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.
And with that, I think I'll just go back to drinking.
:-)
Really, I programmed it for 13 years, taught it in OKC at the FAA academy for 5. Course manager/Lead instructor. Please tell me how it works...
"As in the case of TWA 800, but much MUCH less likely now, when and if the government feels the need to either restrict or deny information to the general public it is generally for a good reason."
Well, I hope so.
But I'll say I don't think the TWA 800 explanation implausible. Some say they saw a missile. But others say they didn't. The stories become apocryphal. With the JFK assassination the slanted conspiracists say "x amount of people heard three shots". However twice as many heard only two. People hear and see different things under stress. And I've read it impossible from the shore to see the minimal exhaust from a portable sam that allegedly hit 800.
But this time we a pilot eye-witness close.
Could be some test, but we'll see.
"Everyone who should know, knows why the Mombasa missiles failed. This incident is not the same thing."
Well, if it's portable sams fired at airliners it's got a commonality. But the argument that this was not a terrorist incident because the theoretical missiles missed in not a persuasive one to me.
I've got 15 years experience flying fighters and currently fly MD-11's on international routes and have flown in and out of LAX on several occasions. It is not uncommon for pilots to report seeing strange things. The airspace around LAX is incredibly busy. No one else reported seeing anything unusual, and everyone airborne at the time was interviewed by the FBI after they landed (the FBI did do an investigation, but what more are they supposed to do when the only evidence is a single report). A missile launch is not an event that would go unnoticed by all but one aircraft.
"there were several witnesses with wartime fighter experience who said that what they saw was a missile, and that the color of the explosion was wrong for a fuel tank explosion."
I have considerable combat experience and the first thing I will tell you is that the color of an explosion tells you next to nothing. And in the case of TWA 800, I believe there was only one military witness to the event (an ANG helicopter pilot), and his actual statement was that he doesn't know what he saw but that it could have been a missile.
With all due respect, that is because you don't understand the technology involved. The proximity of the radar returns in a passive system is irrelevant and the PASSUR system doesn't assign any ID's. It simply reads what is transmitted to it. The "radar" (it is really only a receiver) can only see what is sent to it. And what is sent to it is a very specific signature that provides very specific information about the aircraft carrying the transmitter. All commercial aircraft now fly with a similar system (TCAS) that is used to prevent midair collisions. It relies entirely on the same transponder transmissions and is incredibly precise at fixing aircraft positions. But it can only "see" what is transmitted to it, and cannot display anything else.
Ditto!!!!
I guess it really doesn't matter if you ignore the fact that the radar can only "track" transponders and therefore, if it was "tracking" something real, whatever it was, was squawking an IFF code. I'm not terrorist, but if I ever planned on trying to take out a commercial airliner, I wouldn't squawk an IFF code announcing my presence to every aircraft within 100 miles that had a TCAS system on board (and that would be every commercial aircraft within 100 miles). Furthermore, since the only track the "radar" can see is an IFF track, if the "target" really got that close to AA 612, it would have set off a TCAS alert AA 612 that would be recorded and traceable.
I'm somewhat familiar with IFF transponders because many years ago I was trained as a Hawk Pulse Acquisition Radar repairman. Are you saying that Air traffic control uses only transponders, and not regular radar as well? At the time, we used a radar system that showed transponder returns as brighter dots on the screen. If there was a transponder in the target, it was a friend. If there wasn't, it was a foe and you would shoot it down.
By today's standards that was primitive technology. But are you saying that air traffic control uses only transponders, and no accompanying radar as well that could paint the side of a plane or missile? Wouldn't that mean that if someone in a light plane, for instance, strayed into the traffic pattern, you wouldn't see it?
If you were using both radar and transponder returns, then it seems conceivable that the radar could confuse an object close to a plane but without a transponder as the plane itself.
You are NOT looking at ATC RADAR!!
I've watched it several times and do not share your complete skeptisism. This object appears and then it becomes flight AAL612 according to PASSUR!
Let me ask you a few questions:
Do you have any vested interest one way or the other what this object is or is not?
Do you believe beyond a reasonable doubt this cannot be a missle?
Do you deny that according to PASSUR this object appears in front of AAL612 when AAL612 is over 6000ft altitude?
Do you deny that PASSUR identifies this object as AAL612, but at an altitude of 1500ft, at this point in time?
Do you deny that PASSUR has this NEW object actually becoming AAL612 a few seconds after what appears to be a cross-over (or a couple or 3 cross overs) and that the originally tracked AAL612 out of LAX is lost?
Do you believe this object seen by PASSUR is a ghost object as defined in your post 46?
If you really want to know ...we use several ASR type RADAR systems at various facilities. At DFW I have 4 ASR 9 terminal RADAR systems for our Controllers to choose from. They DO BOTH Primary and Secondary RADAR returns.
NO, I understand what you are saying now, and I said earlier that I wasn't experienced enough to judge what people are seeing on this display.
I was responding in part to Rokke's comment, "I guess it really doesn't matter if you ignore the fact that the radar can only "track" transponders and therefore, if it was "tracking" something real, whatever it was, was squawking an IFF code."
Radar can surely track passive objects as well as transponders. Transponders make things brighter and easier to track, but they are mainly used for purposes of identification. Perhaps the original ATC radar and the display people are looking at are two different things, but that's not entirely evident from what is being said here.
Anyway, I'm headed for bed.
No problem, it can be confusing at times.
May I ask you to respond to my post 92? Do you agree with my observations of what I am viewing on PASSUR?
BTW my husband said he thinks the media isn't reporting anymore than necessary on these incidents because it would validate the President's war on terror and that is the last thing these libs want to do... even if it gets us all killed.
bump
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.