Successful FAA Testing of Its Fuel Tank Safety System, to Prevent TWA 800 Type Explosions

Get one of the flight simulators such as MSFS or X-Plane. Take an 747 at the same speed that 800 was going, shut the engines off, give it full aft trim, and it will climb over 3000 feet, then stalls out and falls like a rock. These simulators are at least 90% accurate.

I doubt that "full aft trim" can simulate the decapitation and loss of the 80,000 lbs of the nose... It actually moved the center of gravity aft ward by about 13 feet while the center of lift remained centered on the wing. Nor can it simulate the sudden huge increase in drag caused by the aircraft suddenly presenting a 21 foot open fuselage and the resultant air hammer to a 400 MPH wind torquing the aircraft rapidly upward and backwards when the aerodynamic nose is suddenly removed.

In addition, your simulated aircraft, as you said, would stall out and "fall like a rock"... and splash in about 3000 - 4500 feet eastward of the point of the original initiating event because once it reach its Zoom climb peak altitude, it would have converted all of its forward momentum (exchanging velocity for altitude) and have close to zero left for eastward vectored movement.

But that's not where it splashed in.

The nose without any lifting surfaces splashed in approximately 1.1 Nautical miles from the point at which it is estimated it broke away from aircraft. It fell like a thrown brick (ballistically) and the 400 MPH effective headwind quickly decelerated the relatively lightweight nose. The main body of the aircraft, with a mass five times that of the nose, has greater momentum to spend against that headwind... and the main body fell ballistically 2.7 nautical miles from the initiating point.

Ever wonder why the Feds sealed the evidence, and destroyed some, from the public after the 'official' explanation?

The NTSB still has the reconstructed plane and lets some people see it. - link

But the main body picked up enough speed to start breaking up when it fell plus it “flew” for a while. The main thing is that the ability to climb is demonstrated.

But the main body picked up enough speed to start breaking up when it fell plus it “flew” for a while. The main thing is that the ability to climb is demonstrated.

I disagree. The radar tracks show that the main body did not pick up speed. The break up most likely occurred when the main body started spinning and then when the center wing tank finally did blow when the aircraft was under 7000 feet.

Whether it flew is very problematic. Your flight simulator assumes that the wing will still maintain a proper angle of attack... but calculations show that with the CoG 13 or more feet behind the CoL the aircraft would have pitched up rapidly (in seconds) and the wing would have stalled. Without lift, there would have been no smooth climb.

Again, a climb to any appreciable altitude over its starting altitude takes TIME... and it takes an equal amount of time to fall back to the starting altitude. Time that simply does not exist between the time we know the plane was flying normally and when the crippled main body, minus a wing, disappeared off the radar and into the ocean ~38 to 41 seconds after the initiating event.

Were we to subtract the 7-8 seconds needed for the Zoom Climb scenario to be true, we are left with approximately ~33 seconds to fall 17,000 feet. To accomplish this, we need a fall rate that averages 515 feet per second starting from a downward velocity of ZERO with gravity being the only force acting in that direction. In the first second, the aircraft wreck would only fall 16 feet... and accelerate downward 32 feet per second per second after that until the force of gravity pulling it down is equalled by the force of drag preventing it from accelerating any more - terminal velocity.

Since that 515 feet per second is an average velocity of fall, and since we started with a zero velocity in that vector, the terminal velocity has to be MUCH HIGHER. But the terminal velocity of a falling 747 appears to be only about 450 feet per second... again, the math says there was no Zoom climb.

Let's consider the climb. After the climb was started, 7 - 8 seconds later the noseless aircraft reached terminal altitude, which means it had ZERO upward velocity. It had to climb 3200 feet in those 7-8 seconds... which requires an upwardly vectored average velocity of 457 feet per second. The only force acting on the unpowered climbing aircraft is gravity at 32 ft/sec/sec acceleration - downward. If at the end of the 8th second, the velocity is zero, and the average velocity over those 8 seconds is 457 ft. per second (By the way, according to Boeing, the max climb rate of an average loaded 747 is 100 feet per second under 5000 feet - although it can probably do better ), what is the upward velocity during the FIRST second??? Where did that velocity come from? How many Gs did that force impart to the aircraft to cause such a high upward velocity? Remember, the aircraft will have massive momentum to continue in the direction it is already going. To change that requires the application of a force. A very large force. The only force available, absent the engines, is lift.

