exercises and if indeed there was a screw up that ended up shooting down flight 800 with a classified weapon, what do you do? If the Navy admits it, the first question is "what kind of weapon was it"? and "that's classified" is a pretty poor answer. Not to mention the publicity fallout of a friendly fire shoot down of a commercial airliner. We may not know for many more years what the Navy was doing when this event occurred.

    The problem is that the official explanation given was not very satisfactory either. You have a transatlantic 747 (likely with full tanks) exploding due to faulty wiring. Yes, kerosene/Jet A burns, but it does not result in a fireball causing the complete and spontaneous destruction of the airframe. Jet fuel has a much higher flash point than gasoline. You might get a fire onboard with a leak that finds a spark, but not an explosion. If that happened, you would get smoke in the aircraft, people would feel heat, a call would be made to air traffic control that they had an emergency, etc.

    I am not one to run immediately to a conspiracy theory, but it seems that is more to the story than what has been told and NTSB folks coming forward and stating that they were pushed to a conclusion is troubling. Yes, if I were Boeing, I would want to scream that it was not our wiring, but I would be shooting myself in the foot for any future military contracts if I did so. Easier to say, "yeah, we had a problem. We fixed it. Stuff gets old you know"

    As far as keeping an unintentional firing of a weapon quiet, it is likely that very few sailors would know much about the test of a classified weapon and said weapon may not have created a typical or understandable damage pattern on the aircraft.

    Black programs have created some amazing things and I understand the need to have them, but when mistakes happen with black programs all sorts of crazy stories and myths are created to cover them. This may be one of them.

    Many facts catalogued here:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWA_Flight_800
     
  16. tazandjan

    tazandjan Three Time F1 World Champ
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    15,000' is the upper limit and you would have to be in perfect position to hit a climbing target at 13,000'. I thought she was much higher. Still extremely unlikely it was a ManPADS.

    IIRC, they did not fill that center tank because a trip to Paris going east was a pretty short hop by 747 standards. So it was empty except for vapor.
     
  17. James_Woods

    James_Woods F1 World Champ

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    So you believe that the low voltage wires ignited the tank vapors?

    I am skeptical.
     
  18. Texas Forever

    Texas Forever Eight Time F1 World Champ
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    If this is true, why didn't some whacko group claim credit? Being an anonymous terrorist group is a contradiction in terms.
     
  19. Chupacabra

    Chupacabra F1 Rookie
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    #44 Chupacabra, Jun 21, 2013
    Last edited: Jun 21, 2013
    Actually, there WAS a claim that was faxed to one of the larger newspapers but I think it came from a group who would probably have claimed a mudslide. There was never a credible claim as far as I know. Some people seem to think it is a smoking gun, but I don't know if even it's origin was ever verified.

    Just another little bit of a very strange and tragic story...
     
  20. donv

    donv Two Time F1 World Champ
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    I hate to be a downer for all you conspiracy guys, but if the Navy shot it down, wouldn't someone from the ship be the whistleblower?

    Have you ever heard from anyone on the ship about this? Ever?
     
  21. boxerman

    boxerman F1 World Champ
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    If weapon hit it, then the wereckage would indicate this. There is no way that hundreds of investigators would be able to cover it up without someone blabbing.

    Some type of laser igniting the fuel or something maybe.

    I seem to remmebr hearing that a Phillipines airline 737 had a center tank blow but while on the taxi way. Apparently the tank was over the ac units and the heat turned the nearly empy tank fuel to vapor. I dont think it tkes much of a spark to ignite hot vapors.
     
  22. James_Woods

    James_Woods F1 World Champ

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    What are you talking about?
     
  23. donv

    donv Two Time F1 World Champ
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    Are there any of these massive conspiracy theories which have actually proven out to be true?

    I know the Russians opening the KGB files put a lot of them to rest back in the 90s...
     
  24. Tcar

    Tcar F1 Rookie

    TWA 800 had the A/C packs directly under the center wing tank also and it was a very hot day.


    They theorized that the A/C could have heated the vapors in the tank above them and a small spark ignited it. A contributory factor.

    I've read accounts that the center tank was empty, and another source said it was partly full.
     
  25. James_Woods

    James_Woods F1 World Champ

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    No, we do not automatically believe the theories - but there are still a lot of questions.
     

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