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.
Do me a favor and point out exactly where I said that. Quote me. Point out the exact post.
Look, if you can't even keep facts straight in a single FreeRepublic thread, I can understand why the specifics of this incident are sailing right over your head.
"how did ASR assign the same ID to two different IFF responses and then feed it to PASSUR?"
You have so little idea of what you are talking about that your question doesn't even make sense. Let me just start by telling you that when an ASR system interrogates an IFF transponder, it doesn't assign an ID. It simply reads the ID from the IFF transmitter.
"You don't think that a cargo plane of under 33,000 pounds could cause this image?"
What cargo plane are you thinking about that weighs under 33,000 pounds? And what cargo plane is capable of greater than 6000 ft per minute climb rates?
"How do I know that you two:
A) are not the same person with multiple computers.
B) don't still work for the fedscum getting paid to help cover up things like this.
Then you say...
"I'm not a "conspiracy loon""
I've got some bad news for you. If you aren't a "conspiracy loon", you are at the very least a paranoid schizophrenic.
Did not take long to have people blaming 'Bush' for a cover up. Guess they never thought that Bush believed what was reported to him.
Well, I suppose under those rules I should still be CAP'n in the 'D' over the Persian Gulf? I know me and my babe were both better with age, right?
But you see, like a fine old Islay Scotch, in the end, we were just too expensive for the risks involved. Like a beautiful woman, the Tomcat was too tempermental and high maintenance to continue our relationship.
Old beauties are a wonderful thing, but after awhile, even with the best care, they eventually throw a compressor blade your way, and mess your $hit up.
Then you have to get out, and hope you survive the separation intact and undamaged physically and mentally, in hopes that another beauty will let you push her buttons.
You two are expending a substantial effort geared toward discrediting this thread. I've been around the block a few times, managed 100 plus million dollar lines of business and met all kinds of people. When I see behavior like the two of you are engaged in, it tends to point to some sort of agenda. Don't know what sorts of conflicts of interest the two of you may have regading this subject matter, but I do find your behavior to be notable. Maybe y'all just get off on attacking people / threads that in your opinion are "conspiracy over the top" or maybe you have a specific dog in this hunt.
Do you understand electromagnetism at all?
Do you understand the concept of radiated power decaying as the cube of the distance? A nearby object will reflect at a much greater power than a further one. A small object near a plane, with the appropriate impedence characteristics, can be a highly effective reflector. Buildings, mountains and other large objects further away will reflect with a much larger cross sections but the power of the reflected wave / signal is much lower at that point and hence, the reflected power can actually be LOWER than from a nearby much smaller object!
Have you ever taken an upper division physics class? I take it you have not!
It takes neither us, nor effort to discredit this thread. My only agenda is to try to educate people who think life is a continuous series of hidden conspiracies that things really aren't as complicated or as sinister as they seem when you look at simple facts instead of creating complex theories.
Do you have any practical experience with secondary surveillance radars? If you did, you'd realize that a person doesn't need a knowledge of advanced physics or electromagnetism to understand why the information in your post is largely irrelevant to this discussion. Not only have I taken an (or even a few) "upper division physics" classes, I graduated from one of the top engineering schools in the nation, took many semesters of electrical engineering, weapons systems engineering and related topics. But more importantly, I have spent the last 16 years of my life working daily on a practical level with exactly what we are talking about in this thread. You obviously have not. If you had, you would realize why IFF transponder signals do not bounce off of other objects (near or far) and create falls secondary returns for systems like ATC ASR radars, or the PASSUR system. Here is a suggestion. Do some reading on the difference between primary radar and secondary radar. Then do some reading about the technology used by the PASSUR system. And stop assuming that government agents are hiding behind every story to pull the wool over your eyes.
Bkmrk for later read...Hope ya don't mind me bookmarking off of your post PD.
No it's not. Conspiracy kooks don't care who is in office.
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