We know that before the initiating event the aircraft was climbing normally at 33 ft. per second and traveling north-eastwardly at about 580 ft per second (400 MPH).

Did the plane suddenly and almost instantaneously convert 78% or more of its forward velocity and momentum into upward velocity and momentum? 78% would only get us the average upward velocity needed to move from point A (the start of the climb) to point B (the end of the climb) without allowing for the deceleration being applied at every point between A and B by G.

What force could do that... and how fast did it act? In other words what was the jerk (F/T)? If this force was applied over one second, I calculate it to be about 13 Gs. 13Gs just to change the upward vectored velocity from 33 ft per sec. to the average 457 ft. per second in one second... and it would probably have been a lot more. How could the wing stay attached if it was lift that was the active force? Especially if the initiating event had been the explosion of the Center Wing Tank... which is essentially a box girder that connects the wings to the fuselage in a 747?

The NTSB still has the reconstructed plane and lets some people see it. - link

They didn't keep all of it. Some went to a landfill.

Thanks. That was some interesting stuff you posted. I haven’t read anything about Flight 800 for seven or eight years, and my memory of the details are pretty vague. I do, however, remember that the zoom climb theory was disproven numerous ways. The timeline you posted is far easier to believe than the official zoom climb theory.

Rate of fall at 16 ft per sec per sec is calculated only in a vaccum. Check your math again. Any outside force or drag has an effect at all times. The rate at which an object reaches terminal velocity will differ due to drag and due to altitude or air pressure. Mass or inertia can over come drag for a short period of time. Shoot a rifle or arrow into the air. It will continue to climb until drag AND gravity over comes it.

These facts were well known...

You are misusing the word "facts". The type of radar used for ATC is optimized for range. It has a relatively slow sweep, a long pulse width, and relatively low frequency. There is simply no way that such a radar could provide anything more than the spot location of the aircraft. It is not designed to give precise information, nor is it capable of it. The ATC relies on a working transponder to get detailed information.

The damage is not consistent with a MANPAD system and the altitude makes a lock-on by a MANPAD seeker and a subsequent rainbow fly out highly improbable. So what kind of missile was it? Why was a rather large weapon system transported thousands of miles to shoot down a single passenger plane that could have been brought down anywhere? Of what good is a terrorist action if the terrorists don't claim responsibility and explain how they can do it again? What is the government's incentive to attempt to keep hundreds of people quiet (like that's ever worked)?

I'm sorry, I just don't think the missile idea has much behind it. Just as people win the lottery, one in 100 million statistical events do happen.

TWA-800 almost certainly blew up from a spark in the fuel tank, a misidentified bomb close to the fuel tank, or it suffered an even rarer fate such as a meteor strike.

But I'm willing to listen to plausible conjecture on a missile, as long as its plausible.

For example, why would a foreign power donate a multimillion dollar missile system, which would point all fingers back at them, to shoot down a inconsequential target? This is a classic everything to lose, nothing to gain situation. If they wanted to help terrorists, they could simply give them MANPADS and tell them to go anywhere within hundreds of square miles where the airliners would be at a much lower altitude.

A lot of the original investigation was done by process of elimination. I think the NTSB did a great job on this as far as tying a chain of events together. One little break in that chain and we would still have airplanes flying with frayed wires. Had it come down over mid ocean, we would have never known what happened.

Rate of fall at 16 ft per sec per sec is calculated only in a vaccum. Check your math again. Any outside force or drag has an effect at all times. The rate at which an object reaches terminal velocity will differ due to drag and due to altitude or air pressure. Mass or inertia can over come drag for a short period of time. Shoot a rifle or arrow into the air. It will continue to climb until drag AND gravity over comes it.

Pardon me... but it is 32 feet per second per second not 16, the force of gravity is still the same in a vacuum or in air, but you may have to account for other forces that may counter it -the 16 feet is the distance covered by that accelerating force over one second starting from a stationary position relative to that vector.

Also, I am well aware of the drag from the atmosphere as a countering force which determines terminal velocity when the collision enough of the molecules of the air imparts a force sufficient to equal the force accelerating the moving mass. The drag of the atmosphere would act in opposition to the pull of gravity pulling the plane down and LENGTHEN the time of the fall from the ideal vacuum conditions... in which there is no terminal velocity except perhaps that of light.

