"Poll question: The Paul Wellstone crash was..." (cont'd)

This thread will allow discussion to continue on the results of the poll in "The Paul Wellstone crash was...." That thread is now locked. The poll was active for over 50 hours, with more than 520 DUers voting. The results (below) would be highly unlikely to change significantly.

Poll result (525 votes)
An Unfortanate Accident (147 votes, 28%)
Planned and Executed by the Bush Adminstration or by someone who wanted to see Wellstone dead (303 votes, 58%)
Undecided (75 votes, 14%)

Thank you,
TahitiNut - DU moderator

eom

Hey mhr. I'm a pilot, too. Single engine land instrument w/ over 5000 hrs. What do you fly?

I agree with you. It always comes back to pilot error. I'll wait for the NTSB report.

1) No emergency calls even though there were two pilots.

2) No reports of ice by Wellstone's pilots or anyone in the state at the altitude the pilots were flying for over 10 minutes before the crash.

3) The crash mysteriously veers to the left well over a minute before crashing, ending up more than a mile south of its proscribed due east approach.

4) The plane mysteriously slows in an incedibly dangerous manner -- well over 40 mph under the proscribed approach speed.

5) The stall horn goes off in the pilots' ears.

6) Instead of trying to recover from a putative stall, the plane continues to slow while turning left, even theough the flight plan says a fly around should veer to the right.

OK, so tell us how the so-called accident happened.

1) No emergency calls even though there were two pilots.

There was no emergency until the onset of the stall. At that point, a radio transmission is the last thing on a crew's agenda...but anyone with an aviation background understands that already...which explains your incredulity.

2) No reports of ice by Wellstone's pilots or anyone in the state at the altitude the pilots were flying for over 10 minutes before the crash.

Irrelevant.

3) The crash mysteriously veers to the left well over a minute before crashing, ending up more than a mile south of its proscribed due east approach.

"Veered" is a misnomer propagated by the ignorant. The aircraft initially flew through the approach course, then turned to re-intercept and maintained that re-intercept heading till the onset of the stall. Any "turning" after that point is a matter of flight dynamics and thrust (potentially asymmetrical).

5) The stall horn goes off in the pilots' ears.

...and adds to the situational overload already overpowering an inept crew already demonstrably in violation of mandatory IFR procedures.

6) Instead of trying to recover from a putative stall, the plane continues to slow while turning left, even theough the flight plan says a fly around should veer to the right.

This just furthur reflects your total ignorance of aviation or applicable instrument procedures...but that was established LONG ago. In point of fact, this crew should have executed a "missed approach" at the moment their Course Deviation Indicator (CDI) indicated full deflection from the appropriate radial. Continuation of this approach beyond that point was ILLEGAL without visual reference to the runway environment.

As to the conceptualization of just what the hell you're refering to in #6 as to sequence of events or their interrelationships, I'll leave that to someone else to try to decipher.

What happened?

How did they misread the VOR so badly from just 1 to 4 miles away from the beacon?

Why did the plane turn left -- above the stall speed -- when any putative fly around should have been to the right and when the airport itself was to the right?

Why did the pilots slow the plane over 40 mph below the typical approach speed?

Why didn't they try to recover from any putative stall?

are reasoned theories based on experience and whatever circumstantial evidence is available to work with. I have my own theories, but it's late and will address them tomorrow. In the interim, however, here's a response to #4 (which I simply overlooked in my prior reply).

Why did the pilots slow the plane over 40 mph below the typical approach speed?

The throttles were retarded for the descent and, at level off (with auto-pilot altitude hold engaged) were either intentionally left at idle thrust to slow to a pre-determined speed and forgotten, or insufficiently advanced to preclude slowing to stall speed and forgotten.

If you think this scenario is unrealistic, then you are unversed in the challenges that this type of approach presents to even a seasoned, competent crew.

P.S. This accident hinges around an apparent lack of effective cockpit resource management and a seemingly egregious failure to properly conduct the navigational aspect of the approach. It is ALMOST unfathomable to ANY instrument rated aviator that this crew could have so abysmally failed to monitor the lateral divergence of this flight from the inbound course, but it is NOT unimaginable.

Yet I STILL wonder about the possibility of erroneous navigational positioning data due to the POSSIBILITY of electronic interference from the use of cellular phones on board? I haven't seen this addressed ANYWHERE, and I know it has been an issue. Perhaps someone might have some insight on this.

Pilots are always making approaches in King Airs well under 100 miles/hour.

Yep. Happens all the time. They never even notice that they are more than 60 miles/hour under the recommended approach speed. :eyes:

of the nature of the challenges that come to bear with the conflicting requirements of flying/navigating an aircraft at 400' in instrument conditions and visually attaining an airport or runway environment...woefully unaware.

100 mph.

http://news.mpr.org/features/2003/03/03_zdechlikm_wellstone/

"I'm confident that when I left the aircraft that to the best of my knowledge that airplane was in fine working order," says Jason Rivera, who piloted the same King Air on a round trip to North Dakota which ended at the St. Paul Airport around 7 p.m. the evening before the crash.

At the time Rivera was a captain for Aviation Charter. He now works for Japan Airlines.

"It's hard for anybody who's flown before to understand that a pilot would let their airplane get that slow -- probably 40 knots too slow -- on an approach because at 85 knots that airplane is probably barely flying really," Rivera says.

the crew wasn't.

"It's hard for anybody who's flown before to understand that a pilot would let their airplane get that slow -- probably 40 knots too slow -- on an approach because at 85 knots that airplane is probably barely flying really," Rivera says.

It is hard...not inconceivable.

If you're staring at the instruments, yes.

This flight was on visual flight rules, not instrument rules.

A car has a piston engine. Even without perfect pitch, you can tell by the sound of the engine approximately how fast it is turning. You can also hear road rumble and tire whine. You don't get that in a turbine aircraft.

You can also look out your car at the road going by and make a fair estimate of how fast you're going. It's a lot harder in an aircraft.

The pilots were looking out the window trying to spot the runway. With their clearly identified cockpit management issues, they lost track of everything else and the airplane got ahead of them.

they WERE on instrument flight rules, and that would not change until and unless they actually cancelled their IFR clearance.

However, even operating under IFR, you must, at some point, transition from flying by instruments to flying visually. It was their failure to safely manage and effect that transition that was the next to last element in the series of events culminating in the crash.

sorry, was thinking of ILS. It's not an ILS runway and yes, I was thinking of the transition from instruments to actively looking visually for the runway.

Come on, TrogL.

You can do better than that.

Can't you?

DFW doing night freight in the real world of daily IFR operations.

Lots of good experience, lots of war stories.

Don't fly now, no jobs. Don't ever see jobs again. Too many furloughed high time pilots have to be absorbed back into the pilot labor pool after the debacle of 9/11.

This will take several more years.

Their thinking goes something like this.

