Reward Offered in Rocket’s Close Call with Houston Jet

Houston Chronicle ^ | June 15, 2009 | Dale Lezon and Cindy Horswell

[willgolfforfood]

Yes, I wasn't exactly clear. The Clinton administration ultimately said that the center fuel tank explosion caused the demise of TWA 800. It could not have been a ground launched missile, because only a few military grade missiles could have reached the altitude of TWA 800, at the time it exploded in air.

They assumed no terrorists - either foreign or domestic - had a missile that could have reached the flight AND were in a local position to have shot down the flight. So, ipso facto, the center fuel tank exploded, and it COULD NOT have been an act of terrorism.

Now I thought I heard the explosion occured at about 13,000 feet ASL, but that's from ancient memory, and I could be wrong. At either height, the assumption was that no type of hobbyist rocket could have impacted TWA 800, because they didn't go that high, and even if they did, someone would have to have been well out at sea to launch it on a trajectory that might have interferred with the flight.

I have no idea about the recent event in Houston - either a VERY large, powerful hobbyist rocket, or something much more serious. I don't expect a detailed report to ever be made known to the public, in either instance.

[rebelskid]

http://www.tripoli.org/documents/safety_code.shtml

[El Gato]

It appeared to pass about 100 feet below the jetliner. The crew members described the rocket as being about five feet to seven feet long with triangular tail fins. They said it was white

Or it could have been 10 to 14 feet long and passed 200 feet below them, and going twice as fast as they perceived. Really difficult to tell. First time, and many subsequent times, I saw a C-5, I swore it was about to fall out the sky, it was going so slowly. Of course in reality, it was going plenty fast to keep flying, but it was farther away, and larger, than my eyes and brain could accept.

[El Gato]

The world’s largest model rocket (a Saturn V duplicate with 8 N class engines and a giant P class engine) reached 4,000 feet.

Largest doesn't mean highest flying.

The altitude record for an amatuer rocket is 77 miles!

That was in 2004. The previous record was about 50 miles in 1996.

[El Gato]

Photos above are not of the record rocket. But this one is:

More here

Oh and it was confirmed at 72 miles, 77 was a first estimate.

[Young Werther]

The TWA 800 report by the government was phooey. The CIA cartoon diagramming the explosion and the subsequent climb as the aircraft broke apart while dragging a firely plume was very interesting. However, for that explanation to be realistic physicists have testified that in order of the aircraft to perfrom that maneuver it would have broken all the known laws of gravity in this universe.

The aircraft actually broken into three pieces. the cockpit, fuselage and tail section. The western most body recovered was that of a passenger who was in the last few rows in the tail compartment. The tail broke off and the horizontal stabilizer was vertical to the wings at it fell. The upper surface of the horizontal stabilizer had many jet turbine blades embeded to show that the jet engines were shedding turbine blades.

There were over 500 witness who saw the missle streak skyward and several pictures taken at a birthday party on the shore show the missle straking upward.

The report can be found at:TWA 800

[El Gato]

The altitude record for an amatuer rocket is 77 miles!

That said, these don't feel like Humble's rednecks, not even Humble (the uber-redneck) would shoot rockets at passenger aircraft, no matter how many people were about to hold however many beers. It certainly would not be responsible hobbyists.

Doesn't leave much.

[humblegunner]

Naw, we mostly just lob explosives at each other, not the general public or public conveyance.

It is odd that these occurrences keep happening in my neighborhood.

Planes out of IAH overfly the area regularly, quite low sometimes.

I'd guess the median altitude would be somewhere between 5 and 8 thousand feet.

I'd hate to think there were bad guys in the area and it seems unlikely given the demographic.

More likely boneheads than bad guys.