Lamh Foistenach Abu!
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 ...
That’s quite a model at 13,000 feet. Possible yes but no hobby shop rocket to be sure.
Ah yes. Last month they were busy denying it happened...
could never understand that....nearly missed
What happened to our right to confront our accusers?
There is a radio commercial running locally here that invites people to anonymously report litterers. Big fines involved. Boy, couldn't you do some damage to that neighbor you don't like, or the guy running for city council on the other ticket, with that kind of thing.
...pretty ugly, military intelligence, government help, etc.
Lamh Foistenach Abu!
flight 800 deja vu
they’d still need actual proof. an anonymous tip can lead to real evidence, but isn’t itself evidence. it doesn’t stop the right to confront the accuser.
Looney rednecks in the ‘hood ping.
You said: “What happened to our right to confront our accusers?”
It is gone. IRS reports, claims of child or spouse abuse ...all anonymous. One can really wreck havoc on someone with any of these.
One of my employees got cross threaded with a neighbor over a dog and the neighbor reported them for child abuse. Lost custody of their daughter one evening ...just that quick and just that final. Took days to get it sorted out. Cops and the social worker just showed up at the door. This was over 20 years ago.
Do a web search for "Tripoli Rockets" or "High powered rocketry."
TWA 800 was shot down by a missile. The Clinton Whitehouse covered it up!
I agree. That’s more than 40 football fields straight up in the air. I can’t imagine there are legal model rockets that can go that high, but what do I know.
I would think that the model rocket would leave some pretty good sized burn marks.
Just heli over the area thought to be the launch area and look for some scorched field.
Possible yes, probable I don’t think so.
As someone said though, at first report it didn’t happen. Took place on a Friday and wasn’t reported until a Monday ...go figure.
Sorta like Gorillas in the Mist but different
We’re losing the language. They obviously meant, “narrowly missed.”
We have a few of those, too.
I think Leroy down the road is trying to make 'em work in his meth lab.
Cheaper than illegals and unable to testify.
We have heard rumors of monkeys in the trees around here for years.
Ask Xenalyte, she knows.
Or crop circles.
If it nearly missed the jet, does that mean it HIT the jet?
Of course it was just some kid making a missle in his garage, you know like Billy Bob in the movie of which the name escapes me. I am sure if it was launched as they say and it being a model, I am sure someone will step forward. People with kind of hobby do not go unnoticed.
Just like the two airplanes that had a “near miss.” Like George Carlin used to say, that’s more like a “near hit.”
Bookmark
You'd think... IOW, yes—but barely!
Launch from a pad and hose it down.
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.
http://dvice.com/archives/2009/04/largest-flying.php
At 13,000 feet, this was no model rocket.
So just hypothetically, say this rocket was launched by an evildoer...the official investigative approach is to home someone calls Crime Stoppers??
But apparently, it's not a big stretch for a hobbyist rocket to get to that altitude.
Very interesting.
But now it did.
And it's a HOBBY rocket.
Except the FBI is interested.
But it's not terrorism.
Y'see.
Like this older Soviet SAM.
I’ve hunted the “sport” rocket groups.
I couldn’t find any that reached more than 4,000 feet.
The TWA 800 shootdown occurred at about 10,000 feet and the Soviet shoulder fired missiles have the range to accomplish the shoot down.
BTW when the autopsies were being comducted one of the forensic aides observed that the x-rays of the victims showed a great deal of shrapnel! the tech was fired by the FBI chief who was there to interfere with the NTSB crash investigators! I wonder why those xrays were classified!
You need a bigger imagination. The National Association of Rocketry and the Tripoli Rocketry Association are both hobby organizations for high powered model rocketry. These guys are serious, and the ones I've met really love what they do.
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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