| Author | Comment | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 ImNotBob |
Continental Airlines flight 1544 today |
Lead | ||
|
Bump In The Night
05/26/08 15:52:24 False Positive |
Continental Airlines flight 1544 took off from IAH today bound for CLE. Shortly after taking off, at about 5,000' the pilot called to report an unknown
object in the sky with him. The FAA is interested in this and is investigating. Wonder what they'll conclude?
http://www.khou.com/topstories/stories/khou080526_tj_flight1544.30439636.html ...we all had fun at Finnegan's wake! |
|||
|
|
||||
|
RavensMagick |
#1 | |||
|
05/26/08 18:09:01 ICPIR Founder
|
I am not sure if the article changed, but they are already calling it a rocket. Interesting that the flight took off a few minutes late though.
07:41 PM CDT on Monday, May 26, 2008 By Jeremy Desel / 11 News HOUSTON -- Jet pilots aren't used to sharing their airspace, so you can bet a rocket will get some attention. Continental Flight 1544 was flying at 5,000 feet about 11 miles east of Bush Intercontinental Airport after takeoff this morning when the pilot called the tower to report an object headed toward the plane. The FAA now says it thinks that object was some kind of model rocket. Both the FAA and the Houston Area Joint Terrorism Task Force continue to investigate the incident that KHOU.com first reported early this afternoon. Neither said conclusively what the pilot saw was indeed a model rocket, but an FAA spokesperson told 11 News that it was likely a high-powered model rocket. It is a federal crime to launch a rocket of any sort without notifying the FAA. The plane was at about 5,000 feet at the time of the sighting and the flight continued on to Cleveland. Sources told 11 News that the flight was met by Continental officials and FAA investigators to interview the passengers and crew. Flight 1544, which is a Boeing 737, took off from Terminal C at Bush IAH at 10:17 a.m. Monday and arrived at Hopkins International Airport in Cleveland at 2:13 p.m. - nine minutes later than scheduled. 
|
|||
|
|
||||
|
Badger22 |
#2 | |||
|
Bump In The Night
05/27/08 10:53:09 False Positive |
Quote: It is a federal crime to launch a rocket of any sort without notifying the FAA.
Um, wrong. Model rockets up through the D engine class are perfectly legal to launch without the FAA's approval. Even multi-stagers, which can reach altitudes of well over 1,000 ft. What is illegal is launching a mid or high power model rocket without getting an FAA waiver for the location, time frame and max altitude (you also have to be licensed to buy or build the engines). Many of those can easily reach 5,000 ft on a single stage. There are also regulations on where you can launch from (not around an airport, for one). After 9/11, there was a lot of talk about making all model rockets illegal, but that slowly died down. I'm not certain what the model rocket altitude record is, but I'm pretty sure it's over 30,000 ft (those are very LARGE model rockets). So an illegal launch could certainly reach the plane at 5,000 ft.
Sometimes I think the world is going downhill. The rest of the time I'm a pessimist -- Me
|
|||
|
|
||||
|
RavensMagick |
#3 | |||
|
05/27/08 17:08:53 ICPIR Founder
|
Very cool info.
 I wasn't paying attention to the altitude. Now it makes sense.
|
|||
|
|
||||
|
SpiritedBirdWoman |
#4 | |||
|
Poltergeist
05/27/08 20:14:40 ICPIR Moderator |
I guess a model rocket could explain it. I don't know the first thing about them. I dunno, though. Lots of people are talking about strange things in
the skies deep in the heart of Texas here lately. Tonight the Preach and I watched two very strange objects over the planet Venus tonight. One was an
airplane and one was a helicopter. But they were both strange, trust me. We seriously saw seven very odd lights one night a few weeks back, though. They
were flying east to west from the direction of Midlothian. I'm sure they were small planes or helicopters, but it looked strange to see all seven in a
line.
|
|||
|
|
||||
|
Badger22 |
#5 | |||
|
Bump In The Night
05/28/08 10:31:38 False Positive |
Not necessarily saying it was a model rocket, just that the altitude certainly doesn't rule it out. FAA waivers for high power model rocket events are
routinely set to 30,000 feet. The national event, that will be held over Labor Day weekend in Nowhere, Kansas (actually Argonia, outside of Wichita - but it
might as well be nowhere!) will have a waiver for up to 50,000 feet. High power model rockets have been exceeding Mach 1 for a couple of decades now.
I've messed around with the low power model rockets for years, off and on. I've never gotten into the high power rockets, nowhere close to launch them and they tend to be a mite on the expensive side - several hundred dollars, and several dozen to a couple of hundred hours apiece to build. Their engines also are more expensive, up to a couple hundred dollars apiece. But I love watching them lift off, they're about as exciting as anything legal gets! A huge WHOOOSH!, lots of smoke and flame, it tears off into the sky, and the anxiety of whether they'll recover safely. It can be an addictive hobby, and the low power kits aren't that expensive and still give a pretty good adrenaline rush. Since they're all basically home-made, there's always a chance for something going catastrophically wrong, and those can be pretty exciting too!
Sometimes I think the world is going downhill. The rest of the time I'm a pessimist -- Me
|
|||
|
|
||||
|
MsTee108 |
#6 | |||
|
Poltergeist
05/29/08 19:21:00 Assistant Director |
Boys and their toys!
 |
|||
|
|
||||
|
ohioparanormal |
#7 | |||
|
Poltergeist
05/30/08 16:31:33 ICPIR |
That's kinda scary, I've made that trip from Houston to Cleveland many times. It is definately possible, but highly questionable. An airline pilot
would give quite of bit of detail about the object, apparent speed and direction, markings, etc. Nothing presented in this story. Not saying a coverup, but
I'm going to guess we won't be hearing from this pilot again on this sighting and the story will probably disappear.
|
|||
|
|
||||
|
ImNotBob |
#8 | |||
|
Bump In The Night
06/02/08 15:25:21 False Positive |
I imagine they wanted NOT to put too many details into the news story....in case it did have some relevance to a terroristic act. If someone had fired an RPG
at the plane they probably don't want to be giving ideas to idiots.
I imagine the story will fade away. ...we all had fun at Finnegan's wake! |
|||
|
|
||||
|
ohioparanormal |
#9 | |||
|
Poltergeist
06/22/08 10:01:25 ICPIR |
Highly doubt this was a terrorist act. If anything, it was a careless mistake or unintentional idiotic act of drunken stupor. The fact that pilots are always
gathering data about their environment and this pilot can not provide detail on what he saw? Not normal.
|
|||
|
|
||||