Since we already know within five seconds how long it took to splash into the ocean from the moment the event that started the chain of events, adding the zoom climb and adding drag would lengthen that time even farther than the observed event allows time for.

That 3200 foot climb the CIA demonstrated in its cartoon is also an ideal distance... the climb that would result from converting 100% of the forward momentum of the plane into upward momentum... also ignoring the countering force of drag. That means stopping ALL forward momentum and converting it instantly into upward momentum... it didn't happen, otherwise the plane would have gone STRAIGHT UP and then STRAIGHT DOWN and splashed in directly under the initiating point. Since it splashed in 2.7 nautical miles from the initiating point, we know that 100% of the forward momentum was NOT converted into altitude... in fact we know that a high percentage of the calculated forward momentum was required to be used against the drag of the atmosphere to get the powerless, noseless aircraft to the splashdown point. If it had been used in the climb, it would not have been where it was found!

The CIA and NTSB have both refused, even in the face of Freedom of Information Act lawsuits from Ray Lahr, to provide the theory and calculations that they used to create their zoom climb scenarios. Why? The observed known facts and math only works for a ballistic fall in atmosphere from the initiating point and does not allow for any zoom climb.

Most conspiracy theorists contend that the 747 exploded in a huge fireball as portrayed in the following graphic when struck by a missile at about 13,800 feet at approximately 8:21:12.

In effect, you disagree in part by alleging that although the 747 was struck by a missile at approximately the same time and altitude as contended by most of the conspiracy theorists, the huge fireball explosion took place 8:31:39:64 at 7,000 feet.

It's interesting that your 7,000 foot altitude allegation for the huge fireball explosion is compatible with the detailed report personally prepared by airborne witnesses Sven Faret and Ken Wendell .

However, it is your speculation that a missile was fired at the 747 at 8:31:04 - APPROXIMATELY THIRTY SIx SECONDS BEFORE THE HUGE FIREBALL EXPLOSION that appears to be in conflict with the vast majority, if not all, of the streak witness reports.

Some examples:

Witness 108 - "in southwest he saw what appeared to be a flare rise up from below the tree line." "rising at a 65 degree angle at a steady speed." "the flare left behind a smoke trail which was bluish/gray in color." "The flare rose upward and then arced downward." "the flare descended from the arc for approximately one second and exploded into an orange ball."

Witness 151 - "he described what he thought was a flare" "he described the flare as a white wispy trail that went straight up." "he followed the flare for about 5 seconds, then the flare turned into an orange burst."

.Witness 157 - "noticed a red flare or firework trailing white smoke ascending over the tree line". "Approximately seven to ten seconds later he observed a large fireball erupt"

Witness 174 - "saw a skyrocket type object streak up into the night sky from behind Sheffield Island. The skyrocket had an orange contrail which had a continuous brightness." "A few seconds later, after the skyrocket contrail disappeared, he saw a large orange fireball appear"

Witness 179 - "she observed an object ...which looked like a flare or a firework going up. She thought at first it was a firework which was a dud because it arced and went down." "she observed the object climb in an erratic fashion for about five seconds at which point she noticed an explosion"

Witness 484 - "for approximately ten seconds, observed the object traveling in an arc from her lower right to upper left. The object disappeared for approximately one second and then observed a large explosion in the same area where the object had disappeared."

Witness 497 - "observed what he thought was a red flare appear and ascend in the sky." "the red flare-like object appeared to be moving straight up at a steady, high rate of speed." "the object's shape, color and speed remained constant for approximately four to five seconds." "At this time, the object disappeared in an intense bright white explosion.

Witness 692 - [Pilot of an H-60 helicopter, flying a night refueling mission (Maj. Meyer)] "saw a streak of red light moving very fast from his right to his left..described the streak of light as having the trajectory and image of a shooting star. The streak moved from a higher elevation to a lower elevation in a gently descending curve. He observed the streak for one or two seconds after which he saw an explosion."

TWA 800 splashed into the ocean between 38 and 43 seconds after initiating event. There is simply no time to add in 7 seconds of Zoom climb and 7 seconds of fall, a total of 14 seconds (actually the math says 16 seconds) to the record.

