Posted on 12/09/2005 5:08:08 PM PST by concretebob
The rumor mill started humming Monday morning, Nov. 28, after ABC Radio aired the following report:
FBI and Homeland Security agents spent part of the weekend investigating the report of a possible missile fired at a plane leaving Los Angeles international airport. ABC's Alex Stone has the details.
... the pilots radioed air-traffic controllers saying what appeared to be a rocket had been fired at the aircraft and missed as American Airlines Flight 621 was climbing over the water. It had just taken off from LAX. The plane was enroute to Chicago ... When it landed, FBI agents spoke with the pilots. Sources say those agents now believe it was a flare or a bottle rocket that passed by and they don't think it was any threat to the aircraft.
This report did not run for long, possibly no more than once or twice. Still, thousands of people heard it, and many of those were understandably suspicious when no other major media outlet picked up the story.
Not satisfied with rumors, retired United Airline pilot, Ray Lahr, and aviation audio expert, Glen Schulze, decided to investigate. The pair have been cooperating in Lahr's ongoing Freedom Of Information Act suit in federal court against the CIA and the National Transportation Safety Board regarding the demise of TWA Flight 800. What they have found about the LAX flight is inconclusive, but intriguing, and deserves serious inquiry.
For starters, the flight was AA 612 and not AA 621 as reported. Lahr and Schulze checked its progress using the LAX airport monitor. Those interested in doing the same can enter Nov. 26, 12:49, 20-mile range, and then click on "start."
You will see every airplane aloft in the Los Angeles area on the map. In about a half minute, "AAL612" appears as a green aircraft crossing the shoreline. If you click on the aircraft, it will turn red, and the flight data will appear in a box to the right. Over the next few minutes, the aircraft turns south. At approximately 6,000 feet and off the coast of Redondo Beach, a new target will appear.
"The unidentified target's altitude does some funny things," observes Glenn Schulze, "from a constant 1,500 feet to suddenly showing 7,500 feet where it remains, which is the same altitude as AA FL 612 at this point in AA FL 612's climb-out."
According to Lahr, AA 612 seems "to split and become TWO! It remains TWO for a while, both targets moving together, then they separate, the mirror target fades, and AA 612 (thank God) is alone again, heading slightly south east."
The unidentified target appears for 12 to 13 sweeps of the FAA LAX TRACON radar rotating at a 4.7-second sweep rate. "This target can not be easily explained away as a radar ghost or artifact or swamp gas," adds Schulze, "as it exists and tracks over the ground for almost 50 seconds as it travels along with AA FL 612. Dynamite evidence!"
What makes the evidence particularly compelling is that the pilots apparently saw what the radar was reporting. Those who are interested in the pilot's commentary can go to the following site. The relevant conversation is at the very end of this segment, during the last minute. This conversation takes place several minutes after the incident and alludes to an earlier conversation.
ATC: Flare or a rocket?
AA 612: It looked more like a rocket.
ATC: American 612, how far away was it from your position?
AA 612: It was about half way between us and the coastline when we first called that last center guy.
Whatever the pilot saw prompted enough concern for LAX officials to contact the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. It also prompted a very serious report on ABC radio.
The most comprehensive reporting on the subject appeared Dec. 3 in an LAX area newspaper called The South Bay Daily Breeze. The headline says it all: "Smoke Trail Wasn't Threat to Plane, Say Investigators."
The article describes what the pilot saw as an "an unusual vapor trail," one that was "at least a mile below the airplane." FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller assured the readers that this presumed trail "absolutely posed no threat." This claim would be more reassuring had the FBI not also convinced the reporter that "whatever left the vapor trail did not appear on radar, and the pilot never reported seeing any kind of projectile."
The existing evidence would seem to refute all of those claims. The pilots saw not a vapor trail, but a "flare or a rocket." They saw it when the plane was no higher than 6,000 feet. Anything "at least a mile below them" would likely be swimming. The radar did pick something up, and the pilots considered the event sufficiently alarming to report it.
A veteran Airline Pilots Association safety investigator, Lahr was once much more likely to accept aviation authorities at their word. Having spent the last several years fighting them for information in the federal courts, he has grown increasingly skeptical.
The FBI may have its reason for quieting fears, Lahr understands, but as the distorted investigation of TWA Flight 800 has shown, a pacified population is a vulnerable one.
I miss Jack on the air on Kansas City radio. He was always terrific, even when they had him paired up with some leftist ninneys.
Mark
Well, I am an optics guy, not a radar guy, but let me ask a question.
Is it even remotely possible that the "second object" seen is a reflection of the transmission from AA 612 being bounced off some other object in the vicinity of AA 612?
This would explain both why the second object had AA 612's identification, and how a non-transmitting object could be seen by PASSUR.
