People are going for too many "spectacular" or unusual possible causes.
It could be something very unsexy (for the media) like corrosion/metal fatigue leading to structural failure.
Let's not forget the UAL 747 Classic that opened up like a can of sardines on climbout from Hawaii due to plain old structural failure. Or the 737 that did the same thing in Hawaii. It's quite plausible that soemthing similar happened here that led to catastrophic structural failure.
The airplane WAS 23 years old give or take a month or two. S**t, as they say, happens.
Mike Gammon
>>>>>AIRLINE / MICHAEL:
We might add for #7, a course sudden change...which could have been to avoid another missile or a/c, yet I assume that if it were another a/c, they would have gotten the warning siren. Somewhere I recall reading that it
broke into four pieces. A 13 year old plane isn't that old that it should it fail like that. assuming its seen every type of weather imaginable in that space of time. The disaster happened 20-30 minutes in flight at 35K. Might it have meant an aggressive climb-out to that altitude ---
maybe approaching stall warning? Lesson's learned from the AA suggest that wake turbulence might sever the tail, but not slice the a/c into four pieces at that height? And as for the fuel tank...wouldn't they have upgraded their a/c since TWA 800? Well, CI has a poor safety record. Devilment seems to be my leading theory...
--Mike Burris
Cambridge, Mass
>On Sunday, May 26, 2002, at 12:54 PM, Michael A. Burris wrote:
>> Here is a recent story. It does seem very odd that an aircraft should
>> fail in this way. --- Mike Burris
>
>Well, there are the usual speculations:
>
>1. Bomb on board.
>2. Fuel tank explosion, like TWA 800.
>3. Shot down by Chinese missile.
>4. Shot down by Taiwanese missile ("Oops!")
>5. Mid-air with a previously undisclosed small a/c.
>6. Freak weather (gust overpressure) caused structural failure
>7. ???
>
>--
>Michael C. Berch
>mcb@postmodern.com<<<<<<<<