You're applying a micrometer to an ax cut. First, the radar lost the aircraft parts when they fell below the radar's line of sight horizon, not when they hit the water. Secondly, the radar gain is set to detect massive aircraft, not spinning parts, so it is quite likely that many of the pieces were simply not returning an adequate amplitude to be processed. If someone knows radars at all, they know the limitations of a radar with such a slow sweep.

To use a lack of information as proof, when it comes from a system not capable of providing such information is guaranteed to produce an erred analysis.

Since the engines revert to idle when signal from the cockpit is lost (per Boeing), the only source of energy to power the Zoom Climb would be to convert the forward momentum into upward momentum. To achieve the 3200 feet of the CIA's Zoom climb 100% of the forward momentum would have had to have been converted into an upward vector... any less and the plane could not have reached that altitude. In fact, that's the theoretical maximum climb that the available forward momentum could have provided. I think that's how the CIA came up with that altitude because they certainly could not have derived it from the radar record. When the plane reached its peak altitude (all energy is converted) the forward momentum and hence velocity would be ZERO... and the plane would fall straight down into the ocean from that peak... it didn't.

That whole statement is flawed. It appears to be the creation of parsed facts, imagined events, with a big dose of flawed data points.

But please explain why you put so much stock in whether the climb was 3000 or 1500 feet, and why the conspirators would create a false climb to begin with? Wouldn't it have been easier for them to just go with the "actual" path? You should take note that the mathematical projections of impact are often wrong, way wrong. When the military has lost things falling from aircraft (like hydrogen bombs), they have used the same models and have failed to find the items or found them miles, even tens of miles away.

"Over two weeks, various flight conditions were tested. This included ground operations, multiple rate accents, descents, and BLAH BLAH BLAH, B*LLSH*T, B*LLSH*T, B*LLSH*T...

-- --

The first system was tested better than this on over 1200 planes for over 29 years without a similar incident - all before flight 800 and the subsequent coverup.

“Take the nose off of a plane and it will shift the center of gravity behind the center of lift causing it to climb.

If the center of pressure is moved far enough rearward by a large nose falling off, the plane won’t want to yaw, either, and should continue in a straight line, even though it has the aerodynamics of a brick wall (with a 150 foot tail).”

- - - - - -

Well, one thing I know for certain: You do not have a Physics, Aeronautical or Engineering degree of any sort.

You are misusing the word "facts". The type of radar used for ATC is optimized for range. It has a relatively slow sweep, a long pulse width, and relatively low frequency. There is simply no way that such a radar could provide anything more than the spot location of the aircraft. It is not designed to give precise information, nor is it capable of it. The ATC relies on a working transponder to get detailed information.

ATC radar was not the only radar active in the area. The data in the time line were provided by the Islip Primary ASR-8 Surveillance Radar that does not require a transponder response. Without a transponder, the radar provided distance and vector but not altitude. It is also a fact that there were at least two radars sweeping the area and the exact location of the aircraft was known every 4.65 seconds as the Islip radar swept the area and a passive echo was returned. TWA800's transponder was not working after the initiating event. Speed of the aircraft was calculated based on the known distance between sweeps and the time it took the aircraft to move from point A to B... Speed=Distance/Time.

Of what good is a terrorist action if the terrorists don't claim responsibility and explain how they can do it again?

They did... our press either didn't report it... or, taking the lead from the administration's attitude, deliberately discounted any claims:

