[GOP_1900AD]

Exactly. Also, many pleasure boaters don't get that far out there, especially with the rougher seas this time of year. I've been out there in 20 foot seas.

[Jigsaw John]

Had a friend take me out once, small boat. Fishing was great. He looked at his watch and said, we gotta get, the sweels and wind will be here soon. His watch must have been slow. Hit some pretty rough seas until we hit the marina. Got pretty hairy for my liking.

[jcs1744]

As someone with a decent amount of experience in commercial aviation, this whole story sounds fishy to me.

First of all, AA621 isn't even a flight out of LAX, nor does it head to Chicago. Its routing is Minneapolis-Dallas-Orange County!

Secondly, when a flight is taking off to the west from LAX (as they nearly do), they are at about three thousand when climbing over Dockweiler Beach. Then when the flight is 5-10 miles over the Pacific, it will turn east. But, the departure patterns out of LAX, depending on traffic are fairly unpredictable. LAX is a well-secured airport, even on off-airport locations, they patrol often, and if there was a missle fired during the day--a lot of people would see it even if the a/c was over the ocean.

AA flights to Chicago are operated with smaller, single-aisle aircraft (below 200 seats). A follower of the religion-of-peace I don't think would waste his missle on a smaller, quickly-ascending target when he has 747s, A340s, and 777s departing all-day from LAX to aim at.