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

      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

     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

 DO NOT test  a suspect pump by removing it and connecting to a
 battery. When you remove it you introduce the oxygen atoms required
 for combustion. A few mechanics have been killed or lost a hand in
 demonstration of the effect. If compelled to test, submerge in
 solvent to keep the air out.

 Dale Davies

 I guess I am a lucky dog to be still alive :)

 Don't try this at home. I am a professional :)

 Paul Lamar


That looks like an external pump designed to work that way. The ones that blow
up are the internal tank pumps or ones like this one that guys try without any
liquid going through them.

Dale Davies

No jpg attached Dale. Can you try again?

Well plenty of people run out of gas all the time. Do you know what brand they were?
Did you see that happen yourself? Inside outside appear to be pretty much the same.

We have experienced the failure of the plastic ends of some of the external pumps
failing in a crash and continue running feeding the flames.

Paul Lamar