Posted on 12/02/2005 11:52:19 AM PST by RogerWilko
WASHINGTON, Dec. 2 (UPI) -- FBI agents and Homeland Security officials have been investigating the report of a possible missile fired at an American Airlines plane taking off from Los Angeles International Airport.
Sources told ABC News in Los Angeles that the pilot of American Airlines Flight 621, en route to Chicago, radioed air traffic controllers after takeoff from LAX. He told them a missile had been fired at the aircraft and missed.
The plane was over water when the pilot said he saw a smoke trail pass by the cockpit.
FBI agents believe it was a flare or a bottle rocket, but say they may never know if that's what it actually was, KYW Newsradio 1060 reported.
My inner kook thinks the FBI PR officer decided s/he couldn't take the BS anymore and decided to add the bottle rocket explanation as being too stupid for anyone to believe. IF this doesn't get wide play in the media, and that PR person is still employed, look for the next explanation the next time this happens (God forbid) to be something that mentions ballistic chipmunks or some such.
That would be one heck of a flare too wouldn't it?
KYW?
KYW is a radio station in Philadelphia.
Why would a radio station in Philadelphia be quoted about an incident in Los Angeles?
Yeah. Sure.
Just a bottle rocket. It's common knowledge that bottle rockets reach 6000 feet into the air.
Maybe they fired off a lit-up spud from a potato launcher.
Your average MSM reporter will buy the story. They don't know a bottle rocket from a SAM.
A bottle rocket is a SAM as long as it is launched into the air. Where did that 6,000 ft. figure come from?
This statement really instills a lot of confidence in me of Homeland Security. They don't know what it was but they say it is something harmless. I feel real secure knowing that they keep acquiring power to eventually oppress the legal population but don't know diddly squat about the saboteurs. they can't know enough about the sleeper cell aboteurs because El Presedente Jorge lets so many sneak across the border.
Looks like FR kept this alive long enough for someone to not be able to sweep it under the rug.
Well the CIA must give you the warm and fuzzies.
That's been my leading theory in terms of what it was. Of course, WHY it was is another matter. One of those bad boys, with the right "stuff" in its nose cone, and ...
But what about, oh, say, something like the Cal State Dominguez Hills Islamic Brotherhood or something like that. Maybe a few of them also happened to be engineering students who just happened to be fascinated with this sort of rocketry. The question needs to be asked, at least.
Great tagline.
That bottle rocket obviously had its nose section fall off due to an internal fuel tank explosion, at which point in defiance to all known laws of aerodynamics it climbed another 2000 feet with its engines at idle and then exploded. If it is good enough for the FBI it is good enough for me. /SARCASM
Outbound departures take off much lower than that, and hit the shoreline at an altitude of about 500-700 feet. From the runway to the actual waterline is about a half a mile, depending on which runway is used.
Ha.
"Have you ever flown out of LA International? Looked like to me just a couple hundred feet above the beach.
"
Depending on the runway, you're often over the ocean almost immediately after takeoff. LAX is actually right on the ocean.
I believe, however, the 6000 feet altitude was reported in another story.
I was just thinking the same thing.
Sure, if the proximity fuse crapped out, or the warhead failed to detonate. The older SAM's are really only good in a tail chase, because they require the engine heat as something to home in on. They can fail to quite correct enough to actually hit that engine, but they have proximity fuses so that if they merely get close, their warhead is supposed to detonate. The description almost sounds like whatever it was passed ahead of the aircraft, which might mean it was fired too soon to "see" the hot engine exhaust and never locked on.
You can bet, the even the sand and rocks at that beach have ears and eyes.
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