Ping
Posted on 05/26/2008 3:23:50 PM PDT by i_dont_chat
HOUSTON -- Federal officials are working to find out just what happened in the sky over Houston this morning. Continental Flight 1544 was 11 miles east of Bush Intercontinental Airport after takeoff this morning, when the pilot called the tower to report an object near the plane.
The plane was at about 5,000 feet at the time of the report and the flight continued on to Cleveland. Sources told 11 News that the flight was met by Continental officials and FAA investigators to interview the passengers and crew.
(Excerpt) Read more at khou.com ...
Thanks for the ping, and the follow-up article. Is this the new version of “It was a weather balloon?”. They had to give that up sooner or later! What is disturbing though is given the very real threat of terrorists and such I’m wondering if this could’ve been a “dry run” of sorts? Hoping I’m wrong. Would almost rather it be an alien life-form than terrorists. At least the aliens haven’t killed anyone - as far as we know! ;)
It looks like the model rocket theory is a little thin.
Ping
To be added to the Ohio Ping List, please freepmail (works best) TonyRo76 and/or LasVegasDave.
Quix would have said:
IIRC, we attempted to shoot down UFO’s in the 40’s and 50’s at least 200 different times.
We lost IIRC, 600 or more civilian and military aircraft due to retaliations by the UFO’s attributed to our attempts to shoot them down. Thereafter our powers that be wisely decided to stop trying to shoot them down . . . for the time being.
Several of those military jets flew over my house.
Very interesting... Were there any remarks made about why, just the observation?
Surely military jets wouldn’t be scrambled to escort the passenger plane unless they thought there was an immediate threat, and I wouldn’t think they would be scrambled to hunt down a mere “model rocket”... They must’ve been concerned about SOMETHING. I don’t know if things have changed since 9/11, but it still takes an awful lot to get the jets scrambled like that doesn’t it?
Let me try that second sentence again...
* Were there any remarks made about why, or was it just an observation on the part of residents?
An observation, I assume.
Sorry, it was us up here in Dallas. We wen't a little off course. The FAA is using us as a scapegoat for this. :oP
/s
“At that height, a model would have been coasting for quite some time and maybe emitting a small trail of white smoke and not the thick smoke like the pilot’s report.
He explained that while model rocketry is supposed to be fun, it is also highly regulated. Regulated by the same federal agency that has oversight of the airlines – the FAA.
The FAA confirmed that there were no requests to launch or notifications filed for the Houston area for Monday.
There are also no official launch sites within 50 miles of Bush airport.”
not necessarily. Not all rocket motors emit large black smoke tracking trails like that. Given the fairly large variety of possible motor manufacturers, relying on a black trail for ID is a bad idea. Not to mention the possibility that it was an EX Motor, i.e. homebrew propellant. There are a few folks out there who go that far for their own. Often made of Potassium Nitrate and sugar, like in October Sky, where a teenager sent a home-made rocket WELL over the 5000 feet stated in the article, using KNO3/Sugar. Hickam (the Rocket Boy) went even higher using Zinc/Sulfide propellants. He didn’t have the advantages of the current factory-built propellants, which make the process safer.
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.