PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - United Flight 93, What actually happened ? [somewhat edited by JT]
Old 11th Aug 2006, 00:01
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SUPERMNNN
 
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Let's forget the airport by now.

EVENTS SEQUENCE:

Assuming that we start from New Baltimore. Set the time at 0 for the first event. Assuming at time 0, the altitude is 7000ft the speed is 140knots = 160 mph.

Event 1 (New Baltimore debris): New Baltimore is 8 miles from crash site, it will take 180 seconds to travel at 160mph.
Event 2 (First transponder signal): Drop down from 7000 ft to 6400 ft at 800ft/m decending speed, will take 45 seconds.
Event 3 (2nd transponder signal): Drop down from 7000 ft to 5800 ft will take 90 seconds.
Event 4 (Indian Lake debris): Reach Indian Lake (2.3 miles from crash site) will travel 5.7 miles from New Baltimore, it takes 128 seconds.
Event 5 (Engine part fell): Somewhere around here, maybe around 10 seconds before crashing, the engine part fell off.
Event 6 (Crashing): Reach crash site will take the total 180 seconds.

Now we can line up our events on time line, the sequence matters, but the time stamps don't.

EVENT/LOCATION --------- TIME (sec)
NEW BALTIMORE DEBRIS----- 0
FIRST TRANSPONDER SIG---- 45
SECOND TRANSPONDER SIG-- 90
INDIAN LAKE DEBRIS--------- 128
ENGINE PART FELL----------- 170
CRASHING------------------- 180

The purpose of this calculation is not numerically important, but simply lines all the ducks in a row, to line up the sequence of the events.
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