Here is what I want to believe.
Here is a set of facts.
Here is the set of hoops I have to jump through to make those facts fit what I want to believe.
These facts don't fit what I want to believe so I'll ignore them.

I heard it described this way once:

If you show a conspiracy theorist documentation that his theory is incorrect, that's only further evidence to them that the conspiracy theory is true, otherwise why would someone be trying to prove it's not true.

and are getting paid to distract people from the truth.

It's a plot, Mandrake.

I've never followed the "logic" of that argument.

You really, truly, think I'm a paid operative? Given the amount of time I spend on here promoting liberal causes - and this isn't even my country? Or am I a mole, put here specifically to address this one, single issue, meaning I would have had to be put into place a year ahead of time?

That's insane. Check yourself into an asylum. You've lost it.

(spelling)

I'm always getting accused of taking Rove money
to disagree with CTs.

what do you think of MK ULTRA? Is that a conspiracy theory?

What does it mean to you?

or is it like Area 51 and Skull and Bones ?

It's a strawberry-flavored toothpaste; you're not fooling me.

I really show pay more attention

Please don't forget to explain:

1) No emergency calls even though there were two pilots.

2) No reports of ice by Wellstone's pilots or anyone in the state at the altitude the pilots were flying for over 10 minutes before the crash.

3) The crash mysteriously veers to the left well over a minute before crashing, ending up more than a mile south of its proscribed due east approach.

4) The plane mysteriously slows in an incedibly dangerous manner -- well over 40 mph under the proscribed approach speed.

5) The stall horn goes off in the pilots' ears.

6) Instead of trying to recover from a putative stall, the plane continues to slow while turning left, even theough the flight plan says a fly around should veer to the right.

OK, so tell us -- blow by blow -- just how the so-called accident happened.

Incompetents pilots got overloaded in marginal conditions and got behind the aircraft - plain and simple. No spooks driving around in trucks, no space beams, no changes to the space-time continuum, no violations of laws of physics...

Tell us exactly what happened. Just give us any believable scenario. That is, if you can.

How did they misread the VOR so badly from just 1 to 4 miles away from the beacon?

Why did the plane turn left -- above the stall speed -- when an putative fly around should have been to the right and when the airport itself was to the right?

Why did the pilots slow the plane over 40 mph below the typical approach speed?

Why didn't they try to recover from any putative stall?

in terms of the details.

Basically it's an exercise in cockpit management gone to hell.

It ain't easy reading a VOR at the best of times. Remember that this was NOT an ILS approach (if I remember correctly, it's been awhile). When they flew through the radial they lost their last hope of knowing where they were. They popped out of the clouds expecting to see an airport and couldn't find it because they were disoriented and too low. Nobody was running the throttles because one guy had a history of ignoring them and the other guy wasn't on stick. They didn't recover from the stall because by this time it was unrecoverable. By the time the engines would have sped up (remember this is a turbine - they react slower than piston) they would have already impacted so they tried for a controlled crash and failed.

no matter how much nonexistent ice they loaded the plane down with, nor how much extra cloud cover they added to the simulation?

And why were all the pilots who ran flight sim able to easily recover even at the lowest recorded airspeed of Wellstone's flight -- which was still above dirty stall speed?

Nobody was running the throttles because one guy had a history of ignoring them and the other guy wasn't on stick.

One guy had a history of ignoring the throttles? OK, let's hear about it.

...not the two bozos involved in this flight.

One guy had a history of ignoring the throttles? OK, let's hear about it.

It's in the other thread. One pilot had to be constantly reminded to keep one hand on the throttle.

"(The co-pilot had) 701 hours of flying time...tended to be 'fixated' during his approaches and 'airspeed and torque (engine power) would...get too low.'..had a habit of keeping both hands on the flight controls and had to be reminded to keep one hand on the throttles to control airspeed...had trouble grasping airplane system knowledge."<2> He clearly tended to have "tunnel vision," a narrow awareness of what was going on with the plane and around him, not on top of the situation but rather a reactor to it.

OK, that's the co-pilot. Like I say, it's been awhile.

(added quote and explanation)

before Wellstone's flight.

Conroy passed an extensive proficiency test exactly two days before he piloted the Wellstone crash. So who administered Conroy's last check ride--"an extensive test consisting of an oral test, preflight checks and about two hours in the air, including some maneuvers in which emergency situations are simulated"--and passed him "with flying colors" going so far as to mention to another tester what a good pilot Conry was? Or wouldn't it make any sense to interview the person most qualified to assess Conry's aviation proficiency the day of the crash?

The article filled with the puzzling criticism of Dick Conroy and Michael Guess, Wellstone's two pilots who flew for Aviation Charter, is here:

http://www.startribune.com/stories/1752/3736949.html

I've now read well over 1,000 fatality NTSB reports and I've never once read of a single pilot talking in this harsh manner about his dead colleague(s).

Note that none of these pilots ever reported a single incident about Conry's profound negligence, not even to their employer, until well after Conry crashed his plane into the ground at a steep 25 degree angle, killing himself and seven innocent souls (including a US Senator) because of his sheer and obvious incompetence, if we are to believe all of these accusers.

Do these accusers realize that their conspiracy of silence about Conry's malpractice makes all of them culpable for the deaths of a US Senator and five other innocent passengers?

Are their suddenly guilty consciences forcing them to come forward now? Are they trying to make good by offering all their personal wealth and assets to the surviving relatives of the passengers whose horrible and avoidable death they are so directly responsible for?

Is the FAA going to revoke their pilot licenses, censure them or discipline them in any way for letting a menace like Conry fly solo or first in command day after day after day?

How many of these individuals still work as pilots? How do they think their new employers will react when they read that these pilots and instructors caused their former charter airline employer to become liable -- to the tune of over 20 million dollars -- for the wrongful deaths of 6 passengers, including a US Senator, by covering up the obvious and highly dangerous incompetence of a colleague who obviously had no business flying himself around, much less the most famous and publicly celebrated individual who regularly booked flights with Aviation Charter?

Did any of these accusers so much as make an entry into their flight logs about all of their hair raising experiences flying with Conroy?

Did any of these accusers ever request not to be paired on flights with Conry, fearing for their own lives and safety?


*****


First, let's examine the strange case of Chad Kozloski:

In the latter case, Aviation Charter copilot Chad Kozloski said he was at the controls of a Wellstone flight sometime last summer when he let Conry fly while he turned around to talk to Wellstone. "Kozloski turned around for 10 seconds to talk to the senator and when he turned back, he had to take over the airplane," the report said. "The airplane was rolling through 45 degrees of bank and descending at 1,000 feet per minute."

Mike Lindberg, an attorney for Aviation Charter owners Roger and Shirley Wikner, said the Wikners were not aware of the new allegations. "None of the allegations that are now being made were ever brought to the company's management before the accident," Lindberg said.


