Unlike hydrogen gasoline will ignite over a relatively narrow
 range of mixtures. 10:1 to about 18:1. The tank environment is
 always too rich to ignite the mixture.

 Paul Lamar

 Brings to mind the TWA 747 loss a number of years ago where government
 investigators concluded shorting wires in empty tank ignited jet fuel
 vapors
 causing explosion. I was skeptical from the start. Seems to me all 747
 aircraft that vintage would have been grounded immediately for
      inspection.


 Al K

 My wife Robin worked for TWA in those days as a mechanic. All 747's
      were
 inspected
 for loose or bare wires. Robin, due to her small size, spent many hours
 crawling
 around in fuel tanks. A nasty job. Nothing was found. It was common
 practice to take
 off with empty center tank if you did not need it. This reduced the
 stress on
 the wing spar. That meant thousands of successful
 747 take offs were made with empty center tanks. They also did their
 damnedest to
 ignite the mostly empty center tank on an old 747 with out success.

 IMHO it was shot down in error by the Navy and covered up by the
      Clinton
 administration.
 Think of the political fall out if they admitted shooting it down in
      error.

 Heck cars would be blowing up all over the place. Fuel flows through
 the pump past the armature and past the brushes.

 What they do with a fuel air bomb is first blow up the tank to
      distribute
 the fuel in the air to roughly the proper mixture and then ignite the

 mixture
 with a flare. Then you get the really big bang. Forget the movies of
 cars and
 gasoline tank trucks blowing up.

 A can of gas will put out a match but don't ask me to demonstrate :)
 Do it with a robot.

      Paul Lamar


 NOT a Match, but a cigarette, Virg


      I've seen it done without igniting the fumes (cigarette).
      Harold Lunt

    If i remember correctly several days before the 747 was shot down the
    Palestinians said if we did not stop backing Israel they would give us
    something to think about.
    Steve Hudson



    The aircraft destroyed as TWA Flight 800 was reconstructed and is at
 the NTSB training facility in
    Virginia (I don't recall the exact location, and I have not seen it
 since shortly after the
    reconstruction was accomplished).  Although I often (in fact, usually)
 have differences with NTSB
    findings, they appear correct on this one.  I certainly love conspiracy
 theories as well as the next
    guy, but they don't fit in this instance. The physical evidence reveals
 an explosion from inside the
    center tank.

    ~ Nick Jilek


    Where you involved in the investigation or are you restating what you
 read?
    Using the word "conspiracy" does not apply in this case. It is an
attempt
    to discredit the people that might disagree with the official findings.

    All the TWA mechanics that inspected all 747's after the 1996 crash
 disagree with
    you. No "shorts" were found.Thousands of 747 flights had occurred with
 empty
    or near empty center tanks and none "exploded" except that one. Flying
 with
    an empty center tank was SOP.

    It reduced the stress on the wing. No modifications or AD's were
 mandated having
    anything to do with the center tank fuel system. My wife was a TWA
 mechanic at the time.
    IMHO the accidental shoot down  was covered up by the Clinton
 administration
    (1993 to 2001).  IMHO the truth will come out sooner or later.

    I doubt a terrorist shot it down as it was obviously hit by a radar
guided
    missile and not infra red guided missile. If infra red it would have
hit
    an engine.

    In 1988 a guided missile cruiser (Similar to the one in the Atlantic at
 the time
    of the TWA shoot down.) shot down an airliner in the Persian Gulf by
 mistake.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655
 <ttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655"


    Paul Lamar


    Paul, I beg to differ on the Persian gulf incident being a "mistake".
 The Aircraft was intentionally
    targeted by the guided missile cruiser because it appeared to be on an
 attack vector to the cruiser,
    which was at the time, engaged in multiple surface actions. The
 aircraft did not respond to attempts
    at radio communication, was not squaking transponder code.
    CMDR Will C. Rogers acted in the defense of his crew and vessel. The
 Iranians intentionally sent the
    aircraft, filled with martyrs for the Islamic revolution, into the hot
 zone to provoke an
    international incident.
    Will C Rogers was my CO aboard the USS Cushing, DD985, previously, and
 I never met a more
    professional naval officer in my short career with the military.
    C. Smith

    I can believe that.

