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The Payne Stewart Intercept - A Startling Reality

Good analysis, Gumboot. I had mostly looked at the Payne Stewart crash as a public interest story, because of the loss of a popular golfer. I had not given much thought to the response times of the intercept aircraft, and how they could be compared to the expectable response time during the first minutes on 9-11, from the first indications that Flight 11 was hijacked until it became apparent that New York and Washington were the targets of a terrorist attack.

Blender Head said:
What's with the time zones changing?
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The flight took off from Florida and was headed for Texas. It strayed and flew northwest to South Dakota, and crossed from the Eastern TZ to the Central TZ during the flight. Times recorded reflect the TZ the aircraft was located at the time.
 
Outstanding post, Gumboot!

There are some things here that I didn't know. I'm not at all surprised that it took so long for this intercept. Contrary to CT's mythology this type of thing outside of the ADIZ is not a high priority at all for NORAD. The FAA fairly routinely uses other airborne aircraft for these types of intercepts. They prefer to use military aircraft because the pilots are all formation qualified and have considerable intercept type experience. The most common request is for altitude information or verification for a NORDO (no communications) aircraft.

In this case, I suspect the primary reason NORAD aircraft were eventually involved was because of the fear the Lear might crash into a populated area. By the time the NORAD fighters arrived on the scene everyone already knew the Lear was a lost cause. It was quite obvious that the Lear had lost pressurization because of the frosted/iced over windows and windscreen.

Very thorough analysis, Gumboot. Thanks again.....
 
True that. But I have seen accident reports where the crew were busy debugging some problem with the aircraft or other and that so focussed their attention that they missed the problem that did them in.

The Eastern 401 crash, from 1972 springs to mind. They were working on a landing gear issue and did not realize that the altitude hold had disengaged.

As we don't have a CVR from the Lear, we will never know if there was a similar distraction.
 
An intercept? In Australia? I don't think so, Tim. The knuckleheads are a great bunch of boys and girls, but the last time we had patrols and / or strip alerts was during APEC. Today? Well.....

"Hello. You have rung the Royal Australian Air Force. Sorry, we're not in right now but if you'd like to leave your name and number...."
 
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Reheat said:
A better moral to be learned is if you're going to fly at high altitude is to learn the symptoms of hypoxia and look at the freakin' guages.
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...And keep the physical inspections up to date...make sure that every last seal is in place and every door latch and window seal is in perfect condition.

Gumboot, Do you know if there was ever any determination as to why the plane had a catostrophic pressure loss? Were there any FAA mandates applied to that model of aircraft?
 
OldTigerCub said:
...And keep the physical inspections up to date...make sure that every last seal is in place and every door latch and window seal is in perfect condition.

Gumboot, Do you know if there was ever any determination as to why the plane had a catostrophic pressure loss? Were there any FAA mandates applied to that model of aircraft?
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The NTSB's conclusion:

The National Transportation Safety Board determines the probable cause of this accident was incapacitation of the flight crewmembers as a result of their failure to receive supplemental oxygen following a loss of cabin pressurization, for undetermined reasons.
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The report provides many pages of potential explanations for both parts of the probably cause. One aspect is that standard procedure for that aircraft in the event of a cabin pressure aural warning was to trouble shoot the cause before donning oxygen masks. This was subsequently changed so that pilots were required to immediately don their oxygen masks upon hearing the warning.

In addition the FAA ran a detailed inspection of the Learjet 35 oxygen system but found there were no maintenance or design flaws in it, however they did recommend some changes to manufacturers.
 
Obviousman said:
An intercept? In Australia? I don't think so, Tim. The knuckleheads are a great bunch of boys and girls, but the last time we had patrols and / or strip alerts was during APEC. Today? Well.....

"Hello. You have rung the Royal Australian Air Force. Sorry, we're not in right now but if you'd like to leave your name and number...."
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Better than here....

"Hello. You have rung the Royal New Zealand Air Force. If you require transportation of cargo, please press 1. If you require transportation of troops, please press 2. If you require an overflight of an illegal fishing vessel, please press 3. If you require an immediate intercept of a hostile aircraft, please ring the Royal Australian Air Force. Thank you."
 
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This may not be as relevant as the Stewart Learjet, but for what it's worth, I always like to remind truthers about KAL 007 back in 1983. What people don't often remember about this incident is that 007 had overflown Soviet territory twice before being shot down. During its first incursion, it overflew the Kamchatka Peninsula, escaping back into international airspace over 30 minutes later, during which time the Soviets were unable to intercept it. Had it not overflown Soviet territory a 2nd time that morning, no one would have known about KAL 007. True, the Soviet Union in 1983 was not the US in 2001. But there are several points worth noting. Kamchatka was one of the most sensitive military areas of the former Soviet Union, where the teasing by US reconnaissance planes was a daily occurrence. So unlike the US, the Soviet air defense was primed for precisely such an incursion. Now if one of the world's two super powers at the time, at a time of increasing tension during the cold war, and under conditions far more conducive to a successful intercept than the US on 9/11, could not reach a lumbering 747 crossing over one of its most sensitive military areas for over half an hour, why should it be such a shock that the US could not do so in 2001 in crowded civilian air corridors?