1) Since when do second-in-command pilots "let" first-in-command pilots fly?

2) Why didn't Mr. Kozloski file a report about Conry's outrageous and dangerous incompetence with the FAA or at least with his employer?

3) Wellstone's fear of flying was notorious. Why did he feel so comfortable with a pilot who was apt to put a King Air into a dive and roll whenever he was left alone at the controls for 10 seconds?

4) I'm sure Kozloski, Conry and/or Aviation Charter have flight logs that list the other passengers on this dreadful flight. Are any of them still alive? If so, can any of them corroborate this frightful story?

5) Can we expect the FAA to discipline Mr. Kozloski for not reporting this dangerous breach of safety? Will he be censured by the FAA? Will his pilot license be revoked?

6) Does Kozloski realize that his failure to report Conroy's egregiously dangerous error makes him culpable for the deaths of 6 innocent passengers on a flight booked with the company he currently works for? How would he feel about being named as a co-defendant along with the principles of Aviation Charter in a wrongful death lawsuit?

7) When Kozlowski made this statement, was he planning to testify for the lawyers of the dead passengers and against the company for whom he worked? How did he think his employers would react to the fact that their asses are already toast in any putative court case because he told the NTSB about an egregious pilot error that he never thought to report to them at the time? Does he realize that the fact that he waited until 8 people were dead to report this incident is more than grounds for his immediate termination?

8) Conry's log books stated that he was always the controlling pilot whenever he was flying Wellstone, and that he allowed the copilots to fly only the passenger-less legs of these flights. Do Conroy's and Kozloski's log books confirm that Kozloski was in fact the controlling pilot on the flight in question? How about any ATC tapes?

9) Are there any existing radar tracking data of the flight in question? If so, is it consistent with Kozloski's description of Conry's supposed dive and roll?


*****


On to the far stranger case of, Oliver Koski, former Aviation Charter Director of Operations:

At the company responsible for the flights, a supervisor knew that some pilots considered Conry to be below average, forgetful and prone to random errors, the NTSB said. Oliver Koski, a ground instructor and a former operations director at Aviation Charter, said Conry's performance was "a little bit below average" on written quizzes.

The supervisor, pilot instructor Oliver Koski, told investigators that Conry's copilot on Wellstone's fatal flight, Michael Guess, needed extra instruction during ground training and that the company's "weakest link" in training regarding cockpit coordination was between captain and copilot. Koski also said he spent "extra time" working with Guess on ground school lessons. "He called Guess 'borderline,' " the NTSB report said.

He said Conry tended to let his copilots fly "all the time" and probably would not have been at the controls when the plane crashed. After interviewing Koski, investigators also wrote: "Other pilots commented that Conry was below average. That sounded like a consensus opinion but no specifics were given. He had heard that Conry was forgetful and made random errors."

Koski told investigators that Conry "did not fly like a seasoned pilot" even though he claimed to have the hours of a seasoned pilot. Koski told investigators that he rated the company's standardization as "fair." He said he suspected some pilots were following standard procedures, while others were not.


And here's an interesting request that our friend Koski made of the FAA in September, 1999:

http://www2.faa.gov/avr/afs/exempt/EX6986.DOC

September 3, 1999
Exemption No. 6986
Regulatory Docket No. 29297

Mr. Oliver Koski
Director of Operations
Aviation Charter, Inc.

Dear Mr. Koski:

By undated letter, you petitioned the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on behalf of Aviation Charter, Inc. (ACI), for an exemption from § 135.299(a) of Title 14, Code of Federal Regulations (14 CFR) to the extent necessary to permit AVI (Aviation Charter) pilots to accomplish a line operational evaluation in a Level C or Level D flight simulator in lieu of a line check in an aircraft.


Note that the FAA quite wisely denied Koski's bizarre and dangerous request to evaluate his Aviation Charter pilots using a flight simulator rather than live flight in a real aircraft.


OK, now let's examine this a bit deeper. Imagine that you were the Director of Operations for a charter airline and the NTSB asked you to answer some questions about a former colleague of yours who just died in a tragic plane crash every media outlet and expert in the world is chalking up to bad weather.

Would you tell the NTSB investigators that this former pilot, who flew for at least several months at your whim and directly under your charge, was:

1) below average,
2) forgetful,
3) prone to random errors,
4) unable to fly like a seasoned pilot, and
5) apt to let his inexperienced, "borderline, weakest link" copilot land whenever he was transporting his most important passengers?

Furthermore, would you describe the standardization of the charter airline company at which you yourself served as Director of Operations for many years including the time period in question as "fair"?

Conry joined Aviation Charter in April 2001 and Guess joined Aviation Charter in June 2001. Now consider that Koski was the Director of Operations at Aviation Charter when both Conry and Guess were hired and initially trained and evaluated. So Koski himself both hired and approved for scores of commercial passenger flights a lead pilot who Koski himself describes as "below average, forgetful, prone to random errors, and unable to fly like a seasoned pilot" and a co-pilot who Koski himself describes as "borderline and the company's weakest link."

Then Koski continued to serve as their direct supervisors, allowing the horrendously incompetent Conry to ferry hundreds of innocent passengers across the fearsome skies of Minnesota -- often scheduling him together with a "borderline" copilot -- even though he knew Conry would almost certainly let "the company's weakest link" handle all of the most critical and dangerous flight duties. Even as other pilots were constantly reporting to him that Conry was "below average", "forgetful", and prone to make "random errors"?


*****


And how about the ever changing stories Mark Schmidt/Schmit?

Former Aviation Charter pilot Mark Schmidt contacted investigators with another story about Conry. According to the report, Schmidt said that he observed Conry and a copilot during takeoff and that their plane "came over the top of Executive Aviation in a 60-degree bank and it looked like they were going to take out the tower."

Schmidt linked the incident to Conry's throttle technique. He said he did not know whether any kind of report was filed.


1) Doesn't this type of dangerous near miss require the filing of an NTSB incident report?

2) Pray tell, why didn't Mark think such an important illustration of Conry's obvious incompetence was topical when he talked to the media about Conry in November?


From a November, 2002 story: http://www.startribune.com/stories/1752/3420441.html

Mark Schmit, a former Executive Aviation pilot, said Conry told him he had flown for American Eagle. "I remember him telling me he flew ATRs for American Eagle," said Schmit, who left the company in January. "Which model, he never said. Just generally, ATRs."

"He never was more elaborate than that," added Schmit, who said he flew only once with Conry while at Executive Aviation but said he talked with him casually at the company's offices. Schmit said he worked at Executive Aviation for a little more than a year.


3) So Mark "links" Conry's supposed but unreported "60-degree bank" that "looked like they were going to take out" an ATC tower to "Conry's throttle technique." But didn't Conry have a copilot in that plane? And didn't Aviation Charter's Director of Operations assure us that Conry let his copilots fly "all the time"?

