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View Full Version : BALPA Log and TWA 800 Swissair 111 article.


Eff Oh
20th Feb 2002, 18:24
Did any one else see the article in "The Log" this month on the TWA 800 and Swissair 111 accidents. Very interesting indeed!!

<a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/13898" target="_blank">Swissair111, TWA800 and Electromagnetic Interference.</a>

Eff Oh.

[ 20 February 2002: Message edited by: Eff Oh ]</p>

Budgie69
20th Feb 2002, 19:17
Biggest load of cr*p since they cleaned out the elephant house at London Zoo!

paco
20th Feb 2002, 20:43
Not necessarily. Read up on HAARP, then have another look.

Phil

bblank
21st Feb 2002, 01:33
What is the occasion for "The Log" resurrecting the EMI theory?

The theory was once credible enough to warrant investigation. It was first researched by the Department of Defence and then by NASA. The NASA scientists, who should be deemed neutral, refuted the theory. Although their analysis pertained only to the TWA800 flight it seems as if a similar analysis would similarly dismiss EMI as a possible cause of the Swissair 111 accident.

Ms Scarry's theory survives in her article because she conveniently gets one important fact wrong. Her fifth footnote refers to some NASA calculations. She reports correctly that NASA calculated that 2.0E-04 Joules would have been the minimum energy required to ignite the fuel/vapor mix. She incorrectly states that NASA concluded that a dominant external emitter could have produced 1.0E-04 Joules *in the fuel quantity indicator wire.* If that were actually the case then electromagnetic interference would certainly have been a plausible candidate, as she asserts. However, she seems to be mixing up the value for the passenger cabin and the relevant value, the amount of energy transmitted to the center wing tank wiring. In fact, NASA determined that the maximum energy that an external emitter could have induced in the wiring of TWA 800's center wing tank would have been less than 1/10000'th of the minimum ignition energy. The NTSB then looked at the possibilty that there might have been a superposition from several transmitters but the likelihood of that was truly infinitesimal.

To judge the author's credibility read footnote 37 of her follow-up article. . .<a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/13830#fnr37" target="_blank">http://www.nybooks.com/articles/13830#fnr37</a>

Raas767
26th Feb 2002, 03:19
I don't subscribe to the E.M theory either, but a friend of mine that flew helicopters in the Army said that early models of the Black Hawk helicopter was susceptible to electrical interference and a few were lost. Hence the nickname, Lawndart.. .If there were a source of such power (and that is a very big IF) that could generate enough interference as to render a planes fuel tank or electrical system susceptible to ignition, then it would surely be top secret anyway and we would never know about it.. .To quote the theory of Achams razor: " All things being equal, the simplest explination is often the correct one".

Evo7
26th Feb 2002, 12:02
&lt;pedantic&gt;

Occam's Razor is a logical principle, not a theory - "one should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain".

It doesn't say that the simplest explanation is correct - just that if the simplest explanation is correct then you shouldn't make it more complex.

&lt;/pedantic&gt;

To be honest, it's much more use in physics and mathematics than engineering...