F.A.A. Says It Has Way to Avert Airline Fuel Tank Explosions

NY Times ^ | 2/17/2004 | MATTHEW L. WALD

[Vigilantcitizen]

Everyone here pushing the missle theory....

Remember Richard Reid?

[The Wizard]

no offense, but so far the two consparacy theories I have heard, 1 about the murder of JFK and 2 the missile shoot down of TWA 800 have both made complete sense and are based on fact supported by eye witness testimony.

[eno_]

That's a possibility, especially given Stephanopolous's "in the aftermath of the TWA 800 bombing" slip-up.

Most people think it was a missile due to the large number of witnesses who say they saw a missile.

[Rokke]

Two things. 1. The radar for a SA-6 is huge, heavy and complex. It would not fight on a small powerboat. 2. Like most surface to air missiles, The SA-6 must be stationary to fire. Bobbing around on a powerboat doesn't fire.

[Rokke]

fight = fit

[COEXERJ145]

Bingo! A radar guided SAM (SA-6/SM-1/2) has to have a fairly large platform from which to launch. You can't do it from a small boat. A man portable SAM is too small (and almost out of range in this event) to bring down a 747.

Like I said earlier, a bomb, maybe. A missile, NO. Take away all the "eyewitnesses" and the missile theory goes poof! I have yet to read an eyewitness account of any airliner crash where they get more than a small amount of the facts straight. Also, these people were not anywhere near the actual crash. They were miles away seeing an event that at the time they had no idea what it was. Even when eyewitnesses are within spitting distance of a crash, (AA 587) they cannot agree on what actually happened.

The so called "facts" of the missile theory are great, as long as the facts that rule out a missile are ignored. The problem with conspiracy theories, is one can be created to fit any event. If it was a U.S. Navy ship, it would be impossible to keep the entire crew quiet for all these years. Someone would leak it to the press that their ship fired a SAM at the same time TWA800 went down. Also, there were not any SAM equipped ships within range of TWA800 unless we have a secret, ship launched version of the Phoenix missile.

[eno_]

The SA-6 has radar terminal guidance on board. I don't know for sure, but I suspect that at a range of 13,000 feet, that's "terminal" for a missile with a range of what the FAS says is 60-90km.

Yeah, an SA-6 is big and heavy. But so was the boat and explosives that almost sank the Cole.

[COEXERJ145]

Remember that the she SA-6 is not a small weapon. You have to have a vehicle large enough to carry it, mount it for launch, aim it, and fire it without the rocket exhaust incinerating your ship. Also, in order to lock it onto the target, it has to be aimed with a separate radar system. (The SA-6 was designed to work with the "Straight Flush" radar system).

[Rokke]

"The SA-6 has radar terminal guidance on board."

The guidance radar for the SA-6 is separate from the launcher. Both are mounted on armored, tracked vehicles. Both the radar and the launcher are heavy and complex. You can't just unscrew them from the top of an armored car and bolt them to the deck of a boat.

"Yeah, an SA-6 is big and heavy. But so was the boat and explosives that almost sank the Cole."

The Cole was hit by a Zodiac boat. Even if you could bolt an SA-6 launcher to a Zodiac, you'd sink the whole thing with the missile launched. Furthermore, the SA-6 system cannot fire on the move. It must be stationary. You could set up the whole system on the deck of an aircraft carrier and it wouldn't work. That is why we don't just strap patriot missile systems to cargo ships and call them guided missile cruisers.

[eno_]

You are wrong two ways:

1. The SA-6 does have on-board radar. Yes, it can be guided from an AA radar on the ground, but that is to bring it to within the range of the terminal guidance system, which, on an SA-6, uses an on-board radar. Several mobile AA missiles work this way. The SAM-6 is probably the cheapest and most available to terrorists.

2. The Cole was hit by a fiberglass hull boat that contained hundreds of pounds of high explosive. I don't know that your could carry a bomb that big on the open deck of a Zodiac. I recall reports of the terrorists spending most of a year building the boat.

[Rokke]

"The SA-6 does have on-board radar."

I'm afraid you are a little confused. The SA-6 missile relies on semi-active terminal guidance to guide it to impact. That means that a ground based radar must illuminate the target with radar energy that the missile then homes in on. The missile itself does not have an active radar. Very few missiles do. In fact, I think the only ground launched anti-air missile that does is the ground launched variant of the AMRAAM missile.

"The Cole was hit by a fiberglass hull boat that contained hundreds of pounds of high explosive."

Almost every eyewitness and official account describes the boat as a Zodiac. Some Zodiacs have a fiberglass hull, but regardless, they are small and couldn't carry a truck, nevermind a missile system.

[eno_]

Interesting, but... Would not a commercial airliner off Long Island be "lit" by several radars?

It is surely a hack to take a truck-mounted SAM and fire it from a beach or a boat, but it is hardly impossible. The point is that limiting the possiblities to man-portable missiles isn't neccessary. It also contradicts some of the eyewitnesses aloft who claim to have seen a bright light, like the exhaust plume of a missile.

[eno_]

There were also reports of fairly large amounts of fiberglass on the decks and inside the Cole as debris was being cleared. By comparison, only tiny bits of the terrorists were ever found.

[Rokke]

"Would not a commercial airliner off Long Island be "lit" by several radars?"

Yes, but a surface to air missile doesn't guide on any radar energy. The target tracking radar that guides a missile like an SA-6 provides an incredibly powerful and very narrow beam of radar energy with specific frequency, pulse width and modulation. The missile only "sees" that radar illumination.
I agree that it is incredibly unlikely that anything was launched from land the night TWA800 went down. No SAM system is portable enough and descrete enough for that to happen without thousands of people on Long Island being aware of it.

[eno_]

You are ascribing fantastic properties to the SAM-6 radar. The missile has a range of over 40 miles. There is no technology that would radar illuminate a plane in a narrow beam like a searchlight over that great a distance. The ground radar is quite normal, and covers a large segment of the sky.

[Captain Peter Blood]

As we all know the Boeing 747 has one of the best safety records in commercial aircraft. There have and I repeat there has never been a verified report of any problems with the central fuel tank on a 747, much less any recorded and verified explosions of the central fuel tank due to fumes or anything else.
The FAA is mandating this to cover their sorry butts because they could not explain what happened to Flight 800 off Long Island. Also the airlines don't have the estimated $250 Million to retofit all those planes.
This whole thing is a Crock!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[SevenDaysInMay]

SA missle defense.

[Rokke]

"The missile has a range of over 40 miles."

No. It doesn't.

"There is no technology that would radar illuminate a plane in a narrow beam like a searchlight over that great a distance."

Yes, there is. The Navy's Aegis system, the Army's Patriot system, and the Russian SA-10 are all easily capable of doing that.

[eno_]

You and I already gave the airlines $15B after 9/11. And we now pick up the tab for airport "security," (laugh bitterly here) whether we fly or not. $250M to route to some senator's wife's employer in the "center fuel tank explosion prevention" business is chump change in D.C.

[American_Centurion]

I could have been something a bit smaller say an SA-11 at FAS

If you read this please note the paragraph stating:

"The SA-11 GADFLY system also can be fitted with a supplementary electro-optical sighting system for use in a severe jamming environment, which would overwhelm the normal semi-active radar homing system -- in which case the missile uses radio-command guidance."

There are many other SAMs with similar capabilities, and all could fit on craft smaller than a WWII PT boat, which is what I would think would be an ideal platform for this type of attack.