At 12:57 PM 2/21/99 -0800, Spike Jones wrote:
>but when the thing first happened, i thought i recall the investigators
>proposing an explosion that originated *inside* the fuel tank.
IAN: Before that became the leading theory they canned the theory. As The New York Times (8/14/96) reported less than a month after the crash: "Investigators examining the wreckage ...concluded that the center fuel tank burned as many as 24 seconds after the initial blast that split apart the plane."
>this i found most improbable, even if an ignition source were to
>be found.
IAN: If the NTSB could explain how a spark could get into the tank, they would close the case. Jet fuel is also not explosive at normal temps http://members.aol.com/bardonia/washtime.htm
>im not too concerned about the 29 second plunge tho.
>i figure they estimated here, guessed a little there.
IAN: For me, you can't break physical
law, and saying an object with negative
aerodynamic advantage could fall from zero
vertical and almost zero horizontal velocity
17,000 ft at a rate about 25% faster than the
rate of fall in a vacuum, is breaking the laws
of physics, and thus that which is accepted as
the truth cannot be the truth. That concerns me.
This is what happens to an aircraft with no nose: http://home.earthlink.net/~neteagle/Modeltest/page3.html Which is just what physics and mathematics says would happen: http://home.earthlink.net/~neteagle/Stall747 http://www.copi.com/articles/Goddard/ZehrGut2.html
5 PILOTS 5 WITNESSES --> http://www.erols.com/igoddard/1year.htm