Posted on 11/13/2001 5:57:06 AM PST by Axion
Edited on 04/22/2004 11:45:41 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Investigators examining one of the separated engines from American Airlines Flight 587 found foreign debris inside, indicating that the engine may have ingested a flock of birds and then caught on fire.
The engine burned internally, people close to the investigation said. But its parts appeared intact, except for the damage from what is known in aviation as ``foreign object debris,'' or ``FOD.'' That would suggest that the engine didn't suffer a catastrophic failure from some mechanical breakdown, but from sucking in birds, these people said.
(Excerpt) Read more at interactive3.wsj.com ...
Exactly! I posted this earlier in the thread:
"Last night on Fox, in the 10 est time, there were 2 very interesting guests on. The first was Vernon Gross, former NTSB member, who early in the day had thought that it was an accident, as it was being reported that an engine just fell off, and the plane plummeted. But he was changing his mind as of last night, because of that vertical stabilizer coming off before the engine(s) did."
Well, that would depend on who is expressing skepticism,(i.e. do they seem to be literate, do they seem to have any knowledge of or expertise in the subject(s) under discussion, and finally, do they have an excessive fondness for CAPITAL LETTERS and exclamation points!!!!!) I would also want to know how consistently they expressed skepticism- i.e. are they skeptical of oh, say, the claim that we landed on the moon, or do they focus their skepticism on areas where reasonable people might disagree about the truth of the matters at hand.
Regarding those who criticize inveterate skeptics, if I were to describe a qualitative difference between them and the ALLCAPS, I would like to whether they (skeptics) criticize them (ALLCAPS) merely for daring to disbelieve the government, or do they criticize them for a procrustean determination to stretch and twist any governmental statement into evidence of a vast and nefarious conspiracy that is everywhere, but somehow only visible to a select few who don't spell very well.
regarding a qualitative difference, I would suggest the skeptics prefer to apply Occam's Razor to these sorts of questions- the indefatiguable (sp?) ALLCAPS played with Occam's Razor once, but it cut them, and so they dropped it, and said "OWW- SHINY TOOTH THINGIE CUT BONGO!!!!!" and never touched it again.
If someone were to post a graphic representation of the debris field, showing what ended up where, I'd be more confident about what did happen
I am going to say, due my experience, I'm sceptical that birdstrike(s) could cause that type of catastrophic failure to not only the motors, but also the airframe. Tails, wings, and motor mounts are constructed pretty robustly.
When there are aircraft crashes, the mjority of the plane stayts together until impact.
I can only recall a few that did not- O'Hare, when the motor mount failed, and a couple of bombed planes...
Not an authorative answer, by all means, but again, just color me sceptical
And Rockaway being along the coast is a lot warmer than upstate. The birds could well be hanging out there on their way south. I live in Pittsburgh, and we still have geese in the area. Many of them hang along the rivers till it gets colder here. Some even stay all winter.
Some guys in a boat said the same thing.
Maybe a bird with a bomb duck-taped to its wing flew into the side, and went right through it!
(Sorry, the bird story isn't working for me.)
Pull this. It plays Yankee Doodle Dandy.
They also had some of the propellers inside the engine come off to see what would happen if they came loose and got sucked in - nothing. Not sure what to think of this.
It's not that I don't believe a bird can do this, but what about the smoking engine on take-off? Though maybe there were several strikes against this plane, engine problem, birds, maybe somebody forgot to tighten some things down in maintenance (it had a check just the day before). Maybe it was just a whole confluence of events leading up to the crash.
That fits exactly with what a very early witness yesterday morning said. That there was an explosion right where the wing meets the fuselage, in the armpit she said, and THEN the engine fell off. Birds don't cause that explosion in that area.
Back in the '60s the USAF developed a "chicken-cannon", to test windsheilds by shooting supermarket chickens at sub-sonic & near sonic speeds.
Story has it the Brits borrowed one of these to test their own designs, and discovered major failures i.e. windsheild shattered, bird ripping out the pilot seat, etc.
When asking the USAF about it; the Americans responded: "thaw the chicken first".
Chicken-cannon ? True
Frozen chickens ? i don't know, but it does make for a good story.
Birdstrikes are a concern for pilots.
How it relates to yesterdays crash, umm, it's a "possible", but there are other "possibles", also.
May I? EggsAckley!
I am going to say, due my experience, I'm sceptical that birdstrike(s) could cause that type of catastrophic failure to not only the motors, but also the airframe. Tails, wings, and motor mounts are constructed pretty robustly.
When there are aircraft crashes, the mjority of the plane stayts together until impact.
Ditto.
So, people believe what they want to believe--always have, always will.
I never said I did not believe in birdstrikes downing aircraft, I was just relating personal, mark one eyeball experience.
Now answer me this: did those accidents cause wreckage to be spread over a scattered area, or did the aircraft auger into the ground intact?
As I've said, I'm not giving authorative answers, just being sceptical.
No, you prefer to not listen to facts which contradict your previously formed opinion.
The facts are right under your nose on this one.
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