Posted on 06/15/2009 2:20:02 PM PDT by pkajj
Crime Stoppers is offering a reward for information what appeared to be a model rocket that nearly missed a Continental Express jet late last month.
The rocket sizzled past the plane after it took off from Bush Intercontinental Airport about 8 p.m. on May 29, officials said. Investigators determined it lifted off somewhere in Chambers County, but they have been unable to find out who launched it.
Ken DeFoor, chief deputy of the Liberty County sheriff's office, said the incident has generated several leads his office has turned over to the FBI. He declined to elaborate. The jet carried four crew members and 29 passengers.
As the jet climbed to 13,000 feet shortly after takeoff, the pilot and first officer reported seeing the rocket soaring toward them. 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.
Anyone with any information about the incident is asked to contact Crime Stoppers at 713-222-8477 or on-line at www.crime-stoppers.org. Crime Stoppers will pay up to $5,000 for any information that leads to the identification, arrest and/or charging of any suspect involved in criminal activity related to the incident. All tipsters remain anonymous.
(Excerpt) Read more at chron.com ...
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.
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.
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.
Oh and it was confirmed at 72 miles, 77 was a first estimate.
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
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.
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.
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