From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@datamann.com)
Date: Mon May 27 2002 - 09:40:47 MDT
spike66 wrote:
>
> They are claiming that Chinese 747 came apart above 9km.
> That counterindicates a fuel tank explosion, since the air
> pressure is lower there, and somewhat counterindicates an
> airframe failure, since the stresses should have been
> decreased by that time. A missile going that high would
> be easily seen by radar. I now change my wild-assed
> guess to an on-board bomb.
It came down in four separate pieces (no details on what pieces, but I'm
guessting front fuselage, back fuselage, and two wings, indicating
failure in the wingroot area of the fuselage). The wing root area
contains two major things: fuel tanks and landing gear, as well as lots
of wiring that heads out through the wings. The claim that it is
counterintuitive of a fuel tank explosion is wrongly based. It doesn't
matter what the oxygen content outside the plane is, what is important
is what the oxygen content inside the fuel tank was. Fuel tanks are
pressurized, and thus retain the O2 concentrations of the airport they
were last fueled at. Any explosion occuring within the fuel tank would
occur irrespective of altitude.
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