How NOT to run a debunking site

[Tricky]

Please stay on topic. This thread is about debunking sites, not about specific conspiracy theories.

Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: Tricky

 

[Baylor]

The other thing to consider with the multiple sightings of the recorders at the Pentagon is whether each was recovered in one intact albeit battered piece or whether they were broken up. If the latter, then that may account for the multiple claims of having found a "black box".

If you compare the photos on Kryptos' website of the recovered CVR and FDR with photos of pristine recorders on the NTSB website then I think we're talking about multiple pieces. Even the FDR, which was usable, is missing its "box" section.

This was the first thing I thought of after watching 9/11 Conspiracies Theories: Fact or Fiction, on the History Channel. I sent out a few e-mails asking for an explanation. If and when I get a definitive answer, I'll send them out to all the debunking sites currently posting the wrong information. I'm trying to solve this riddle before CIT makes a DVD with "proof" that the plane wreckage at the pentagon was planted.

 

[Caustic Logic]

So the point then is not to decide who found the boxes and where but to find out why there are incorrect stories published?

That goes to journalism and human fallibility.

Attributable to, or move this thread to? Cause obviously it belongs here.

What Magenta says is true. Here is a FDR as it sits in an intact case - the bright orange thing recovery workers look for. Model in 77 would be I think this one - Loral Fairchild F2100
http://img509.imageshack.us/img509/2687/boxks4.jpg

I haven't seen any photos of something like this at the scene, but here is the photo of what was found of the FDR inside the Pentagon:
http://www.aal77.com/pentagon_911_book/aa_fdr.jpg

Here is the flash memory unit found inside, with the magnetic strip (??) that contained the actual data.

I still don't get why 93's FDR looks like an orange juice concentrate tube. Perhaps one person found this, while another found the lid, and another the frilly plastic band that used to hold the lid on. ??

ETA:

Kilsheimer's eyewitness account is backed up by photos of plane wreckage inside and outside the building. Kilsheimer adds: "I held parts of uniforms from crew members in my hands, including body parts. Okay?"

FWIW, this could mean he's reaching here, in an emotional reaction to CTs, exagerrating what HE personally saw. "I SAW IT ALL, OKAY?" One small mark against his story, IMO. But I've never looked into it myself.

 

[Magenta]

This was the first thing I thought of after watching 9/11 Conspiracies Theories: Fact or Fiction, on the History Channel. I sent out a few e-mails asking for an explanation. If and when I get a definitive answer, I'll send them out to all the debunking sites currently posting the wrong information. I'm trying to solve this riddle before CIT makes a DVD with "proof" that the plane wreckage at the pentagon was planted.

Good luck with it and please keep us updated.

 

[LashL]

Now JamesB, citing Firefight, claims NTSB employees found them.

No, actually. JamesB did not claim that NTSB employees found them.

The quoted passage of the book says that Hill found one, didn't realize what it was, and that Whitworth stopped her to take a look at what she was carrying. Then, Whitworth said, "We need to let the NTSB look at this." Whitworth showed it to an NTSB analyst, who identified it as the CVR. Whitworth asked Hill where she had found it, she pointed to a stack of jumbled rubble, searchers formed a circle around the pile and started digging. About half an hour later, another NTSB expert (i.e. not the same analyst who Whitworth had shown the CVR to in the chronology above) uncovered the FDR in the rubble pile.

Hill is Jennifer Hill, FBI photographer; Whitworth is Mark Whitworth, FBI agent (who is a bomb expert, holds a degree in aerospace engineering, and had worked with the NTSB before at other plane crashes).

So, if the book is accurate, and I believe it is, the CVR was found by Ms. Hill of the FBI and the FDR was found by an NTSB analyst, in the early morning hours of September 14, 2008 (~0230 - 0300 hrs). Special Agent Tom O'Connor took custody of both recorders, drove them immediately to the NTSB's lab in downtown D.C. where NTSB experts analyzed them.

Previously, on the evening of Thursday, September 13, Carlton Burkhammer and Brian Moravitz located something that they thought was one of the black boxes, but it turned out to be a false alarm. Once it was examined closely, it was determined to be just a charred chunk of machinery.

ETA: As for Kilsheimer, I think that he is embellishing when he claims to have "stepped on the plane's black box by accident" - he is quite a colourful guy.

 

[Magenta]

Thanks for clarifying, LashL.

The description of what Burkhammer and Moravitz found - "two odd-shaped dark boxes, about 1.5 by 2 feet long" - certainly doesn't resemble the photos of the recovered recorders.

This probably reveals the limitations of initial reporting. There's another one on Gravy's website that refers to a signal received from a black box:

"Thursday afternoon, searchers said they received a signal from one of the black boxes of the airliner. Crews will not be able to retrieve the black box, which could contain information about the last minutes of the plane, until they are able to enter the collapsed area of the building, where the plane's fuselage rests. They were to begin moving into the collapsed area sometime Thursday night, said Arlington County Fire Capt. Scott McKay." http://stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=3817&archive=true

I thought the beacon was only activated if the plane crashed in water, but perhaps someone more knowledgeable can comment.