    Paul Lamar

 The launch and target intercept results of a radar-guided missile from a
 USN ship off the coast of the US would be known to literally hundreds of
 people (those aboard the vessel,
 those monitoring the airspace, those monitoring the exercise, etc).  All
 these people would need to be be silent, despite media inquiries, etc,
 in the wake of the well-publicized
 loss of hundreds of lives.  Very unlikely.

 It's hard for anyone who has worked in a large organization and who has
 seen how secrets are(n't) kept to believe a plan/coverup of any kind
 that involves more than 3-4 well motivated  people would remain
 unpublicized.

 Mark W.

 I have heard that scenario before.
 When I was in the military  dealing with secret projects we were
threatened
 with treason if we revealed anything to anybody including our own
 family. The
 guided missile cruisers can shoot down an aircraft out of sight miles away
 with the Aegis Combat System. SM-1ER/SM-2ER, an extended range
 surface-to-air missile.

 As I understand it target drones were launched
 about the same time from land for a military exercise off the Jersey
coast.
 The personal aboard ship may not know what they shot down.

 Have you read all of this yet? http://twa800.com/documents.htm
 <ttp://twa800.com/documents.htm"

 My wife was a TWA mechanic and she worked at LAX with 200 others.
 Some are close friends of ours. They had to inspect several 747 fuel
 tanks. I am taking what they say above at face value.

 I suggest you run a test where a small amount of diesel fuel is in a
sealed
 atmospheric pressure small tin can and try to ignite it with a spark. DO
 NOT pressurizes the can as that could be ignited by getting the mass air
 fuel ratio in  the correct 10:1 to 20:1 air:fuel dangerous proportions.
 In general fuel
 in a  tank is difficult to explode due to an overly rich fuel air ratio as
 mentioned  above. However do it in a safe place.


 Paul Lamar

 I might add if a spark in a fuel tank could cause an explosion
 cars would be blowing up all over the place as every car in the
 world now has a DC motor fuel pump with arcing brushes inside the
 tank itself. Take a close look at this picture. The fuel passes
 through the pump motor no less.

 Paul Lamar


 I have no theories as to what brought the plane down, but the spark in
 the fuel tank explanation does not satisfy me.

 A couple of pilots from the 102nd Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron
 out of Sufflok county airport  flying an Air Force H-60 reported that
 they saw something streaking UP to the plane before the crash. I worked
 for  a sister squadron out in Oregon at the time. That does not lead me
 to any theories, but between the gas tank spark and witness reports, I
 don't think the NTSB got it right.

 Brian Trubee


Now we just have to explain the lack of any evidence of the expected (highly
distinctive)
hundreds/thousands of
warhead fragments that would have been found in the airframe/engines, etc if
it had been hit by a
missile.  And the lack of explosive residue.  I suppose the NTSB
guys, every one of them, were in on the coverup?  C'mon . . .   It's a lot
easier to believe that a
very few planes sometimes had the
right fuel/air ratios to allow combustion under the right circumstances
(tank "empty" a long time?
Additional vent air brought in as crossfeed
  left on and fuel taken from other tanks?).  Then, on one of those few
planes during one of those
few times, a rare spark . . .

Mark W.


Mark, what does air weigh per cubic foot?

You need ten POUNDS of air for every pound of fuel THROUGHLY mixed
to cause an explosion that will blow apart a 747.

It is next to impossible to get that condition in a fuel tank.

Logic and reason does not apply. It is a LAW of physics.... not just an
idea.

Yes the movies do it all the time but they lie to you and use explosive's to
blow
the tank.

Paul Lamar


Paul,
I worked with an explosives expert on a movie. He was in fact the captain of
the San Jose bomb squad. We found it difficult to get the classic movie
fireball. I believe that the long-time movie pros use black powder because
it is slower! Larry used some C-4 to blow up some gas in containers. The
modern stuff just disperses the fuel so fast that it won't stay in the
combustible range. Modern explosives are more bite than bark. Point is, both
gas and diesel can be difficult to to get to burn.
Bill

The TWA mechanics think it was a Stinger that homed on the A/C system
under the wing.

"Slide 1 sums it all up.  A MANPADS missile could have easily reached flight 800's altitude and could have caused catastrophic damage to the aircraft.  The team was told that the heat seeking warhead will steer for the center points when there are multiple heat sources.  The infra-red photograph of a 747 clearly shows that the A/C packs under the center fuel tank are an additional heat source and the center of all heat sources."

The current administration is in a panic over 20,000 missing MANPADS in Libya.

Paul Lamar