From: joero@microsoft.com (Joe Robison)
Subject: Re: United flight's cargo door?
Date: 22 Jul 92 03:02:26 GMT
Organization: Microsoft Corp.

In article <greg.711466756@octopus> greg@octopus.dpsi.com wrote:
> barrk@tramp.Colorado.EDU (Keith S. Barr) writes:
> 
> >In article <1992Jul16.203235.22436@news.nd.edu> ulick@angelico.helios.nd.edu (Ulick Stafford) writes:
> >>I read something recently but I can't remember where about the door of the
> >>United 747 that became detached over the Pacific being found, and that
> >>it revealed new information about the incident.
> 
> >It was indeed found, and it confirmed that the latch had not been properly
> >engaged.  
> 
> One of the rags, _Aviation Consumer_ I think, recently commented
> that this may also have been the cause of the Pan Am crash over Lockerbie.
> I believe I read in the _Nation_, irreputable pinko trash that it is (:-)),
> some speculation along the same lines.  Terribly sorry about the fuzzy
> references, but I am certain that I've read at least two separate
> articles in the last month questioning that crash; it's just WHERE in
> the 10,000 periodicals (I'm addicted) that I read that I saw them.  I'll
> try and dig up the exact references.

...

> Given the glossed-over coverage that the mainstream media gave to the
> KAL007 incident, in which there was MUCH stronger evidence of
> U.S. duplicity, I doubt very much that we'll ever see any real truth
> from this matter.  Too bad.  Course we'll never know the truth in
> the Noriega case either.  Or Iran-Contra.
> 
> Note that it is not impossible, by any means, to take down a 747 with
> a hidden explosive; an Indian 747 was destroyed by a bomb for example.
> And it's not unheard of for a cargo door to down a big bird either, as was the
> case with the Turkish DC-10 and, of course, the near disaster with
> the United 747.

The Air India bomb, incidentally, was meant to be part of a double-whammy:
there was one aboard a flight to Tokyo the same day.  Fortunately the
flight had favorable winds and landed early; the bomb went off in the
cargo area at Narita.

The Turkish DC-10 was not taken out by the loss of the cargo door directly;
instead the pressure differential between the pressurized cabin and the
now-depressurized cargo area under the cabin caused the floor to sag.
The control cables run through the floor, and the sag was enough to bind
the controls to the point where the pilots lost control.  This was a very
early model of the DC-10; a similar accident occured with a prototype.
Later models included a beefed-up floor to prevent this problem.
(At least this is my recollection of the accident report; if there is new 
information I'd be interested in reading it).

Several years ago I read an account of the KAL flight written by a 747
pilot.  His thesis held that the plane went off course and into Russian
airspace because of a sequence of pilot errors and was compounded by
the cockpit resource management used at KAL (copilot never questions
pilot, etc).  The errors he described seemed reasonable, and while it
was amazing to have several compounding mistakes in a row, that's what
causes most accidents.  I was willing to believe that pilot error, and
not any duplicity on anyone's part, could have been responsible for the
plane ending up where it was.  It doesn't explain why the Russian pilot
was ordered (and went along with the order) to shoot down an aircraft
he visually identified as civilian.

There was an article on the Pan Am flight in Time a few months back.
It suggested a connection to the earlier Arrow Air crash in Gander.
Apparently several witnesses reported seeing an explosion in the air,
yet the cause of the crash was determined to be icing.  Moreover,
the flight was a charter carrying American troops back from Europe,
but there were unexplained additions to the passenger manifest,
including several TOW specialists and a group that Time suggested
was an anti-terrorist squad.  Arrow Air was a shell company operated
by the CIA and used for delivering arms to the contras; the suggestion
was that the TOW specialists were on their way back from training
Iranians in using the TOW missles given to them in the arms-for-hostages
deal.  Conspiracies inside conspiracies...
From: schinner@hp-vcd.vcd.hp.com (Jim Schinnerer)
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1992 16:18:43 GMT
Subject: Re: Re: good charts - was  Re: Ramp checks--unreasonable search
Organization: Hewlett Packard, Vancouver, WA, USA