Strangely missing were the most relevant questions; the most pertinent information.
As I watched on and off for many hours (my TV monitor is only a few feet from my computer, where I was writing), not once did I hear about the following:
(1) I heard nothing about investigations covering the passenger manifest. Were there any Middle Eastern types aboard?
(2) I heard nothing about investigations covering the security personnel who screened passengers and baggage. Were they connected to the same security agency which was hired to screen people in Boston? Were there any immigrants working in the screening process?
(3) I heard nothing about investigations covering the airline employees on the tarmac, who were either (1) loading luggage; (2) servicing the plane with food; (3) fueling the plane; (4) performing any last minute mechanical repairs.
(4) I heard nothing about whether all bags were x-rayed before being stowed in the baggage compartment.
(5) I heard nothing about the FBI investigating mechanics who worked on the airplane in the past weeks or months.
One unusual thing stands out. Usually, IF "catastrophic mechanical failure" is assumed when an airplane goes down, (and this is especially true of the military), ALL AIRCRAFT OF THE SAME TYPE ARE IMMEDIATELY GROUNDED! This was true in the tilt rotor crash of an "Osprey," and it was true of the Concorde. It is true right across the board! But, since there was no such grounding of all the other Airbus craft, it proves to me that those investigating the crash DO NOT BELIEVE IT WAS MECHANICAL FAILURE!
I have flown for almost forty years as a pilot, and have flown on thousands of commercial flights dating back to the days of the old DC3. I was on the inaugural nighttime flight of the first Boeing 707 from LAX (Los Angeles) to what was then called Idylwild (now Kennedy) in New York.
I know a little bit about aircraft structure and flight characteristics. Airplanes do not simply "come apart in the air" without some catastrophic, unimaginable mechanical failure, or, as in the case of a 737 whose entire top fuselage separated on a flight from Honolulu to Maui many years ago (and safely landed with the passengers sitting in the open air!), from metal fatigue.
When was the last time you were driving along in your automobile, even if you had put over 200,000 miles on it, and the engine fell out onto the road? When was the last time you were driving along, and the trunk and rear wheels of your car fell off?
The engine which fell off the Chicago O’Hare DC-10 many years ago was missing a large bolt, which a maintenance person had failed to install. The inept dolt who did such a thing has had to live with the knowledge of his mistake — which cost hundreds of lives — from that time on. Normally, engines do not just fall off an airplane in flight. Certainly, the tail of the airplane (vertical stabilizer) does not fall off without some major catastrophic cause.
Eye witnesses on the ground, many of whom have been dismissed as hysterical, reported hearing sounds of an explosion. Many said "flames were coming out of both sides" of the plane. Many saw the engine separate and fall. Some reports claimed both engines fell off. One engine landed in the front of a Texaco gas station. A large section of the vertical stabilizer landed in Jamaica Bay. All this, and an airplane now reduced to an unflyable piece of junk, falling out of the sky like a crippled bird, impacting in a "very small area" missing even the telephone wires next to the houses, and it was an explainable "accident?"
Pilots dread "FOD." Many an airplane has ingested some object, whether a nut or bolt or both, carelessly left on the runway (this is what brought the Concorde down in Paris), or some object, such as a large bird, or a flock of smaller birds, which have caused a crash. "Foreign Object Damage" can surely cause an engine to fail; can cause it to come apart, blow up (due to an accumulation of jet fuel) and even separate from the airplane. My father’s Grumman Gulfstream II injested a bolt which was flipped up into the big Rolls Royce engines by the nose wheel on its landing roll in Cairo, Egypt. The bolt, about 2 inches long and 1/4 to ˝ inch thick, destroyed the engine. I saw the pictures of the threads of the bolt, clearly imprinted on the blades of the compressor; deep scars which replicated the bolt. My father had to wait until a charter flight could be arranged, and the GII had to have a new engine flown in from Britain.
Even if the American Airlines Airbus ingested (or had tossed into the nacelle by someone on the ground) some FOD, it does not explain why the tail section separated! Loud noises heard by many on the ground were called "popping" sounds. From a distance, even gunshots sound like "popping" sounds, as do muffled explosions.
Now, it appears the NTSB is claiming "turbulence" from a departing JAL 747 may have caused the catastrophic damage to the Airbus. They repeat endlessly that the Airbus departed "15 seconds earlier than normal," as if this was decisive. But aircraft do not fall apart from wing tip vortices! True, cyclonic winds are generated from the wing tips of large, heavy aircraft. Like tiny tornados, they spiral ever larger until dissipated. But airframes are built to withstand powerful winds; normally fly at speeds of 550 to 600 nautical miles per hour. Lockheed P3 Orions regularly fly into hurricanes to clock their winds as a routine method for keeping track of powerful storms which may threaten the American coasts. It is extremely doubtful that wing tip vortices would snap the entire vertical stabilizer off, cause both engines to fall off, and so break up a huge, solidly built jet aircraft that it plummets to the ground in pieces!
Allegedly, the cockpit voice recorder, which has been recovered and analyzed, "indicated no unusual activity." How strange! Two pilots, aboard a stricken plane, which was allegedly "dumping fuel" over Jamaica bay before going down, and no-one SAID anything? Nonsense!
The plane was allegedly being flown by the co-pilot, from the right seat. This is not at all unusual, for the captain, at his discretion, can allow the co-pilot to do so in order to gain experience. Shortly after climbing out of the airport area, and once communicating with "departure control," it is standard procedure to engage the auto pilot, which continues the climb. The auto pilot can actually operate the aircraft more smoothly than hand flying it, and will automatically level off at a pre-set altitude.
Obviously, if the crew was dumping fuel, they would have had to TALK about it! If they were experiencing catastrophic loss of engine power, not to mention the engine falling off the airplane, they would have SAID something! The captain is responsible for taking the controls, and instantly sounding off about emergency procedures! To be told that the cockpit voice recorder did not contain ANY INDICATION OF AN EMERGENCY is very suspicious, indeed, unless the two pilots had been drugged!
Will we ever know the truth about this crash? A former official of the NTSB, interviewed on Fox Cable News, said he had conducted more interviews than any other of their personnel following the crash of the TWA flight 800 into the Atlantic. The official explanation was that a spark from worn wiring next to mostly empty center fuel tanks had caused an explosion. Yet, there were MANY eye witnesses who said they distinctly saw what appeared to be a smoke trail of a rocket shooting upwards toward the plane!
The US supplied Bin Laden and his cohorts with plenty of shoulder-mounted "stinger" anti-aircraft rockets during their war against Russia in Afghanistan. Could such a missile have been fired at the TWA plane? It is POSSIBLE, even if some will say not probable.
What motive could the various governmental agencies have for keeping information from the public?
Obviously, they (1) Do not wish to add to the hysteria and panic about terrorist attacks. (2) They do not want to send the airlines industry into a tailspin from which it could never recover. (3) They do not wish to negatively impact the stock market when it had been picking up. (4) They do not wish to dramatically impede holiday travel, which is vital to the national economy. (5) They want to frustrate the terrorists, by denying that it was a terrorist act, thus diminishing their glee.
All of the above is speculation, perhaps. On the other hand, there is such a thing as logic, common sense, and the powers of simple observation. A terrorist who is a "sleeper" working on the tarmac, perhaps driving a baggage tractor, could come very near the nacelle of a huge engine, and surreptitiously toss in a nut or bolt. It would require only a small one, and it would be ingested into the compressor stages of the engine, and within minutes, tear the engine apart. Perhaps they are investigating all of the above. Let us hope so. And let us hope we are told the whole truth.
