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



Sorry Paul,

I misled you a bit, no photo. I was refering to the photo you had of the pump
strung up.
As you mentioned, when people run out of fuel the vapour in the tank does not
have enough air to combust even with the vent so the tank does not collapse.
As far as I know they were factory in tank pumps, various manufacturers.
In a crash the inertia switch is supposed to stop the power to the fuel pump
so the only fuel to be available is what was in ruptured lines. If the tank is
perforated the entire contents are available. If the external pump is lower
than the fuel in the tank, a siphon can be created to pull the contents out of
the tank when the end cap fails.

Dale Davies