4) Mark told the Star Tribune that he "flew only once with Conry." But since Conry always let the other pilot fly, when did Mark have a chance to observe Conroy's supposedly very nearly homicidal throttle technique?


*****


And what are we to make of this information? Is it all false?

From: http://www.airsafetyonline.com/cgi-bin/news/exec/view.cgi?archive=2&num=22

Conry grew up flying with his father and had his own plane by the early 1980s. He pursued a full-time flying job after real estate fraud charges ended his construction business. According to Executive Aviation, which hired him in April 2001, Conry had logged just under 5,200 hours of flying time. He had an airline transport pilot certification, the highest possible rating. Guess, the co-pilot, was certified as a commercial pilot and had about 650 flight hours.

Rod Ahlsten, who gives pilots "check rides" part time at Executive Aviation, said he was told Conry was a good pilot. Twice a year, pilots take check rides, an extensive test consisting of an oral test, preflight checks and about two hours in the air, including some maneuvers in which emergency situations are simulated. Conry passed his check ride the week of the crash, and Ahlsten spoke to the pilot who conducted Conry's test. "I've heard nothing but good about his flying skills," Ahlsten said.

Several people who flew with Conry praised him, including Curt Anderson, a carpenter for Conry's defunct development business. Anderson said Conry also owned a stunt plane, in which he could fly upside down and perform loops. But he left the stunts behind when flying his usual single and double propeller planes, said Anderson, who flew with Conry about 40 times.

"His dream after construction was to fly," Anderson said. "He just wanted to be in the air. It's tough to believe he crashed."


*****


And what about this information? All false as well?:

From: http://www.startribune.com/stories/1752/3420441.html

"His training record with us is impeccable," Wikner said. "Some very important people wanted him as their pilot. They liked what he did. They liked the way he handled the airplane."

Conry had experience flying private planes, and he owned planes over the years. Federal Aviation Administration records show that in 1989, Conry obtained an air transport pilot rating, the highest rating a commercial pilot can get and one that requires at least 1,500 hours of flying time. That rating requires a minimum of 250 hours as captain or co-pilot, among other requirements. He also was licensed to fly single-engine and multiengine, land-based airplanes and single-engine seaplanes, records show.

James Hurd, a business associate of Conry's dating back 25 years, said in an interview that Conry flew him about 50 times on business and recreational trips throughout the Midwest and Canada in the time he knew him. On those trips, he said Conry flew him in a single-engine Cessna. "I trusted him totally as a pilot," Hurd said. "He was unbelievably careful. Never cut a corner. I can't say strongly enough what a good pilot he was."

"Dick was the most careful person," he said, recalling all the flights he had taken with Conry.

Doctor.

http://www.dispatch.co.za/1998/06/03/southafrica/TRC1.HTM

Hope for fresh light on Machel air crash

EAST LONDON -- The news that three former members of the apartheid armed forces will give evidence to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission concerning the death of Mozambique's first president, Samora Machel, has raised hopes that fresh light will be thrown on the fatal plane crash.

(snip)

But how had the crime been carried out? Why was the presidential aircraft so far from its correct flight path? Pretoria's response throughout was to blame the dead Russian pilot, Captain Yuri Novodran. But Capt Novodran was highly experienced, with a total of 13056 hours flying time, more than half of them on Tupolev-134s. He had made 65 landings at Maputo Airport, 70 percent of them at night.

The other crew members also held distinguished civil aviation records -- they were unlikely to blunder onto the wrong route by mistake. When the black-box flight recorders were decoded, it became clear that the immediate cause of the crash was a turn to the right, when the plane was about 100 kilometres north-west of Maputo. The conversation between the crew members showed that the turn was made because the plane was following a signal from a VOR (a very-high-frequency omnidirectional radio beacon that is a standard navigational aid).

The crew were convinced this was the Maputo VOR -- after all, there was only one legitimate VOR anywhere nearby. At Matsapa, in Swaziland. investigations showed it was impossible for the plane to have followed the Matsapa signal by mistake. That left just one possibility: that the plane had been deliberately lured off its flight path by a private VOR transmitting on the same frequency as the Maputo one. This was a possibility that Pretoria showed no interest in investigating

I'm thinking of one in particular.

• Couldn't remember which airport we were at. Tower had to correct him.
  
• Couldn't remember what kind of airplane we were. Tower hinted.
  
• Screwed up a frequency change.
  
• Had to be reminded by passenger to drop gear.
  
• Attempted to land on a visual flight rules flight plan at a totally fogbound airport by following another plane doing ILS.
  
• when that failed, tried it again without a plane to follow and with no navigational instruments other than a compass. He was aiming for the centre of the fog patch.
  

I've never been so scared in my life. There was no control column on my side (replaced by FLIR unit) otherwise I'd have cold-cocked him, turned on the damn instruments and landed the stupid thing myself. I'd probably have done a better job.

and everybody assured me "great pilot, great pilot".

Report the guy to the FAA before he kills someone.

1) No emergency calls even though there were two pilots.

2) No reports of ice by Wellstone's pilots or anyone in the state at the altitude the pilots were flying for over 10 minutes before the crash.

3) The crash mysteriously veers to the left well over a minute before crashing, ending up more than a mile south of its proscribed due east approach.

4) The plane mysteriously slows in an incedibly dangerous manner -- well over 40 mph under the proscribed approach speed.

5) The stall horn goes off in the pilots' ears.

6) Instead of trying to recover from a putative stall, the plane continues to slow while turning left, even theough the flight plan says a fly around should veer to the right.

OK, so tell us how the so-called accident happened.

Because conspiracy theories often involve "facts" that laymen can't verify (like neurochemistry for those old flouride conspiracy theories, or structural engineering for 9/11 MIHOP).

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

Just asked my pilot friend about that one this afternoon; his explanation: "When you're up to your ass in alligators (the plane is crashing), it's hard to remeber to drain the swamp."

And it's certainly the easiest of the points to explain by far.

Congratulations.

an accident. I could be wrong however.
:shrug:

I'll believe it was an accident after the accidental deaths of several leading Conservative Republicans.

A liberal Republican, advocate of national health care, was preparing to run against Papa Bush in '92 on the strength of immense personal wealth (as Perot did). Had sat on the banking committee and had the dirt on BCCI and S&L. Friend of John Tower's (head "independent" investigator/coverupper of Iran-Contra). Heinz killed in plane crash (collision with helicopter that came out to check apparent failure of landing gear) on Apr. 4, 1991. Tower killed in plane crash Apr. 5, 1991. One day later! Tower a drinker, had failed to get DoD appointment, went into exile and went to work on an Iran-Contra book. Fancy that.

Anyone with an open mind would admit this set of circumstantial pointers was worthy of a murder investigation, as well as an NTSB accident investigation.

No different with Wellstone. You self-appointed logicians NEVER answer the following question.

