Conspiracy Theories - Ranked

[AK47bp]

“If you don’t care about staying alive, anything is possible”

Or something like that.

-Ted Striker.

[jono]

Yes, I thought you were talking about flight 93. The idea that an airplane didn't crash into the Pentagon on 9/11 is as absurd as thinking the moon landing didn't happen.

While the policy side of shooting down flight 93 seems straightforward, I expect you'll agree that the difference between a plane shot down and a plane that did a lawn dart impression actually seems kind of obvious. Assuming people are willing to think it through.

It's been a while since I visited the site, but the pics they had on display a decade or so back certainly matched up with the ground as it was left at the time. All of it pointed to the plane coming down very vertically and at high speed, digging a deep hole and mostly disappearing into it. Not fluttering down missing half a wing or an engine or just breaking up mid-air. A plane shot down should have hung in the air at least a little bit and should have been seen by a lot more witnesses. Parts should have been found. (Where are the parts?!? [/coreshot])

Hijacker augering in before the passengers could get through the door makes the most sense even if you don't give any weight at all to the F-16 pilots' accounts. Which is a bit silly in itself, since a September 10 mentality would absolutely include not keeping armed F16's sitting around on runways, and the timeline for their attempted intercept lines up.

[nickwm21]

Mehhhh… I wish the SEs I work with had that philosophy…


There’s an interesting history of SFRM (spray applied fireproofing) and the twin towers. Essentially; there was little to no QC on the SFRM application when they were built. There are documented reports from building maintenance showing the monokote failing, physically falling off the steel. During the life of the building; when spaces were remodeled, monokote was scraped off for attachments and never replaced. In some circles there is a thought that if the SFRM was installed better and maintained; those towers would be standing.

Following 9/11, the inspection process for SFRM install was significantly bolstered. Nowadays you have a special inspector there during the entire install; checking substrate, mix, temps, thicknesses, adhesion, etc…

To add insult to injury; a lot of the monokote on the towers was the old ACM variety, not the newer gypsum based product… so in that grey cloud from the towers falling was a decent amount of asbestos…


Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

[J. Barron DeJong]

Should have gone with TruCoat.

Yeah, but I'm saying that TruCoat. You don't get it, you get oxidation problems. It'll cost you a heck of a lot more than $500.

[californiagrown]

Mehhhh… I wish the SEs I work with had that philosophy…

Haha, and that's where code requirements come in. Probably (no, definitely) a good thing.


And yeah, id imagine the steel fireproofing was brittle AF (in places where it was still even intact). Seems pretty darn reasonable that a bigass airliner hitting it at 500mph would "significantly compromise" that sprayfoam insulation.

[The AD]

It's been a while since I visited the site, but the pics they had on display a decade or so back certainly matched up with the ground as it was left at the time. All of it pointed to the plane coming down very vertically and at high speed, digging a deep hole and mostly disappearing into it. Not fluttering down missing half a wing or an engine or just breaking up mid-air. A plane shot down should have hung in the air at least a little bit and should have been seen by a lot more witnesses. Parts should have been found. (Where are the parts?!? [/coreshot])

I think it would depend on how much the airplane broke up in the air. If a missile made the airplane uncontrollable, but more or less intact, I could see it cratering similar to how it actually did. I would guess an air-to-air missile would cause more damage than that, but I'm not really sure.

[bennymac]

Long but interesting article on the events on 9/11 with regards to Bush and Air Force One and the route it took from Florida back to DC. Really captures some of the confusion on that day.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/st...he-sky-214230/

[Ted Striker]

FWIW, a large cohort of my colleagues suspected UAL93 and TWA800 were shoot downs. Mostly due to the implausibly of the initial stories.

[The AD]

TWA 800 is definitely another interesting one.

[twat]

So how about HARP.

[old goat]

Long but interesting article on the events on 9/11 with regards to Bush and Air Force One and the route it took from Florida back to DC. Really captures some of the confusion on that day.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/st...he-sky-214230/

Meanwhile Biden saunters over to Israel for a quick chat announced publicly ahead of time.

[dunfree]

I think it would depend on how much the airplane broke up in the air. If a missile made the airplane uncontrollable, but more or less intact, I could see it cratering similar to how it actually did. I would guess an air-to-air missile would cause more damage than that, but I'm not really sure.

MH17 (777) got hit with a big warhead from the ground (150#) and broke up in flight pretty quickly, KAL007 (747) got hit by a 2 large air to air (88#) and was in semi controlled flight for like 5-10 minutes. The problem with the UAL93 shoot down theory is nobody knew what the fucj was going, especiallly according to the report the military

[Johnny H]

"An engineer doesnt design a building to stand up, an engineer designs a building to barely stand up".

-My structural engineering Professor many years ago.




I think people sometimes forget that the point of engineering is not just to get things to work... its mostly about getting things to work as efficiently as possible. If time/money/lives arent a consideration, shits usually waaaaaaay less complicated. And back in the 50s/60s we were willing to expend a lot of money and lives.

Well, I hear you but I knew and worked with many structural engineers who designed buildings during my mechanical engineering career. Believe me, they had safety factors. That does not discount what your prof said, but they were not living on the edge, by any means, from what I could tell.

[The Reverend Floater]

While the policy side of shooting down flight 93 seems straightforward, I expect you'll agree that the difference between a plane shot down and a plane that did a lawn dart impression actually seems kind of obvious. Assuming people are willing to think it through.