Just a thought.
 
chris lz said:
This may not be as relevant as the Stewart Learjet, but for what it's worth, I always like to remind truthers about KAL 007 back in 1983. What people don't often remember about this incident is that 007 had overflown Soviet territory twice before being shot down. During its first incursion, it overflew the Kamchatka Peninsula, escaping back into international airspace over 30 minutes later, during which time the Soviets were unable to intercept it. Had it not overflown Soviet territory a 2nd time that morning, no one would have known about KAL 007. True, the Soviet Union in 1983 was not the US in 2001. But there are several points worth noting. Kamchatka was one of the most sensitive military areas of the former Soviet Union, where the teasing by US reconnaissance planes was a daily occurrence. So unlike the US, the Soviet air defense was primed for precisely such an incursion. Now if one of the world's two super powers at the time, at a time of increasing tension during the cold war, and under conditions far more conducive to a successful intercept than the US on 9/11, could not reach a lumbering 747 crossing over one of its most sensitive military areas for over half an hour, why should it be such a shock that the US could not do so in 2001 in crowded civilian air corridors?


Just a thought.
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Truthers tend to think that the US military is some sort of invincible fighting machine always on a hair trigger. Ready to smack down any threat at a moments notice. Having been in the military myself I can tell you that's not the case. The military is just like any other government bureaucracy with the associated inefficiencies. The only difference is they can blow stuff up.

When you look at history one could make the argument the reason the US wins wars is that the other side screws up worse than us.
 
AMTMAN,

I'd say the reason that we have historically won wars is that we could out-produce our enemies.

Generally we have entered major wars with a military in disarray! Look some time at the history of Operation Paukenschlag; Donitz sent a handful of U-boats across the Atlantic to raid along the Eastern Seaboard, and found us absolutely, totally, embarrassingly unprepared to respond in any way; All navigational beacons were lit, most ships were displaying lights and not running in convoy, we had no antisubmarine assets worthy of the name available to us except some ancient destroyers, and those remained in port.

And we got our butts kicked.

But we quickly cleared the decks of all of the bureaucratic dead wood and started a war effort worthy of the name.

-Ben
 
chris lz said:
This may not be as relevant as the Stewart Learjet, but for what it's worth, I always like to remind truthers about KAL 007 back in 1983. What people don't often remember about this incident is that 007 had overflown Soviet territory twice before being shot down. During its first incursion, it overflew the Kamchatka Peninsula, escaping back into international airspace over 30 minutes later, during which time the Soviets were unable to intercept it. Had it not overflown Soviet territory a 2nd time that morning, no one would have known about KAL 007. True, the Soviet Union in 1983 was not the US in 2001. But there are several points worth noting. Kamchatka was one of the most sensitive military areas of the former Soviet Union, where the teasing by US reconnaissance planes was a daily occurrence. So unlike the US, the Soviet air defense was primed for precisely such an incursion. Now if one of the world's two super powers at the time, at a time of increasing tension during the cold war, and under conditions far more conducive to a successful intercept than the US on 9/11, could not reach a lumbering 747 crossing over one of its most sensitive military areas for over half an hour, why should it be such a shock that the US could not do so in 2001 in crowded civilian air corridors?


Just a thought.
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Another two Soviet Cases are KAL-902 which was shot down in 1978. In that case after firing on the airliner, the MIGs chasing it lost it in clouds for over 40 minutes! They relocated it and forced it down onto a frozen lake. Of course Mathias Rust flew all the way to Moscow, landing his Cessna next to Red Square all without being intercepted at all in 1987.

Not that all three occured during the height of the Cold War and involved aircraft entering Soviet Airspace from outside of the USSR, the exact thing that NORAD was set up to counter if ity occured in US/Canada Airspace, and the Soviets reacted poorly in all three cases. I'm quite sure that had 9/11 happened in the 80's, NORAD would have been able to react faster and with more aircraft.
 
Not entirely analagous, but probably worth mentioning anyway: Mathias Rust and his exploit of flying all the way to Moscow and landing near Red Square.
 
Tweeter said:
You do realize you just got owned.
Sorry for not quoting you. Fixed.
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Oh for crying out loud, "you just got owned"? What are you, like 12 or something? If this kind of juvenile taunting is all you got, you are way, way over your head in this forum. I suggest posting somewhere more your speed, maybe a discussion about who's cooler, Spiderman or Batman.

"Just got owned" -- and I bet you don't even realize how pathetic you look.
 
I thought I had read somewhere that the NTSB suspected a failed replacement seal from recent maintenance led to the decompression. Perhaps they simply didn't have enough evidence to make it conclusive.

What's really kinda creepy is that all the people on board were probably dead long before that plane went down. I can't imagine a human surviving long at 46,000 feet without even supplemental oxygen.
 
Travis said:
What's really kinda creepy is that all the people on board were probably dead long before that plane went down. I can't imagine a human surviving long at 46,000 feet without even supplemental oxygen.
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I'm under the impression that above 40,000 ft, w/o oxygen you have surprisingly little time before passing out. I believe I read at the time of the Payne Stewart crash, perhaps only 15-20 seconds. Confirmation anyone?
 
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