Which of the following is impossible?
a) politician dies in accident.
b) politician assassinated in fashion made to look like accident.

The answer is NEITHER! Both have often caused the death of politicians. Failing to acknowledge this in a theoretical discussion indicates dishonesty, blinders, or both.

Ruling out one hypothesis in advance of inquiry means you close off any chance of validating or falsifying it properly.

Let me put it another way - here's your challenge:

Was a politician EVER killed by way of plane sabotage?

that Republicans fly corporate aircraft more often than chartered aircraft.

Corporate aircraft are typically newer and much better maintained.

Hence, the risk of an accident is much, much less.

Try again.

Wellstone was in one of the safest charter planes ever made: two pilots, two engines and redundant systems across the board.

Means nothing if the aircraft is not well maintained. Simply put, your argument is flawed because it does not consider the "condition" of the aircraft.

Backups mean nothing if one is broken.
Two pilots mean little if they have not see the failure before.
Two engines are good if they are both working properly.

On well maintained aircraft, I have had to shut turbine engines down in flight twice. I have seen oxygen system failures, primary navigation system failures, flight instrument failures, trim failures, landing gear malfunctions, and hydraulic system failures all on aircraft that were considered reliable and airworthy.

As I have said before, stuff happens. Most of the time you survive; sometimes you don't. Who comes up short is a matter of chance.

Yer a funny guy. Not funny ha ha.

---Nicholas Joseph Begich (1932-1972) -- also known as Nicholas J. Begich -- of Anchorage, Alaska. Born in Eveleth, St. Louis County, Minn., April 6, 1932. Democrat. Member of Alaska state senate, 1963-71; U.S. Representative from Alaska at-large, 1971-72; died in office 1972. Alaska Native and Croatian ancestry. Disappeared while on a campaign flight from Anchorage to Juneau, Alaska, October 16, 1972, and presumed dead in a plane crash, but apparently the wreckage was never found. Cenotaph at Congressional Cemetery, Washington, D.C.

---Jerry Lyle Pettis (1916-1975) Married to Shirley Neil Pettis. Born in Phoenix, Maricopa County, Ariz., July 18, 1916. Republican. U.S. Representative from California, 1967-75 (33rd District 1967-75, 37th District 1975); died in office 1975. Seventh-Day Adventist. Died in a plane crash near Banning, Riverside County, Calif., February 14, 1975. Interment at Montecito Memorial Park, Colton, Calif.

---Ralph Frederick Beermann (1912-1977) of Dakota City, Dakota County, Neb. Born near Dakota City, Dakota County, Neb., August 13, 1912. Republican. Served in the U.S. Army during World War II; U.S. Representative from Nebraska, 1961-65 (3rd District 1961-63, 1st District 1963-65). Lutheran. Member, Farm Bureau; American Legion; Veterans of Foreign Wars; Kiwanis. Died in an airplane crash at the Municipal Airport in Sioux City, Woodbury County, Iowa, February 17, 1977. Interment at Dakota City Cemetery, Dakota City, Neb.

---Richard D. Obenshain (1936-1978) of Richmond, Va. Born in 1936. Republican. Delegate to Republican National Convention from Virginia, 1964; Virginia Republican state chair, 1972; candidate for U.S. Senator from Virginia 1978, but died before election. Killed in a plane crash in August 1978.

---Lawrence Patton McDonald (1935-1983) -- also known as Larry McDonald -- Born in Atlanta, Fulton County, Ga., April 1, 1935. Democrat. U.S. Representative from Georgia 7th District, 1975-83; died in office 1983. Member, John Birch Society. Killed when Korean Airlines jet on which he was a passenger was shot down by the Soviet military, over the Sea of Japan, September 1, 1983; his remains were never recovered.

---Larkin I. Smith (1944-1989) Married to Sheila Smith. Born in Mississippi, June 26, 1944. Republican. U.S. Representative from Mississippi 5th District, 1989; died in office 1989. Died in an airplane crash, August 13, 1989. Interment at Floral Hills Cemetery, Gulfport, Miss.

---John Goodwin Tower (1925-1991) -- also known as John G. Tower -- of Wichita Falls, Wichita County, Tex.; Dallas, Dallas County, Tex. Born in Houston, Harris County, Tex., September 29, 1925. Republican. Served in the U.S. Navy during World War II; delegate to Republican National Convention from Texas, 1956, 1960, 1964, 1968, 1972, 1980; U.S. Senator from Texas, 1961-85; defeated, 1960. Methodist. Member, American Legion; Kiwanis; Kappa Sigma. Nominated for Secretary of Defense in 1989, but defeated amid allegations of heavy drinking and womanizing. Killed in a plane crash near Brunswick, Glynn County, Ga., April 5, 1991. Interment at Sparkman Hillcrest Memorial Park, Dallas, Tex.

---George Speaker Mickelson (1941-1993) Son of George Theodore Mickelson. Born January 31, 1941. Republican. Governor of South Dakota, 1987-93; died in office 1993; Presidential Elector for South Dakota, 1992. Died in a plane crash, April 19, 1993. Burial location unknown.

http://politicalgraveyard.com/death/aircraft.html

From scanning the list, it seems pretty bipartisan....

Senator Tower was chairman of the Tower Commission, which issued a scathing report on the Iran-Contra scandal which was overshadowed by all the Fawn Hall crap that the House and Senate were drooling over.

John Heinz was considered to be a liberal Republican and often sided with the Democrats. Heinz and Tower died on consecutive days.

While there are many politicians who have died in plane crashes, one of the most tragic deaths, which didn't make your list, was the 1976 death of Missouri Congressman Jerry Litton (D), a man whom many considered to be a rising star in the Democratic Party. He died in a plane crash on the eve of winning the Democratic primary for Senate.

Lots of people in MO were saying good things about him before the crash, even in my unenlightened part of the state. It came as a shock to everyone (or so it seemed), especially seeing that he probably would have been the next Democratic Senator from Missouri. Instead, we ended up getting a Republican dumbass, and the seat has been controlled by repukes ever since.

Funny thing how two popular Democratic candidates have died in plane crashes a few months or even weeks before an election for Senate in Missouri. Has that happened in any other state?

In 1976 Litton a liberal populist candidate was expected to win in a landlslide against Repug opponent Danforth when he died in a plane crash
As a result of his death, however, his opponent was given the Senate seat. His Republican opponent was John Danforth, then Missouri's Attorney General.
(<http://www.kcstar.com/item/pages/election.pat,local/3774d78c.a17,.html>)
Who got Danforth's seat as the state AG when he moved to the Senate? John Ashcroft. When Danforth retired from the Senate, who was tapped to replace him? John Ashcroft.
(<http://abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/DailyNews/ashcroft001222.html>)
Strange how Ashcroft keeps popping up, isn't it? He gets his state AG seat because of one plane crash. When he's going down to certain defeat his opponent Mel Carnahan dies in another plane crash. That he lost the seat to a dead man could be viewed as bad timing. He should have waited until closer to election night.

