The one thing that bothers this pilot is that the "official" explaination of what brought TWA800 down is that jet fuel vapors exploded in the center fuel tank. Jet fuel is essentially kerosene and the vapors are not at all explosive unless they are compressed. That's what a jet engine is, a big compressor. It's hard enough to get jet fuel to burn at sea level, much less get the vapors to burn explosively at somewhere between 12,000-17,000' agl. That one has never been explained satisfactorily, regardless of what anyone thinks was the cause of the crash. They always tapdance around that little ditty......
“Mythbusters” recreated this incident exactly. In fact, they got a MORE powerful explosion using a wire spark and fuel tank vapors heated to the levels present in TWA 800.
What I found amusing was that they tried to play up the heat that day and that the plane had to stand still with it’s air conditioning unit on, as if the heat buildup were somethng significant. These aircraft fly in and out of the Middle-East constantly with no problem at all.
Then there’s the wiring issue, that to this day still hasn’t cost another aircraft it’s existance ten years farther along in the life cycle.
Some folks claim that there have been other fuel tank problems, but they are very very far and few between and I’m not sold on their actual cause of loss either.
I should have addressed your comments. Sorry about that. I believe your reasoning is quite solid on those points.
Actually, the Discovery Channel re-created such an accident. The fuel tank exploded pretty dramatically. After that, I began to think TWA800 was probably not a terrorist incident, though it is still a slight possibility. But an accidental naval shoot down is hardly even a possibility.
“The one thing that bothers this pilot is that the “official” explaination of what brought TWA800 down is that jet fuel vapors exploded in the center fuel tank. Jet fuel is essentially kerosene and the vapors are not at all explosive unless they are compressed. That’s what a jet engine is, a big compressor. It’s hard enough to get jet fuel to burn at sea level, much less get the vapors to burn explosively at somewhere between 12,000-17,000’ agl. That one has never been explained satisfactorily, regardless of what anyone thinks was the cause of the crash. They always tapdance around that little ditty......”
I agree and if it were an “exploding fuel tank” airliners would be dropping like flies wouldn’t they?