What happened to Ted?

[Lancer]

Whereas passports are made of paper and paper burns.

Now I'm not saying Bush planted the passport. It was space aliens. They want to divide and conquer and they have accomplished their mission.

Building 7 fell under the weight of their cloaked saucer btw.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
I agree that it is possible for the passport to have survived, but it still seems improbable. Maybe they should make black boxes out of the stuff they use to make passports ...

You could probably repeat that scenario a thousand time, and it wouldn't survive, just as none of the others did.

My OTA* guess is that perhaps in the takeover of the plane and movement to the cockpit, Atta left or lost personal items outside the cockpit door, which would have it close to the forward exit to the aircraft. There's a fair chance that impact shock may have sprung that door and some loose items could have been sucked out that door and into the early mass of ejecta at the impact sight. No way to know, but there are ways that it could happen - then survival was just a matter of randomly beating the odds.

[TCO]

Re: Back in the old days...

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
I would probably have banned at least half a dozen people in this thread.

huh? Nothing happened? But of course, I get away with murder.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Re: Re: Back in the old days...

Originally posted by TCO


huh? Nothing happened? But of course, I get away with murder.

Well, you and Chris (while he was here) were on my exempt list. I never saw you guys do anything out of line.

[TCO]

Hey you ****heads, I lost a reserve-mate on watch in the Pentagon (USN CDO at the Ops Center). I don't really want to hear your ****ed up ****.

[TCO]

Re: Re: Re: Back in the old days...

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat


Well, you and Chris (while he was here) were on my exempt list. I never saw you guys do anything out of line.

Noblesse oblige. BTW, I was just out in Cali. Oakley is a very cool company.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Very cool - were you out just for work, or some play time too?

[TCO]

work. OC and Ventura. Hell to travel and work and go back in a few days. Was in Sand Dog earlier for buddy's 40th. We went to that grill your own steak place in Gas Lamp. It was a surprise and I won the distance award.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Yeah - cross country with no playtime or downtime sucks. Are you doing some kind of management consulting gig again?

[TCO]

Nope. Working for the man. Kinda fun though. I'm going to enjoy the projects even if I don't get the big bucks or the reins. At least they know I have balls.

[TCO]

Traveling west is ok, but the return east sucks. End up driving south from dulles, working in RVA, being tired, not working as good, etc. etc. Had a minor victory though. Did I mention the balls?

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat


You could probably repeat that scenario a thousand time, and it wouldn't survive, just as none of the others did.

My OTA* guess is that perhaps in the takeover of the plane and movement to the cockpit, Atta left or lost personal items outside the cockpit door, which would have it close to the forward exit to the aircraft. There's a fair chance that impact shock may have sprung that door and some loose items could have been sucked out that door and into the early mass of ejecta at the impact sight. No way to know, but there are ways that it could happen - then survival was just a matter of randomly beating the odds.

I had been trying to imagine a scenario where a bag in the overhead lockers might have been thrown clear of the disintegrating plane, got cut open by flying shards - liberating but somehow not destroying the contents that carry on to land nearby. It's a shade more likely than a passport escaping from the jacket pocket of the man at the pointy-end of the crash but still hard to swallow.

If, however, he dropped his bag on the floor outside the cockpit, this would give the contents more chance of being flung clear - but again, the bag would have to be shredded but not the contents. A loose passport on the floor is unrealistic - surely a man would not go 'into battle' with loose paperwork in his hand.

There would have to be a sufficient delay between impact and explosion for the liberated passport to escape before being consumed in a fireball. If that fireball was hot enough to weaken steel truss/columns enough to collapse the building, it could not have failed to burn a passport flying through it. I don't know if there was any report on the condition of the passport (burns, cuts etc).

The passport would also have needed something else to knock a hole in whichever wall of the building it escaped from - assuming that the passport maintained energy from the motion of the plane, rather than being blasted somewhere.

Again, I don't know enough, but the exact location it was found (and who found it, even) would be interesting. Also of note, were any other personal effects of any of the other passengers of the plane recovered? If not, then the survival of this one item seems near-miraculous in its low probability.

[TCO]

You're a ****ing moron. There were all kinds of personal effects found. Was a whole forensic study. You are butt stupid. Go play civ.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by TCO
You're a ****ing moron.

[Ming]

Originally posted by TCO
You're a ****ing moron. There were all kinds of personal effects found. Was a whole forensic study. You are butt stupid. Go play civ.

And you're not too smart either for making a personal attack... see ya in 48 hours.