Wellstone died one day before the due date for a replacement.

was on the same plane as HALE BOGGS, member of the Warren Commission, who had said he no longer believed in its conclusions!

Just fucking top that, okay?

I believe lots of accidents happen, too.

Accidents kill politicians.

Assassinations kill politicians.

Assassinations made to look like accidents do it too...

Contempt in advance of inquiry is the guarantee you will never learn anything new.

who also died under mysterious circumstances - regarding the light airplane crash of Gary Caradori, which was mentioned in the earlier thread. Colby, then retired, informally investigated the Caradori crash as a favour for his friend, lawyer John De Camp.

"Colby's exact statement on this was: 'If it's done right, you'll never know how it was done, or who did it for sure. That's what professionalism is all about.'"
The Franklin Cover-Up, page 385

Scary...

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RNSC. I don't know, but I don't doubt it. The fact that it was during a campaign is suspect to me.

when a politician would be most likely to fly from town to town in these little planes.

BTW -- another tragic plane death was Ken Hubbs. In 1962, he won Rookie of the Year as the Cubs 2ns baseman. He set the all-time record for errorless games by a second baseman. Then he was killed in asmall plane crash. Never know how good he could have been, though I guess injuries could say that same thing about lots of athletes.

In the entire 30 year history of the fleet, the NTSB listed less than 10 total fatalities before 8 people died aboard Wellstone's flight.

The airplane is only as safe as the pilot flying it.

was Dick Conry involved in?

it only takes one

What made Wellstone such a great and unique threat to the right-wing that they would need take the extrordinary measure of assasination to deal with him?

He wasn't running for President. This isn't JFK we are talking about.

He was quite to the left of his own party and had no special influence in the senate that was going to cause them any trouble.

The election he was running in was close, it wasn't a given he would even be re-elected. If he won, they could still wack him and get a rethug in his place. Why the rush? Why cause exactly the kind of conspiracy theories that we see here when they could wait until after the election, which they might have won straight out?

Wellstone was going to win big, and it was going to be a slap in Bush's face that would have stung far more than if the White House can save face by saying Mondale won on sympathy.

From: http://www.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/10/28/timep.Wellstone.tm/

As Senator-elect in his first month, Wellstone said of new colleague Jesse Helms, "I have detested him since I was 19." Then, on his first trip to the White House, on the eve of the Gulf War, Wellstone pelted President George H.W. Bush with antiwar arguments until Bush famously asked, "Who is this chickenshit?"

Wellstone had been locked in a tight re-election campaign against Republican challenger Norm Coleman and had begun to pull away in recent weeks, in part because this year's chapter in the Iraq saga provided Wellstone with an opportunity to remind Minnesotans that his maverick streak remained as sharp as ever. As the only vulnerable incumbent to vote against the resolution that would give President Bush war powers, Wellstone told the Senate, "Acting now on our own might be a sign of our power, but acting sensibly and in a measured way in concert with our allies ... would be a sign of our strength." Soon after, private G.O.P. polls predicted that Wellstone would be re-elected.

From: http://www.worldmag.com/world/issue/11-02-02/cover_1.asp

In a sign of just how important the White House views Minnesota, the Oct. 18 rally in Rochester marked the president's fourth trip to the state, and officials say he might return twice more before Election Day. That's an extraordinary level of attention from a commander in chief embroiled in the fight against international terrorism, but Mr. Bush knows his entire presidency may turn on the results of mid-term balloting.

Though Mr. Bush's recent appearance in Rochester was ostensibly a "joint appearance" for all the top GOP candidates, the battle for the Senate was clearly uppermost in his mind. He lavished praise on Norm Coleman, the Republican hopeful, while repeatedly citing instances in which the Democratic majority had foiled his legislative agenda. Although he never mentioned the ultra-liberal incumbent by name, no one could doubt that he'd love to see Paul Wellstone replaced.

President Bush decided long ago that Mr. Coleman represented one of the best chances to take over a Democratic Senate seat. He personally wooed the former Democratic mayor of St. Paul, betting that his appeal with urban voters would cut into the Democrats' traditional base. Polls have showed the race neck-and-neck for months, although the latest survey, released just hours after the president's visit, had Mr. Wellstone with a lead just at the limits of sampling error.

No one doubts that the stakes are huge in the Minnesota Senate contest. Mr. Bush has pinned much of his political agenda as well as his personal prestige on the race. After campaigning so often for Mr. Coleman, he risks being viewed as politically vulnerable if the Republican falls short on Nov. 5. If he can prove he has coattails, on the other hand, the president's hand will be greatly strengthened in his dealings with the next Congress.

From: http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020527&s=nichols

Paul Wellstone is a hunted man. Minnesota's senior senator is not just another Democrat on White House political czar Karl Rove's target list, in an election year when the Senate balance of power could be decided by the voters of a single state. Rather, getting rid of Wellstone is a passion for Rove, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush and the special-interest lobbies that fund the most sophisticated political operation ever assembled by a presidential administration. "There are people in the White House who wake up in the morning thinking about how they will defeat Paul Wellstone," a senior Republican aide confides. "This one is political and personal for them."

"This race is going to be a case study of whether you can maintain liberal, progressive positions and win in this country in 2002," says Wellstone as he campaigns among Laotian immigrants on a sunny spring morning in St. Paul. "We're not running a race that asks people to vote for me because, as a Democrat, I will be a little more compassionate, a little better for working families and children and immigrants, than a Republican. We want to draw the lines of distinction. I'm saying that there is a big difference between the America the conservatives want and the America I want." He adds, "I don't want this to be just about me. This race has to be about basic questions of whether liberals and progressives can flourish in national politics. That means there is a lot more on the line than whether Paul Wellstone wins or loses."

Wellstone is right. His race is being read as a measure of the potency of progressive politics in America. If he wins, a blow will be struck not just against the Bush machine but against those in the Democratic Party who argue for tepid moderation. "Sure, the Bush Administration is targeting Paul this year, but Paul is never a shoo-in," says Myron Orfield, a Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) state senator widely regarded as one of the nation's top experts in the study of voting patterns. "Paul's a controversial guy. He's the little guy who takes on the big guys. That is not something the political process is designed to reward these days. If you take strong stands you put yourself at risk--and Paul takes more strong stands on more issues than just about anyone else."