Do you realize how small and non-radar significant a non-radar guided surface to air missile is? Believe me, you aren't going to bounce an IFF transponder transmission off of a missile that is less than 3 inches in diameter and moving at twice the speed of sound. Nor will you find a surface to air missile with a 50 second time of flight (the length of time the ghost image appears). And if it did have a 50 second time of flight, at supersonic speeds it would move across LA during that time, instead of loitering around AA612. Conversely, if it was an aircraft, it would be extremely difficult for it to maneuver from 1500ft to 7500ft in 50 seconds, unless it was a fighter. And if it were a fighter sized target, it would show up as a raw return on LAX ATC radar.
"Your postulation is why radar does not work at low altitude. "
But it absolutely does work at low altitude. Mine worked just fine at 300ft and it could easily pick up targets operating at tree level when I was at 20,000ft.
Yup, lotsa high rises out in the Pacific...NOT.
Now if it was the Atlantic ("Atlantis") maybe I'd believe it.
Cheers!
The obvious reason for quashing is "who benefits"?
Does the current Presidential administration want to panic everyone before Christmas flying season, after the beating all the airlines have taken, and JUST as the economy is settling down?
Do the Dems WANT to remind everyone of the presence of live terrorists right around the time John Kerry is channeling himself in a fashion reminiscent of Jenjis Khan and Howard "YEAARRRRGH!" Dean is calling for surrender in Iraq?
Politicians are not just guided by self interest--but by the interests of their biggest lobbyists and constituents.
Cheers!
No, for reasons I described in posts 135 and 144.
You missed the part about meteorological conditions. Also, high rise buildings between the target and the receiver are what effect the system. Been to LA lately?
The altitude indication went from 1500 ft. to 7200 ft. in one radar sweep, an indicated climb rate of approx 1000 ft. per second.
That is some really fast moving swamp gas, one heck of a 'glitch', or a missile.
While I do not pretend to be an expert, theories are attempts to explain data, and the data tell me this is likely not swamp gas.
Your mileage may vary...
I can understand the administration not wanting to panic potential airline passengers, the industry is in rough enough shape now. Without confirmation of the nature of the radar return, it is easy to just say "nothing to see here, move along, please."
After all, that has been done in the past.
Yes, but the plane was...I don't remember in the middle of typing this...5 or 10 miles off the coast, over the water. I brought that up for the sake of the pun about Atlantis.
If you check my other posts I tend to be an inveterate punster.
Been to LA lately?
And I avoid LA like the plague if I can help it. Too many gang members and...well, Californians in general :-)
Cheers!
What do you suppose both incidents have in common. How about NUTJOB CONSPIRACY CRACKPOTS THAT DON'T HAVE A CLUE WHAT THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT?!?! Ya think?
How about long term civil service employees which do not change when the house at 1600 PA Ave. gets a new tennant? The real grunt work is done where the rubber meets the road.
Having watched the "radar" for about an hour afterward with no more "double planes", it seems more than a little strange that the only "double plane" is where and when the incident occurred!
How do you explain the same kind of "double plane" incident showing on the radar in NJ regarding a similar type of missile report re Post 122?
I think you are right in most instances, but for the special case of an object very close to the transmitter the solidangle subtended by the object can be quite large and the energy in the reflection can be higher than for a similar object far away.
Clearly the receiving radar is set up to ignore signals below some threshold, and this works to rejuct the clutter which reflections would otherwise give. But, a missile attack, a chase plane, etc. is an extraordinary circumstance with an extremely strong reflection and the system might pick it up.
Another possibility, although slim, is the possibility of a "diffractive ghost". This could occur if an object, opaque to the radar signal, were between the aircraft and the receiving radar. Energy diffracting around the edges of the object would produce what in optics is called "the spot of Agago", or "the island of Arago". This is a very bright spot centered in the shadow of a circular object, but would be of a different and hard-to-predict character for a complex shadow as made by a missile.
And goes from FL1500 to FL7200 all while showing up as AAL612.
I guess this type of data is no longer (or was) available for TWA800 to the general public.
FYI incase you missed this...
How about people like you that live with your heads up the anal port?
On threads like this one, Rokke is usually the good guy, he gives you detailed information, and has patience for those of you who are unreasonable.
While I, being NAVY and not Air Force, where they teach you to be gentlemen first, pilots second, never got to go to charm school. Both Rokke and I came from fighters, and then flew jumbo aircraft and have some background in this subject, while you conspiracy loons have nothing to go on but your own paranoia.
Rokke would call you misguided and misinformed.
You sir to me, are just a blithering effin idiot, and it is YOU with your head up your ass. Most likely, whatever you have done in your life, it aint enough to carry Rokke's jockstrap, so were I you (thank god I am not) I would STFU, or bring something to the argument other than your personal brand of stupidity.
A-hole.
If as you claim the entire system only works on IFF data how did ASR assign the same ID to two different IFF responses and then feed it to PASSUR? One system decided to give the unknown an ID OR it responded the same ID as the AA flight. Either way your argument doesn't work.
You don't think that a cargo plane of under 33,000 pounds could cause this image?
Yes PASSUR uses the 1030 data. So then that means either the FAA assigned the image the same data as the AA flight or PASSUR took an unknown and assigned data to it. Either means something is wrong with the entire system.
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