FBI: Explosion Aboard Airbus

CNN | 11/12/01

[dep]

CNN quotes the White House, to wit: The FBI believes there was an explosion aboard the American Airlines A-300 which crashed this morning in Queens, NY. They are investigating in an attempt to learn the source of the explosion.

[NixNatAVanG InDaBurgh]

> Todays date 11-11-01 Today is the 12th

Yes. You are right. I should have said THIS is the day that the government is shut down for Veteran's Day, the day COnSIDERED the national holiday. People are at HOME. That was the point.

[sayfer bullets]

Amazing how the subtleties of sarcasm and understatement are lost on some.

I would have noted "/sarc", but thought "why? EVERYONE knows 'slightly' is understating the obvious".

5 flames out of 212 posts...not bad.

[chantal7]

Where is osama getting all his tech advice? We need to find them and we need to get all our hackers, phreakers, whatever other kind of info techs, officially or unoffically, and set them loose on the terrorists. We need to fight fire with fire. Maybe they could find the SMS's that seem to be covert instructions and change them or delete them. But just monitoring them won't do much good if the info gets to the perps and I don't like the fact that the government can listen in on our conversations, postings, private emails, etc. IF and it's a big IF, they are allowed to do this, it should be for a short period of time and then they better make sure that the ability is taken away from the FBI, ATF, etc. or they'll keep using it even if the time for it to be legally used is past.

[carton253]

Chantal7...

Calm down! :)

The ability to listen to conversations, etc. does have a time limit on. 2 years I think.

I think you're pretty amazing if you can be up 10 minutes, look at the t.v. screen and know exactly what happened.

The White House is saying there was an explosion. What caused the explosion no one knows yet. Yet!

GWB is going to Crawford to meet with Putin. It's okay... there are phone lines. And he can always come back if he needs to.

[Lael]

Can anyone find the article where the Al Qaeda spokesman said "planes would rain from the sky." Or was it OBL himself who said this. I am searching and searching but cannot locate it. I cannot remember the exact quote

I don't have the quote, but it went something to the effect that "the storm of aircraft will continue"

I think it was OBL but it might have been his organization.

[thunderdome]

Light travels much faster than sound....the scene would be - the engine comes off, then you hear an explosion after a delay based on your distance from the jet.

[chantal7]

9. The fact that the plane exploded most of its fuel in midair could have been a miscalculation on the part of whoever might have done this, because the damage would have been far more devestating.

I don't understand this point of your's. Please elaborate? Could they possibly have been wanting the fuel to spread in an attempt at an FuelAirExplosive-like explosion?

Those firefighters and policemen have been through far too much, as have their families. I wish they'd let people like me who have been firefighters come to help them so that they can take short breaks and know that they aren't in this alone before they crack under this pressure(I'm not saying they are weak! Far from it, but they are only human and have had so much to bear in these last two months). Heck, not only that but I helped with civil defense AND I know farsi and arabic. Hmm I also lived in the midst of the arabs long enough to know how to push their buttons. I wish I could help, I know I could help, and I feel so helpless sitting here.

Oh well. I'll pray.

[moe]

You said: "The engine came away before the explosion.

point 1 : One of several eyewitnesses.

point 2 : Light travels just slightly faster than sound.

point 3 : You COULD be entirely correct."

On point 2, let's see (from physics class): light travels at 386,000mph and sound (in air) at 1000 feet/second or about 300mph. Thus, light goes nearly instantly over these eye-witness distance while the sound takes about 5 seconds per mile. Easily one could see an exploision/fire prior to hearing it.

[VoodooEconomist]

Speed of light: Approximately instantaneous.

Instantaneous is inifinite distance per second. The speed of light doesn't come anywhere near that. Of course, relative to sound, it is orders of magnitude faster.

But, considering that we measure the distance of the Sun from the Earth in terms of light years, it's not really accurate to approximate the speed of light as "instantaneous."

[jwfiv]

What you say sounds very reasonable...knowing nothing about the aircraft, I'm way too quick and unqualified to reach a conclusion. I reckon I was expressing my horror, concern, frustration and fears. And anger.

[carton253]

The FBI is looking for people who speak arabic and farsi. Maybe you could contact them.

[spectre]

I'm patiently waiting for the investigation to press forward and come to a reasonable conclusion. I don't HAVE a tin-foil hat, but the memo that was issued involving a Terrorist Alert for our Nation had the designation "Sky-Fall"...it was pulled from Drudge after a short while.

I guess Sky-Fall can mean anything....strange time we are living in..

sw

[proudofthesouth]

I think Neil Cavuto may be on to something. I just heard about this crash a few minutes ago when I logged onto FR. The first thought that went thru my mind was how good was the airport and baggage security for this flight?

[antivenom]

Sound has an intersting way when it travels....

[Ymani Cricket]

I have often wondered how it would be handled if a flight was deemed a threat and intentionally shot down to protect us. They wouldn't want to scare pepole out of flying, so they would have to cover it up, don't you think? How many people would fly NOW if they knew there was a chance of getting taken out by one of our own F-16s because their flight was a national security threat?

[Iscool]

I found it interesting that on Fox News, the reporter was stating that eye witnesses are generally wrong or inaccurate when reporting a major disaster due to the shock value of the incident...What a spin, eh???

As usual, the tin foilers would have us believe the NTSB is on the up and up, like they were with TWA 800...(btw, there seems to be some confusion as to who the REAL tin foil hatters are..)

[chantal7]

For the most part, I didn't get any of your points in your post. I think you forgot your paragraph breaks after your answers.

Anyway..about a month ago, wasn't 11/12/01 listed as one of the dates that someting might happen? I can't remember which threads they were on to check.

[proudofthesouth]

Its one thing to lose an engine when you are at altitude, a whole other thing to lose it on takeoff...

As in the American Airlines DC10 that crashed upon takeoff at O'Hare back in the late 1970's.

[Smogger]

I don't have the quote, but it went something to the effect that "the storm of aircraft will continue"

Yeah that sounds right. I still cannot find a link to an article but I am looking. That quote was a week or two ago. Anyone who think's that this is an accident is crazy. I think that the only prudent assumption is that it was a terrorist attack. If we find out it was a mechanical failure later (which I think is unlikey) then fine. I for one am staying off of airplanes.

[lavaroise]

I found it interesting that on Fox News, the reporter was stating that eye witnesses are generally wrong or inaccurate when reporting a major disaster due to the shock value of the incident...What a spin, eh???

Indeed. Instead of eye witnesses, those nut cases must be using crystal balls to reconstitute pictures of disasters. Never mind the eye witness, no help possible there, right? I am not saying it, they are.

Psychics join the manhunt