Elaine Scarry:

Review

In summary, Ms. Scarry has found five similarities between the TWA800 and SR111 accidents:

1) a serious electrical accident; 2) a so far indecipherable cause; 3) the two airplanes took off from the same airport and followed a route across the same geography; 4) they took off on the same minute of the day on a Wednesday; 5) they suffered a radio malfunctioning beginning at almost the same time (somewhere in the three-minute interval between 8.31 and 8.34 pm).

Concerning the difference between the two accidents (an explosion for TWA800 and the crash into the sea of SR111) Ms Scarry notes that, contrary to the TWA B-747, the MD-11 is an airplane "carrying out tremendous feats of self-repair". However, eventually "the plane's systems, far from correcting themselves or buying time, simply surrendered to the ever-accelerating decline".

Ms Scarry suggests that for both accidents the initial cause was powerful electromagnetic radiation generated by the U.S. Navy. She writes that three U.S. submarines were in that area and there is a "two-million-watt submarine transmitter at Corbett, Maine". She asks the question "whether any submarine transmitters were close to the plane and, if so, whether their signals were strong enough to adversely affect the plane".

The article contains the ATC transcript of the unsuccessful attempts to contact SR-111 while it was flying in the Boston area.

What are the possible causes of the SR111 13-minute long radio silence?

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), September 05, 2000

Answers

Interesting comment about the Navy. I believe that some groups are investigating whale beachings that they feel may be attributed to these transmissions as well.

-- K (infosurf@yahoo.com), September 06, 2000.