Now, Rove is gambling presidential prestige and Republican dollars on the prospect that the upper Midwest is the key to taking back a Senate that went Democratic last spring after Vermont Senator Jim Jeffords exited the GOP. "Midwestern voters don't feel the connection with the Democrats that they once did," crows Rove. To that end, Wellstone, South Dakota's Tim Johnson and Iowa's Tom Harkin, all up for re-election, are getting what GOP insiders call "the Rove treatment": recruitment of high-profile Republican challengers, major-league fundraising assistance and regular presidential visits. All other things being equal, picking off either Johnson or Harkin would be enough to split the Senate 50-50 and again allow Vice President Cheney to break partisan ties. But beating Wellstone would be the sweetest win. "They have made it very clear that if they could beat one Democrat this year, it would be Paul Wellstone," says Minnesota political consultant Richman. "Paul gets under their skin."

"When I first met the President, he called me 'Pablo,'" Wellstone jokes. "That lasted a day or two. Then they started trying to figure out how they were going to get rid of me." Bush aides are still smarting over a Wellstone amendment to the President's tax cut plan that diverted $17 billion to veterans programs. "Some of the issues Paul has fought hardest on--healthcare, protecting pensions, environmental protection--play very strongly in middle-income suburbs where people are feeling squeezed," Orfield argues. "I think that Paul is going to do a very good job of reaching them, and I think that his success will provide a very important lesson for Democrats in other parts of the country."

I lived in Oregon at the time of the crash, and I kept running into people who told me that they had cried when they heard the news. This surprised me, because although I reacted the same way, I had assumed that it was just because of my Minnesota connections.

I visited a memorial website two days after the crash. Over 4,000 people had posted in 48 hours, and on the pages I looked at, about half the posters were from outside Minnesota.

Wellstone wasn't only the most liberal member of the Senate. He was one of THE most popular liberals in the country.

There are plenty of liberal and progressive politicians in this country. Few were as popular or as visible as Wellstone, and he was a thorn in the side of those who want us to believe that liberalism is passé.

And as a poster on another thread noted, he had considered running for president before health problems got in the way.

was that Wellstone had come down loudly against the war. He was the antiwar leader in the Senate, not at all willing to back down, and he was on his way to being the leader in the nation. Wellstone would have been yelling about the WMD lie back in February, when these bastards were propagating it.

Think about it: they were about to launch a war of aggression on a country on the other side of the world to seize control over its oil assets (and hence gain leverage over the rest of the world), at a time when the dollar is already made of air.

They knew their war would kill tens of thousands, minimum, including many of their "own" people. As we see they were willing to make up any lie to justify that war, and to repeat their lies constantly despite being exposed on it.

Wellstone would have been in a great position to gum up the war propaganda. In fact, I challenge you to name ANYONE who was in a BETTER position, or who since his death has taken up the vital role he was already exercising.

Wellstone was one of several anti-war Senators. Almost no
attention was paid to the anti-war legislators even during
the war. The election was seen to be close; there was a decent
chance for them to knock Wellstone off at the ballot box.

There is no logical reason for them to have risked everything
(and a murder is risking everything) to kill Wellstone. He was
a great man but only a minor annoyance to the Bushies.

:tinfoilhat::tinfoilhat::tinfoilhat::tinfoilhat::tinfoilhat::tinfoilhat:

No one has even investigated the possibility.

We were all assured the plane crashed due to icing because of the nonexistent "freezing rain and snow" it was reportedly flying in within hours of the crash. And the FBI ruled out foul play within hours. Nobody in any official capacity has even considered the possibility since.

By the time it was pointed out that there wasn't any freezing rain or snow, and there was only an infinitesmal chance of more than trace icing, the NTSB was already hard at work releasing the newly minted details of the now horribly incompetent pilot.

Challenge: Name a US politician who was a greater "annoyance" to the Bush Administration than Wellstone.

Anyone who wants to assassinate a left-wing politician in the U.S. knows that if they do it right, the possibility of an assassination will not even be raised; and those who raise that possibility will be ridiculed and defamed automatically by one million Birdmans in the media and outside it. (Birdmans of both the self-appointed and the professional variety.)

Whereas if an assassination is recognized as a murder, one million Birdmans in the media and outside it will be itching to ridicule and defame anyone who suggests a possibility other than a lone perpetrator. Journalists who even ask the question will be cut off, have their promotion blocked, assigned to the dogcatcher beat, or let go at the next opportunity.

The main mechanism by which this works is social consensus. We all work together in constructing the reality that most reassures and flatters us, and that leaves us in a comforting state. This is no mystery to the good sociologist or psychologist, or in fact to most anyone willing to realize that every institution and every group in society tends to run on its own specific version of "don't rock the boat."

Coup d'etats, mafias, elite manipulations, assassinations, state terror and criminal government are the RULE, not the exception, in most states, at every time in history. No one has any problems acknowledging this, as long as they do not have to admit it's also true of their own country.

It's as good as fixed. Don't assassinate too often, do it carefully, have your back-up legends ready, and you will get away with it. In the case of the modern U.S., this has been true from JFK forward.

who would like to see evidence or at least some semblance
of logic before accusing somebody of murder.

There isn't a shred of either in this whacky conspiracy theory.



They whacked Wellstone and then ruined my essence.

to be considered and investigated seriously whenever an important person with a lot of extremely powerful enemies dies in a completely unexplained and highly suspicious accident -- especially considering that multiple natural primary suspects had obvious and compelling motives, certain means and clear opportunity.

Isn't it, birdman?

When I saw you had actually asked a question, I bothered to take you seriously for a change. But now you're just back to the same rhyme. Everyone here is wacky, crazy, etc. Fine.

But do get one thing straight: "accuse" in the legal sense means you're actually naming a name you think responsible for the crime. I am not. I am merely saying it's probably a crime.

The possibility of foul play is a high one, comparable to the possibility of accident, and must therefore be investigated.

When pressed by the likes of you to give possible motives for whomever might have done it, I do so, but I have not yet accused anyone in the legal sense. Capish?

Over and out, Birdman, you're not worth the trouble I fear but luckily others read these things too...

if the VOR was innacurate, what prompted the crew (according to the radar returns) to commence their initial turn towards the inbound track at almost precisely the point where their Course Deviation Indicator would indicate "casebreak", which is the commencement of lateral signal guidance from their instrumentation.

http://www.startribune.com/style/news/politics/wellstone/ntsb/251506.pdf

airport's VOR beacon from that point.

Got any on sports?

not mine. I'll work with facts as we know them, as will the NTSB.

Lots of planes in the sky that night.

and it would have noticeably affected only planes that were very close on their approach to Eveleth (of which Wellstone's plane was the only one) because it was so close to that airport that anyone using it for navigation from a distance of scores of miles or more wouldn't have even noticed.

Before you set yourself up as debunker, you should at least have a rudimentary grasp of the facts surrounding the case.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/10/26/politics/main527073.shtml

I had intended on staying out of this (actually the earlier) thread except some new information came up.

Also, would anyone have wanted Birch Bayh dead? I would certainly include this on a list of "political plane crashes".

