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.
If you click on it the same AA flt number is attributed to it, weird.
If you want to swallow what they feed you, go for it. Just don't start that namecalling shit with me.
Difficult to 'cover up' U-boats in that situation.
Uh, no. However, it has NOT been established with any credibility that it was a missile. Even if it were, the administration would be utterly foolish to announce it to the general public. Your odds of dying in an airplane crash, though small, are millions of times more likely than you being shot down by a terrorist missile.
Let me help some of you out here. The "radar" tracks you are seeing are NOT raw radar data. The monitoring system you are using relies on active transponders in each aircraft to generate its radar "picture". In other words, if the aircraft doesn't have a transponder, the radar doesn't see it. The system is called PASSUR. That is an acronym for "Passive Secondary Surveillance Radar". "Passive" means that the "radar" is a receiver only. "Secondary" is a radio signal sent by IFF transponders on board any aircraft flying through a major airport's airspace. The PASSUR "radar" can only read radio signals sent to it. Those signals come from the transponders onboard the aircraft flying through the airspace it monitors. Now here is the key part...missiles do not use IFF transponders. Therefore, it would be IMPOSSIBLE for this system to see a missile. So why would Cashill and WND publish an article like this? Because they are both frauds that make money by pulling the wool over the eyes of people who don't know any better. Cashill is a conman, pure and simple.
If you'd like additional explaination start by reading the "Help" page offered by the monitoring site. You will find the following....
"Aircraft tracking radar, and the software that supports it, while highly reliable, is also complex. Sometimes circumstances can interfere with the signal, causing temporary distortions. For example, you will probably notice that an aircraft flying directly over YOUR AIRPORT may temporarily disappear from the screen and then reappear away from the airport. This is due to the aircraft passing directly over the radar antenna and the temporary loss of signal. You may also notice aircraft icons sometimes “dropping off” and/or suddenly doing unusual things. This is especially true in the area immediately around YOUR AIRPORT, but could also occur away from the airport as well. These “ghost” aircraft are due to radar reflections from the high-rise buildings around the airport, and possibly from terrain and meteorological conditions farther away from YOUR AIRPORT."
I suggest you go to the 40 mile zoom.
That craft pops up out of nowhere at 12:54:30 at 2000 ft. By about 12:55:43 gained 200ft. At 12:55:56 it utterly disappears.
Makes no or little forward motion. Most of the motion is the icon shifting forward direction (nose pointing) with abrupt changes.
Strange, to say the least.
Take about swallowing what they feed you. Jack Cashill is feeding you raw sewage with a rusty spoon. If you eat it up due to ignorance than you are just unfortunate. If you choose to believe it despite knowing the reality of the situation, than you are an idiot. Your choice. You can pick your own name.
Prior to AA612 passing over the spot of the plane you are talking about, an object pops up near there at 12:50:00 staying at 1200 feet then goes off radar at 12:50:47.
ROTFLMAO with melancholy.....
Maybe when you are mature enough to stick with discussing the facts and leave out the name calling, we'll talk.
I doubt you're gonna get there.
Your giving fuel to the fire!
Don't you find it just a LITTLE BIT ODD that the only double bogie in the whole segment is EXACTLY the one where the pilot REPORTED seeing something?
I can show you real RADAR loops that have loads of reflections. Sorry to bust your bubble folks, there is no story here, now please move along...lol
If you have a winning argument, you don't need the nasty stuff. You ought phrase sentences properly.
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