Posted on 12/02/2005 6:56:00 PM PST by NCjim
FBI agents and Homeland Security officials spent the weekend investigating the report of a possible missile fired at an American Airlines plane taking off from Los Angeles International Airport.
Sources tell ABC News 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.
What was the altitude of the AA flight - when the "smoke trail" went past the cockpit?
I don't know of any "bottle rockets" or "flares" that can send a visible trail past a cockpit at several thousand feet.....
Is the FBI trying to cover up an attack, and keep the natives quiet??
Semper Fi
I'm certain our President would not allow that to happen.
the report on the original thread by people who heard the story on ABC radio earlier this week said the plane was at 6,000 feet, quite a bottle rocket, eh?
Dang! I've never gotten that distance with the ones from the Lions'Club stand down the street?
The beach underneath the LAX takeoff route is Play Del Rey. You'd be amazed at how low those large airliners look when taking off right over your head.
The end of the runway runs into dunes that drop off to a road below. Below that is the beach. It's hard to estimate how far the drop is, but it may be as little as 100 feet or so. Add a few hundred feet to that and you've got a 747 taking off three hundred or so feet over your head.
A large bottle rocket, the industrial size (LOL, the kind I've seen in Mexico, probably available in the US in places) might actually be able to reach that high.
Taking off, the pilots are probably in a nose up position that would make it seem like they were a lot farther over water than they actually are. A person on the sand might be able to launch a bottle rocket and cause some concern for pilots.
Gotta tell ya, this is one guy who wouldn't be testing that theory in this day and age.
Can a flare even fire 6000 feet up past a plane?
Missile of some kind more than likely.
I thank you for posting this as some people did not see the previous posts.
Let's just "worse case" this. Let's say it was a terrorist, and he did fire a missile at the airliner. Chances are he didn't have just one missile and we'll be hearing from him again real soon, so I wouldn't say we'll never know what was actually fired at that aircraft.
That is, unless he misses again.
Can a spark in a center fuel tank bring down a 747? The most complex explanation is obviously the solution!
Obviously a Mexocet missle.. Burrito overload from East Los Angeles.. with Serrano chili afterburner.. some say the guy landed in El Centro..
Exactly!
tertiary01 has a ping list going on this and he's been updating everyone frequently.
A spark near any fuel hose that is leaking or other source could most certainly ignite a plane.
Oswald pumped off three nearly flawless shots with a bolt action Mannlicher-Carcano. Flight 800 was downed by a shorting wire. The Branch Davidians were baby rapers and needed torching. Tim and Terry acted alone. Sandy was just "borrowing". It was merely a bottle rocket.
American Airlines Flight 621 is MSP-DFW-SNA.
At over 1,000' up and going 200 knots over the ocean that must be some good bottle rocket.
Don't bring facts into a TWA800 discussion. Everyone knows it was either shot down by the U.S. Navy (probably under the orders of Bill Clinton) or it was shot down by some unknown kind of uber Man Portable SAM. /sarcasm
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