Replies

"...debris was found [up to] eight miles away. If the report is correct that it was clothing and human remains, then it was most likely shot down ... there is a possibility of a bomb [exploding on board], but not likely."

I would infer just the opposite. An air-to-air missile would have hit one of the engines, and would likely have blown a wing off. The most widely disbursed debris then would have been fragments of the engine and wing. Clothing, papers and human remains would not begin to disburse until the integrety of the fuselage was lost.

If a bomb went off in the cabin, or in the baggage compartment, then the fuselage would have disintegrated first, scattering its contents most widely.

But in all accounts, of the eyewitnesses who saw the plane hit the ground, it is implied that the plane was largely intact before impact, which seems to make any explosive destruction of the aircraft prior to crashing, whether from missile or bomb, unlikely.

VietVet

Just got in and read this whole thread, quite a load of conspiricy buffs around tonight, so I have to put in my two cents:

1. If the Air Force was goint to shoot down a civilian airliner, it shur' as heck would want to do it without any possibility of hitting the wrong target, hence the inteceptor would be sure to have a visual confirmation prior to firing, figure less than 3 miles, although he could drop back somewhat to shoot.

2.The obvious choice of weapon for such a shootdown is the AIM9 Sidewinder, with a range of 1/2 to 11 nautical miles and a warhead of 22 lbs. of explosive. While you could use an AMRAAM, with 40 lbs. of explosive, the sidewinder is probably the weapon of choice. After all this is a big ol' boeing without too much advance knowledge.

3.Now, that Sidewinder is gonna go flying right up the tailpipe of one of the two engines, which are hanging out on pods below the wings. I'm pretty sure that to get an airframe certification, the Boeing engineers did some calculations regarding what would happen if one of the engines suffered a catostrophic event, like sucking in a goose and throwing out turbine blades. 22 lbs/ of TNT up the tailpipe would probably put that wing engineering to the test, but I seriously doubt that the wing itself would have suffered a massive failure. If it did, it would have vented fuel (lots of fuel) all over the sky. Instead, what I would expect would be that the engine would basically fall off the plane and drop in a ballistic arc from the point of fracture. The rest of the plane wold follow pretty quickly.

However, it is my opinion that an air-to-air missle strike would not have caused the plane to disintigrate like the theories say. Instead, even if there was an engine blown off, the plane would have remained intact, albiet flyable only by a highly trained and skilled pilot, not a hijacker or passenger.

Moreover, any number of other things could have caused debris to be scattered, not the least of which has been mentioned earlier. If the plane goes out of control and dives at full throttle, it is going to start shedding parts real fast once it gets real near to mach 1, since the tailplane surfaces are not designed for supersonic speeds. It would probably start shaking violently until parts started to fall off or the compressors stalled. And if someone grabbed the flap handle or gear lever while in a high speed flat spin, I would be amazed if the airframe stayed together at all.

Finally there are just too many people woho would have been involved for this to stay a secret: The air force pilots, their commanders and ground crew (someone comes home short a missle, there are questions), the air traffic control people (radar controller, data man, supervisor etc.). By now, someone would have talked.

This is just a sorry attempt to put a bad light on a good man, and to keep the far out members talking conspiricy garbage to family, friends and strangers.

Next we'll hear that the plane was shot down in a soy bean field to deprive senoirs of their Ensure. Sick