Posted by Ed Toner on August 27, 19100 at 10:34:42:
The A/C involved, 17103, is the very one that I got my ATP rating on on
10 April, 1972.
The report stinks. Take a look at the maintenance manuals for the B747
(ask
an engineer, he would probably copy them for you; one
or two
have done so for me). You will see that the design of
the tanks is
such that no wires go through to the tank proper. All
motors and
such are mounted externally. They have to be, so they
can be
fixed or replaced without busting open the tank. Even
the transfer
valves have their actuators mounted externally and
drive rods are
connected to the valve in the tank.
Boeing has made a great deal of effort to prevent
just such a
disaster, as I am sure have the other airplane
manufacturers.
The fuel quantity measuring system also has external
wiring. The
sensors go into the tank but they use such a low
voltage that a
spark is virtually impossible and in fact the
investigators have
admitted that this was not the reason for the
ignition. They are
trying to say that a high voltage wire shorted with
the capacitor
wiring but that too would have been external to the
tank, and any
sparks would have occurred at the point of contact,
surely.
I still don't buy the missle theory. I think it was a bomb. The fuselage
separated at the same frame as PAA over Lockerbie. I believe it was the
same type bomb placed in the same spot.
A missle fired from a plane would probably have been a heat seeker, and
flown up the nearest tailpipe. Why did a missle cause the fuselage to
separate at the same frame as a bomb did?
Motive? Revenge. We bombed Khadafi's home, destroyed it, injured member
of his family, and killed his sleeping 2 year old daughter. STOOOOPID!
Ed Toner
Capt TWA Ret.
LCDR USNR Ret.
Tailhooker