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| Pilot Reports 'Missile' Fired at Jetliner Near LAX |
| 2005-12-02 |
| FBI agents and Homeland Security officials spent the weekend investigating the report of a possible missile fired at an American Airlines plane taking off from Los Angeles International Airport. Sources tell ABC News the pilot of American Airlines Flight 621, en route to Chicago, radioed air traffic controllers after takeoff from LAX. He told them a missile had been fired at the aircraft and missed. The plane was over water when the pilot said he saw a smoke trail pass by the cockpit. FBI agents believe it was a flare or a bottle rocket, but say they may never know if that's what it actually was. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #22 It appears that AA621's route is MSP --> DFW --> SNA. Unless I'm mistaken (quite possible) there wouldn't be a AA flight 621 departing from either Santa Ana or LAX. |
| Posted by: AzCat 2005-12-02 22:44 |
| #21 Ref Post #13 from Mr. Crawford - planes landing at SNA aka JW always come in from the northeast and take-off to the southwest over water. The sw departure is initially over a residential area and has much higher angle (noise control) than the depature at LAX. The LAX departure puts the plane over water almost immediately and at a lower altitude. Plus SNA is resticted to smaller a/c due to shorter runways and again noise. IMHO shooter chioce would be LAX due to lower altitude and larger targets ie 47's. Don't know nothin' about AA621's route but don't doubt the post about the SNA-ORD route easy enough to verify. |
| Posted by: BangkokBilly 2005-12-02 20:44 |
| #20 so.....potato cannon, maybe? |
| Posted by: Frank G 2005-12-02 19:59 |
| #19 Thanks Old Patriot. Your information cleared up a lot of my questons |
| Posted by: milford421 2005-12-02 19:28 |
| #18 Thank you, Rafael, I learned that about aircraft interrogation methods while reading up on collision avoidance doing research for this article. I doubt SAMs are going to come with transponders any time soon. Wucka wucka. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2005-12-02 18:44 |
| #17 Pilot drinking? |
| Posted by: The Happy Fliegerabwehrkanonen 2005-12-02 18:34 |
| #16 Wouldn't a guided missile or other sort of SAM have sufficient radar cross-section to have triggered the aircraft's collision avoidance warning system The collision avoidance system (TCAS) works by picking up signals from beacons on other aircraft. A SAM would not trigger TCAS, since it doesn't have the beacon. |
| Posted by: Rafael 2005-12-02 18:21 |
| #15 Radar resolution is a factor of pulse length and beam width. Beam width is a factor of the antenna size (lamda). Most commercial radars have a resolution of about 5m - that's big enough to catch anything from a hang glider to a 747. Most shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles are about 1.2m in length, and about 0.2m in diameter. You'd never see it on commercial radar. To get the resolution higher, you have to do one of three things: alter the size of the antenna (which is one thing phased array antennas do), shorten the pulse length (usually 1.2-2.5 microseconds), or a combination of the two. The larger the antenna, the more power required, also the shorter the pulse length, the greater the power required. There are some tricks that can be done to make an antenna look bigger than it is, and other ways to create split-pulses, but it still takes huge amounts of power. One of the problems with using shoulder-fired SAMs to take down commercial aircraft is the IR signature of a commercial jet is HUGE - three to ten times that of a military aircraft - and more diffuse. The missile has a harder time locking on and homing into a single source (one of several jet engines a commercial jet has). This is why missiles designed to take down bomber aircraft are not IR seekers, but active or passive radar beam riders. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2005-12-02 18:20 |
| #14 ed, I was merely speculating that it might be prudent to install phased array radar systems at major air transportation hubs. And you're right, a 5 second sweep time would barely catch a handful of data points in the brief time-of-flight for a SAM. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2005-12-02 17:25 |
| #13 the problem with this is that Flight 621 goes between Dallas/Ft. Worth and Santa Ana John Wayne AFAICR, John Wayne is close to the sea, and it's likely they were routed out there to come into the correct runway. For example, coming into Cincinnati, you can either make the approach over southeast Indiana, or through the east side of Cincinnati, depending on the winds. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2005-12-02 15:49 |
| #12 the problem with this is that Flight 621 goes between Dallas/Ft. Worth and Santa Ana John Wayne |
| Posted by: growler 2005-12-02 15:30 |
| #11 Zen, just did a quick google search. Did not find any references to LAX having a phased array radar. But I did find an interesting site showing live LAX radar tracks. If your believe the tracking updates, it looks like the radar makes a complete sweep every 5 seconds. LAX Internet Flight Tracks The JAVA LAX flight tracks app screen |
| Posted by: ed 2005-12-02 14:30 |
| #10 gb506, I'd say LOL if the situation weren't so unfunny. If you haven't read Downfall run out and get it. |
| Posted by: Matt 2005-12-02 14:19 |
| #9 gb506, what actual evidence do you have to demonstrate that the Flight 587 crash was externally induced? Just curious. Contrary to even my own impressions, polyimide insulation can and does break down and it does so rather catastrophically. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2005-12-02 14:18 |
| #8 Altitude was 6600 ft. So yes..one helluva bottle rocket. |
| Posted by: Rex Mundi 2005-12-02 14:17 |
| #7 Thank you, ed. I had thought our airport radars were more up to date. Perhaps it's time to consider installing phased array radar at major air traffic hubs. I would also think that an airliner's collision avoidance sensing and navigational radar would not just be forward looking. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2005-12-02 14:12 |
| #6 Whew! That was close, we almost had another electrical short in the center fuel tank there... |
| Posted by: gb506 2005-12-02 13:52 |
| #5 Acme makes one heck of a bottle rocket. |
| Posted by: doc 2005-12-02 13:31 |
| #4 Zenster, No. An IR SAM would be fired from behind the plane and the plane's radar would never pick it up. Sensors are available to detect a missiles ultraviolet plume, but I know of no US commercial jetliner that has it. I would not even be optimistic the airports ground radar would pick it up, and with a radar's slow mechanical scan rate would not track it. |
| Posted by: ed 2005-12-02 13:24 |
| #3 Let's hear from any resident experts on this simple question. Wouldn't a guided missile or other sort of SAM have sufficient radar cross-section to have triggered the aircraft's collision avoidance warning system, or at least show up on its navigational radar screen? Also, wouldn't local ground-based radar have recorded the track of a SAM launch as well? |
| Posted by: Zenster 2005-12-02 13:16 |
| #2 It's just a bottle rocket, keep them calm for the holidays, thats our story. The aircraft are well over the max range of a bottle rocket, most flares, and fireworks. Lets hope the FBI put a little more effort into this than they normally do. |
| Posted by: 49 pan 2005-12-02 13:15 |
| #1 That's a hell of a bottle rocket. What was the plane's altitude? |
| Posted by: ed 2005-12-02 13:10 |