It's been a while since I visited the site, but the pics they had on display a decade or so back certainly matched up with the ground as it was left at the time. All of it pointed to the plane coming down very vertically and at high speed, digging a deep hole and mostly disappearing into it. Not fluttering down missing half a wing or an engine or just breaking up mid-air. A plane shot down should have hung in the air at least a little bit and should have been seen by a lot more witnesses. Parts should have been found. (Where are the parts?!? [/coreshot])

Hijacker augering in before the passengers could get through the door makes the most sense even if you don't give any weight at all to the F-16 pilots' accounts. Which is a bit silly in itself, since a September 10 mentality would absolutely include not keeping armed F16's sitting around on runways, and the timeline for their attempted intercept lines up.

Didn't necessarily need to be a missile. I'm not an expert but I don't know why an F16, F18 or even a warthog couldn't strafe a wing with it's guns. This might have been more likely if they didn't have an opportunity to load air to air missiles on it. Again, just my own ignorant conjecture.

I mean, another way to look at the timeline is that IF there was any means available to shoot down a hijacked plane at that point in the morning, the military absolutely would have done it and sadly, rightfully so.

[jono]

We all see that shooting down UA93 would have been the right answer with no hesitation for the same reason we all know that post-9/11 passengers would logically fight to the death not to let hijackers get/keep the controls of a plane: the very bad options are better than a kamikaze mission. Instinctive self-preservation.

UA93's passengers made that connection before the rest of us.

[kootenayskier]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...iracy-theories


Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

[californiagrown]

Well, I hear you but I knew and worked with many structural engineers who designed buildings during my mechanical engineering career. Believe me, they had safety factors. That does not discount what your prof said, but they were not living on the edge, by any means, from what I could tell.

Haha, oh im aware. you should see the safety factors involved in the guessing game known as geotechnical engineering lol.


My point was that a big reason for why we made such quick progress on the initial space program is because we had an unlimited budget, and significantly lower safety standards. If the budgetary/resource and risk factor constraints are removed from the decision/design/testing process and dont need to be optimized, things can be simplified and fast-tracked considerably... at the cost of money and lives. Imagine how quick nuclear reasearch and testing would have progressed if we had a tight budget and were concerned with health and environmental safety....

[riser4]

FWIW, a large cohort of my colleagues suspected UAL93 and TWA800 were shoot downs. Mostly due to the implausibly of the initial stories.

Not a pilot. I think the book has been closed on both. I'm going with both official explanations. TWA800 could have been purposefully sabotaged, but I'm not buying the shoot down theory. And there's quite a maintenance history.

[mcski]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...iracy-theories


Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

I entertained a few JFK conspiracies when I was young and my mom was certain that LBJ had a part in it. But Oliver Stone’s JFK conspiracy theory extravaganza was so ridiculous that I realized that they were all flawed and Lee just acted alone cause he was a kook

[The AD]

Didn't necessarily need to be a missile. I'm not an expert but I don't know why an F16, F18 or even a warthog couldn't strafe a wing with it's guns. This might have been more likely if they didn't have an opportunity to load air to air missiles on it. Again, just my own ignorant conjecture.

I think that's true, but I also think if they were committed to bringing the airplane down with 100% certainty a Sidewinder would be preferred to shooting the plane up with the cannon.

[Ted Striker]

I think the book has been closed on both.

Well now it is. But at the time, TWA being shot down was entirely plausible. KAL007 was shot down a little more than a decade earlier. And it's not like there was/is peace in the Middle East or anything. A Libyan Airlines 727 was intentionally shot down by the Israeli Air Force, and an Alitalia DC8 was hit by a ground to air missile over Damascus. Even the US Navy mistakenly shot down an Iran Air A300.

As for the 747, there were two completely unpalatable options: well armed terrorists on American soil, or every single 747 was inherently unsafe.

[californiagrown]

Well now it is. But at the time, TWA being shot down was entirely plausible. .

Ive heard this talked about that it was hit by a missile. What is the full conspiracy story here? who fired the missile and why? Why a coverup? whats the evidence?

[Ted Striker]

There were apparently eyewitness on the ground who thought they saw a ground-to-air flash, and airline pilots in the vicinity (that's pretty dense airspace) who witnessed the explosion and/or the four mile long lake of fire floating on the ocean.

An aircraft that crashes due to a mechanical failure tends to hit the ground/water (mostly) intact. It was obvious to everyone that this airplane exploded.

[The AD]

Ive heard this talked about that it was hit by a missile. What is the full conspiracy story here? who fired the missile and why? Why a coverup? whats the evidence?

From the Wikipedia article:

Although considerable discrepancies existed among the many witness accounts, most had seen a "streak of light," described by 38 of 258 witnesses as ascending,[1]: 232  moving to a point where a large fireball appeared. Several witnesses reported that the fireball divided into two parts as it descended toward the water.[1]: 3  Intense public interest arose regarding the witness reports, as did much speculation that the reported streak of light was a missile that had struck TWA 800, causing the airplane to explode.[1]: 262  These witness accounts were a major reason for the initiation and duration of the FBI's criminal investigation.[46]: 5 

More about the possibility of a missile or bomb: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWA_Fl...omb_detonation

There's actually an entire Wikipedia entry just on the conspiracy theories: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWA_Fl...iracy_theories

[Ted Striker]

Wow, there's a lot in there. I knew everything down to the "explosive residues" and the chief pilot being a proponent of the accidental/intentional shoot down/bomb theory, but it was like the energizer bunny of conspiracy theories. Bet that documentary is "interesting".

edit: oh, and this "As of 1998, only about half of Americans accepted the NTSB's conclusion that the crash was the result of a mechanical malfunction." That's the year I got my first "airline" job (i.e. regional airline)