<snip> > Nor was it likely the plane suffered a center fuel tank explosion similar > to the one that brought down TWA Flight 800 near New York in 1996. The > China Airlines plane was at an altitude where there would not have been > enough oxygen to support such an explosion, and the tank would likely have > been far too cold for that to have happened. Except for altitude, this crash certainly sounds like a rerun of Flight 800. Are the empty tanks vented so that they are quickly in equilibrium with the outside air? Gerry http://home.columbus.rr.com http://www.fortunecity.com/victorian/pollock/263/egypt/egypt.html