"In the absence of explanations, theories abounded. One focused on a fax sent Wednesday to an Arabic language newspaper in Beirut warning of an attack. State Department and CIA officials confirmed they had received copies of the fax Thursday. The message said "tomorrow morning we will strike the Americans in a way they do not expect and it will be very surprising to them," according to one official. A counterterrorism source familiar with the fax said that it was sent at 11 a.m. New York time Wednesday, more than nine hours before the bombing. But a CIA source said that the agency "does not attach too much significance" to the fax.
"The fax, written in Arabic, ends with the following threat: "The Mujahadeen will respond harshly to the threats of the stupid American president. All will be shocked by the magnitude of the response. The determining of the place and time are in the hands of the Mujahadeen. The invaders must get ready to leave alive or dead; and their rendezvous will be morning, and isn't morning near." U.S. News and World Report magazine, in the July 29, 1996 issue, identified the group who sent the fax as, "The Movement of Islamic Jihad/The Jihad Wing of the Arabian Peninsula." [Editors Note: 8pm Eastern Time in New York is early morning in the Persian Gulf.]"
Newsday.com, July 19, 1996
. . . Senior Iranian sources close to the fundamentalist regime in Tehran claimed this weekend that TWA flight 800 was shot down last month by one of three shoulder-fired Stingers of the type used by Islamic guerrillas during the Afghanistan war. The sources said the missiles arrived in America seven months ago after being shipped from Karachi via Rotterdam and on to the Canadian port of Halifax. They claimed an Egyptian fundamentalist group backed by Iran was responsible for smuggling the weapons across the Canadian border into the United States. The group, the Gama'a al-Islamiya, comprises followers of Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, a blind Egyptian cleric jailed in the United States over the 1993 New York World Trade Center bombing."
The Times of London, August 27, 1996
" . . . at least one terrorist has claimed credit for the TWA 800 bombing. World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Ahmed Yousef told authorities his group is responsible. Yousef's claim has not been made public, but it is in the FBI file."
The American Spectator, Sept. 1997

If you can read Arabic, here is the Al Hayat article threatening the attack.

You're applying a micrometer to an ax cut. First, the radar lost the aircraft parts when they fell below the radar's line of sight horizon, not when they hit the water. Secondly, the radar gain is set to detect massive aircraft, not spinning parts, so it is quite likely that many of the pieces were simply not returning an adequate amplitude to be processed. If someone knows radars at all, they know the limitations of a radar with such a slow sweep.

Your point is pointless. The radar "sight" horizon of the Islip primary radar at the distance where TWA-800 splashed in was a mere 29 feet above sea level... hardly significant. The aircraft would have fallen that distance in ~7/100ths of a second at its terminal velocity of about 450 feet per second.

Secondly, the radar gain is set to detect massive aircraft, not spinning parts, so it is quite likely that many of the pieces were simply not returning an adequate amplitude to be processed.

The main body of the aircraft was still intact at splash in... it apparently was minus its left wing but the fuselage was certainly big enough to provide an adequate radar return.

To use a lack of information as proof, when it comes from a system not capable of providing such information is guaranteed to produce an erred analysis.

You are the one who claims the Islip Primary Radar is incapable of providing such information... the NTSB relied on it. I think it is accurate enough.

That whole statement is flawed. It appears to be the creation of parsed facts, imagined events, with a big dose of flawed data points.

I am providing detailed analysis and you are dismissing it out of hand... name the "parsed facts," specify the "imagined events," and detail exactly what are "flawed" about the data points.

But please explain why you put so much stock in whether the climb was 3000 or 1500 feet, and why the conspirators would create a false climb to begin with?

I put so much stock in whether the climb was 3000 or 1500 feet because those are the gains in altitude claimed first by the CIA cartoon and the latter by the NTSB cartoon.

As to why, both the CIA and the NTSB trotted out their cartoons to impeach the eyewitnesses who said they variously saw something climb to the plane and hit it. They used the cartoons to impeach the witnesses by claiming it was proof that what they saw was the crippled nose-less plane zoom climbing, trailing burning fuel. If the zoom climb did not occur then the eyewitnesses are not impeached.

The math, the physics, says that a nose-less, powerless (engines at idle) aircraft can only use the lift of its primary wing to convert its forward momentum into altitude. The CIA cartoon claimed 3200 feet of altitude gain... but to do that, 100% of the horizontally vectored forward momentum carried by the aircraft would have been required to have been instantly rotated 90º with 100% efficiency. It also means that ALL FORWARD MOTION ceased instantly and was converted into UPWARD MOTION. That is not physically possible.

Once physicists and mathematicians started criticizing the CIA's cartoon, the NTSB created another one... this time claiming only a 1500-1600 foot gain in altitude which would convert only about 75% of the forward momentum into altitude gain... but they are still faced with the math of the fall... and where it landed. To get the crippled aircraft from the loss of power point, and loss of lift point, to splash in requires the expenditure of its forward momentum which is drained away by the force of atmospheric drag... and if 75% of its forward momentum was used to climb 1500 feet, there isn't enough left to get it 2.5 - 2.7 nautical miles from where the event started. Its more plausible... but not much.

