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A comment on Citing new evidence, families sue feds, Raytheon, Lockheed over 1996 TWA crash. Parent comment

Re:Citing new evidence, families sue feds, Raytheon, Lockhee... by tyingq on Sunday September 25, 2022 @12:56PM (#32973287)
>That would not be caused by an inert missile impact

Why not? Inert missile punches through a fuel tank, aerosolizing the fuel, and either the missile engine or a damaged aircraft engine ignites it.

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Re:Citing new evidence, families sue feds, Raytheon, Lockhee... by thunderbird120 on Sunday September 25, 2022 @01:56PM (#32973998)
That would cause a fire, not a detonation. The same way gas tanks don't actually explode if you shoot them, they spring leaks and those leaks may catch fire but actual booms require very specific circumstances. Specifically, they require the correct mixture of air and fuel vapors but that doesn't require a missile impact to ignite. Something much more mundane like a spark is just as effective and about 5 orders of magnitude more likely to occur.

TWA 800 broke apart as a result of a major overpressure event. The particular mode of in-flight failure observed in TWA 800 is very difficult to cause by poking a single missile sized hole anywhere in the aircraft. Not theoretically impossible, but difficult to the point that it's not a reasonable explanation. You have to take the combined probability of 2 very unlikely events rather than just 1.

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Re:Citing new evidence, families sue feds, Raytheon, Lockhee... by tyingq on Sunday September 25, 2022 @04:41PM (#32975970)
That's helpful, though comparing a (perhaps) 1900kg missile that's 53cm/21in in diameter with a ~1000°C exhaust temp to a bullet isn't quite right.
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Re:Citing new evidence, families sue feds, Raytheon, Lockhee... by landemva on Sunday September 25, 2022 @10:08PM (#32978539)
> a spark is just as effective and about 5 orders of magnitude more likely to occur.

Seems you know of data about commercial airline fuel tank spark explosions. I didn't find much about this problem online. When else did this seemingly under-reported catastrophic commercial airline event happen?

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Re:Citing new evidence, families sue feds, Raytheon, Lockhee... by ceejayoz on Monday September 26, 2022 @07:51AM (#32981920)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine_Airlines_Flight_143

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thai_Airways_International_Fli...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Am_Flight_214

All fuel tank explosions. Modern aircraft have equipment specifically to mitigate fuel vapor in the tanks because of these sorts of incidents.

TWA 800 also caused improved maintenance requirements of wiring that might arc/spark, as inspections of other aircraft found widespread metal shavings, non-standard wiring, and eroded insulation in nearly every aircraft they took a look at.

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