From: Chuck Kuecker (ckuecker@ckent.org)
Date: Mon May 27 2002 - 12:17:04 MDT
At 11:40 AM 5/27/02 -0400, you wrote:
>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.
I seem to remember reading somewhere that fuel tanks on jetliners are
pressurized with combustion bleed from the engines - which is much lower in
O2 than the atmosphere. Sort of a natural fire preventer...do I misremember?
Chuck Kuecker
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