Then there is the issue of time... it takes TIME to climb and TIME to fall back down to the starting altitude... If the climb is unpowered, which this one was, then the time to climb and the time to fall are equal (drag may effect this, depending on the aircraft's presentation to the direction of climb or fall). The forces that slows and eventually stops the climb, gravity (plus drag for slowing), is the same force that starts the fall and it is applied over equal time. As I have said repeatedly, WE KNOW when the series of events started... sometime after the last transponder return. WE KNOW when the main body of the wreckage did not return any more radar echos... so we have a window of time in which all of the events from start to splash in had to have occurred. To sustain a 3200 foot climb, we have to add much more time to account for that climb. There isn't room in the approximately 38-41 seconds between event A, the last transponder return, and event B, the last radar echo before splash down.

If we DO add the time for the climb and subsequent fall back to altitude, and accept the observed time available, we have to add SPEED... and then we have to ask where did the added horizontally vectored speed came from... and then we have to ask why the primary radar return locations do not reflect that required increase in speed.

Similarly, if we accept the Zoom climb, which draws its power from the forward momentum (essentially mass times velocity squared) the speed of forward movement would have to drastically decline... but the positions of the radar returns at fixed intervals of time show NO SIGNIFICANT REDUCTION in the distance covered in the first two post initiating event returns, the time when the zoom climb was claimed to have occurred... ergo, no exchange of forward momentum for altitude during the required time... thus no Zoom climb.

Well made points. And as usual, the usual folks ignore them to defend what?
Why is it so important to prove the conventional wisdom; - that a terrorist act ~did not~ take down Flt 800?

I've never understood the almost fanatical zeal shown by the anti-conspiriacy crowd to cover up botched government cover-ups.

You are the one who claims the Islip Primary Radar is incapable of providing such information... the NTSB relied on it. I think it is accurate enough.

They relied on everything available. That's a far cry from taking innaccurate data points and connecting them to prove a conspiracy. As for the radar, what was the ducting condition at that moment? What was the gain setting? What is the RCS of a vertical airliner missing a wing at various aspects? But these things you don't question.

As to why, both the CIA and the NTSB trotted out their cartoons to impeach the eyewitnesses who said they variously saw something climb to the plane and hit it. They used the cartoons to impeach the witnesses by claiming it was proof that what they saw was the crippled nose-less plane zoom climbing, trailing burning fuel. If the zoom climb did not occur then the eyewitnesses are not impeached.

So your problem is that they actually listened to eye witnesses and made an attempt to correlate their testimoney to the facts? OK. Its quite possible that the eye witnesses were wrong, they often are, and that the government was also wrong. Even if you had credible evidence that no climb occurred, it proves nothing in regard to a missile. As for the zoom climb "discrediting" the witnesses, that's nonsense. Accident investigations put together pieces of the puzzle, they don't "discredit" facts. The witnesses seeing a missile is NOT a fact, that they claim to have seen a light show that they (having never seen a missile) took to be a missile, is a fact.

To put an extreme damper on your conspiracy theory, SAMs do not burn all the way to target. Unless you are insisting that it was a long range SAM like an SM2 or SA-20, the rocket motor accelerates the missile to speed and burns out in seconds. SAMs that fit into the plausible category, make a big flash at launch and would be invisible at night through the rest of their flight.

Also your "engines at idle" assertion is just that, an assertion. So Boeing designs the engines to go to idle if input is interrupted, so? I'm always fascinated at the parsing of conspirists over what can't be believed and what can't be challenged. You can't fathom that the engines could have stayed at full power because it doesn't fit your template.

It is also a fact that there were at least two radars sweeping the area and the exact location of the aircraft was known every 4.65 seconds as the Islip radar swept the area and a passive echo was returned.

Exact location within several hundred yards you mean. Air search radars are NOT exact. That is why SAM systems require more than an air-search radar. They are designed to pump out a long, high-power pulse. This returns a long echo. Precision is NOT within their design parameters.

"Credible" terrorist proclamations provide supporting information. Surely you are aware that terrorist organizations fax standard form responsibility claims for every large accident in the United States.

You've yet to tell me what kind of missile this was and why a state sponsor would go to that kind of trouble and risk when other options would be so much better. You also have failed to provide a reason why the US government would want to help them.