"...N344S, a model 680, serial 448-119 owned by Standard International Corp., of Cincinnati, Ohio, undershot at 22:00 while on approach to Barnes airport, near Southhampton, Massachusetts in IFR conditions on June 19th 1964. Visibility was 2 miles or less, with a ceiling of 800ft., in fog. The commercially rated pilot, with some 10759 total hours, 731 in type, was killed along with another passenger, although Kennedy survived, but with a broken back, along with two other passengers.

"In the second article, I was able to up-date the information, following receipt of details supplied by "Bear" Ebert, via Jim Crunkleton: 'Southhampton' is located about three miles from Barns Municipal Airport, Westfield, Massachusetts and the Commander crashed due to fuel exhaustion IOW ran out of gas), on approach. I have also looked again at the initial report printed in Lloyd's List and there are one or two discrepancies from the information 'Bear' reports, but I'm sure his version is correct. Such discrepancies are shown in brackets. The owner is reported as Dan Hogan (Daniel Hoga), of Andover, Massachusetts. Pilot was Ed Zimny (Edwin Zimmy), owner and operator of Zimny's Flying Service, of Lawrence, Massachusetts. Four passengers were on board the flight, scheduled from Lawrence Municipal Airport to Barns Municipal Airport, being Senator Edward Kennedy, Senator Birch Bayh and his wife, and Edward Moss, an administrative assistant to Edward Kennedy. Ed Zimny was killed in the accident and Edward Moss died later from his injuries. The aircraft was found with both props feathered and the rotating beacon still operating."

You'll find this a couple items down from the top:

http://www.matronics.com/archive/archive-get.cgi?Commander-Archive.digest.vol-ao

... at Chapaquidick. After the VRWC hits on JFK, MLK and RFK they had pretty much decimated the Liberal leadership of the United States. Sure there were other politicians of the left, but few if any had the individual magnetism and charisma of these four. Plane crashes and lone nuts. Right.

BTW: Nixon and Haldeman talked about their guy going to Chappaquiddick and finding nothing illegal, but something "explosive" were it to get out. I'm not sure WTF that means, but if Nixon was involved, it had to be criminal. Nixon had E Howard Hunt plant phony State Department cables implicating JFK in the murders of Diem and his brother. Nixon was capable of anything, like a good Mafia soldier.

EDIT: Forgot Ted Kennedy was at first supposed to be onboard Wellstone's plane. He had been in Minnesota campaigning for Wellstone. When Wellstone decided to fly north for the funeral of a friend, Kennedy decided to head home to Massachusetts.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,66707,00.html

PADRAIG18 this one is a democrat---Nicholas Joseph Begich (1932-1972) -- also known as Nicholas J. Begich -- of Anchorage, Alaska. Born in Eveleth, St. Louis County, Minn., April 6, 1932. Democrat.

TrogL
and
Minstrelboy

you aren't from the U.S. are you?

Why?

Michael Moore asks why the US has such a high rate of gun fatalities, and does a comparison with other countries looking for similarities and differences. (fear factor in the U.S.)

Not to derail this thread, I find it interesting to hear viewpoints from other countries.
When I read the posts, I look for what they have learned from experience, or input from what they hear & trust.

Can all agree that the opposite of trust is fear?

Conspiracy Theory
If a plane is hijacked, shotdown, sabotaged, suicide, do you consider it a "conspiracy theory"?
(In the shotdown case excluding mistaken targets)

Why is it so difficult to believe that it could be conspired to remove someone from a political office (lets exclude Saddam) a not portray the poster as an Area 51 nutcase?

Go to a data base and look at how many planes were taken down for those reasons, regardless of who was onboard.
http://aviation-safety.net/database/index.html

As to the
Human Factors
in 85% of all accidents, human error has been involved. This is not a problem unique to aviation; it applies to any industry. And in aviation it is not necessarily always the pilot who makes a mistake it can be someone on the ground, a mechanic, an air traffic controller even the designer of the airplane.

What upsets me with many of these conspiracy threads is that the conspiracy theory, no matter how farfetched, is presented as "the only possible solution".

Pretty much anything is possible. Space aliens could possibly have stolen all the electricity out of the engines to recharge their invisible flying saucer. Possible, but highly improbable.

There was a thread a few weeks ago that it was possible that explosives brought down the trade centres (and no, I don't want to get that one going again). It's equally possible that someone with telekinetic ability did it. It's just ridiculous improbable.

Instead of spinning our wheels chasing unidentified spooks in invisible trucks with yet-to-be-invented technology, maybe we could use our energies on something productive...

...like exposing the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy ... LIHOP ... something ... anything ...! :evilgrin:

this is ridiculous! The results of this poll are an eye-opener. I suggest a new forum called, "Conspiracy Corner" (catchy name, if I do say so) where all the BFEE conspiracies can be dissected.

maybe we can also establish a new forum called "La La Land" for those posters who do not wish to do any serious analysis of suspicious events and wish to cling to their beliefs that everything bad that happens is either the result of a series of bizarre coincidences or the brainchild of some guy lurking in a cave halfway across the globe.

We'd never fit in, simply because we believe that Democrats are subject to the laws of gravity, are subject to heart disease, etc. . They all *know* that the BFEE kills every Democrat above the level of precinct committeeman. /sarcasm off :tinfoilhat:

and some of us want to know the rest of the story.

Hey! I'm a tinfoiler :tinfoilhat: too. I'm into 'great game' and 'oil wars' and VRWC and LIHOP and several others.

I just don't believe in this particular one.

where all Bush-lite folks can gather without having to worry about anybody asking any pesky questions about anything.

... the late co-pilot of Wellstone's plane was a flight instructor at the school where Zaccarias Moussaoui was enrolled. Currently under arrest as the alleged 20th hijacker, Moussaoui wanted to learn how to turn and navigate 747s, but wasn't interested in taking off and landing. The only reason Ashcroft arrested the guy was that the flight school instructors went directly to their Congresscritter after the local FAA and FBI offices told them not to worry about Moussaoui.

These links help tell the story for the, um, less-informed and, uh, non-conspiratorially inclined DUers:

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/JohnJudge/linkscopy/PWcopilot.html

http://www.jsonline.com/news/attack/dec01/7923.asp

http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=271

see LBN

I'm not a pilot and know nothing about airplanes. I merely approach this on a practical leval as a political junkie.

Why would the Repukes kill a popular Senator up for re-election after the Carnahan experience? They couldn't possibly know what the outcome would be. In fact after Wellstone died, the conservatives I know were quite despondent. They went from being somewhat hopeful that Coleman could pull it out to dreading a Carnahan like sympathy vote for the D replacement. How on earth could they have anticipated the "memmorial backlash."

I think it was an unfortunate accident. Small planes are not safe. I refuse to fly them myself. This tin foil stuff sounds nuts to me.

The Dems were forced to run another candidate. Also, unlike Carnahan, whose wife took the seat, Wellstone's wife died in the crash.