by Jack Cashill

© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com
December 9, 2005

The rumor mill started humming Monday morning, November 28, after ABC Radio aired the following report:

F-B-I AND HOMELAND SECURITY AGENTS SPENT PART OF THE WEEKEND INVESTIGATING THE REPORT OF A POSSIBLE MISSILE FIRED AT A PLANE LEAVING LOS ANGELES INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT. ABC'S ALEX STONE HAS THE DETAILS.

VERBATIM: THE PILOTS RADIOED AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLERS SAYING WHAT APPEARED TO BE A ROCKET HAD BEEN FIRED AT THE AIRCRAFT AND MISSED AS AMERICAN AIRLINES FLIGHT 621 WAS CLIMBING OVER THE WATER. IT HAD JUST TAKEN OFF FROM L-A-X. THE PLANE WAS ENROUTE TO CHICAGO... WHEN IT LANDED, F-B-I AGENTS SPOKE WITH THE PILOTS. SOURCES SAY THOSE AGENTS NOW BELIEVE IT WAS A FLARE OR A BOTTLE ROCKET THAT PASSED BY AND THEY DON'T THINK IT WAS ANY THREAT TO THE AIRCRAFT.

This report did not run for long, possibly no more than once or twice. Still, thousands of people heard it, and many of those were understandably suspicious when no other major media outlet picked up the story.

Not satisfied with rumors, retired United Airline pilot, Ray Lahr, and aviation audio expert, Glen Schulze, decided to investigate. The pair have been cooperating in Lahr’s ongoing FOIA suit in Federal Court against the CIA and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) regarding TWA Flight 800. What they have found about the LAX flight is inconclusive but intriguing and deserves serious inquiry.

For starters, the flight was AA 612 and not AA 621 as reported. Lahr and Schulze checked its progress using the LAX airport monitor,

www4.passur.com/lax.html . Those interested in doing the same can enter November 26, 12:49, 20-mile range, and then click on “start.”

You will see every airplane aloft in the Los Angeles area on the map. In about a half minute, “AAL612” appears as a green aircraft crossing the shoreline. If you click on the aircraft, it will turn red, and the flight data will appear in a box to the right. As the aircraft turns south, now at approximately 6000 feet and off the coast of Redondo Beach, a new target will appear.

“The unidentified target's altitude does some funny

things,” observes Glenn Schulze, “from a constant 1500 ft to suddenly showing 7500 ft where it remains, which is the same altitude as AA FL 612 at this point in AA FL 612's climb-out.”

According to Lahr, AA 612 seems “to split and become TWO!!! It remains TWO for a while, both targets moving together, then they separate, the mirror target fades, and AA 612 (thank god) is alone again, heading slightly south east.”

The unidentified target appears for 12 to 13 sweeps of the FCC LAX TRACON radar rotating at a 4.7-second sweep rate. “This target can not be easily explained away as a RADAR ghost or artifact or swamp gas,” adds Schulze, “as it exists and tracks over the ground for almost 50 seconds as it travels along with AA FL 612. Dynamite evidence!”

What makes the evidence particularly compelling is that the pilots apparently saw what the radar was reporting. Those who are interested in the pilot’s commentary can refer to the following site: http://www.liveatc.net/archive.php?date=20051126

Here, log on to the Ontario, California Air Traffic Control and select 15:30 to 16:00 PM. This is Eastern Standard Time, which accounts for the apparent discrepancy of three hours. The relevant conversation is at the very end of this segment at roughly 12:59 PST. This conversation takes place several minutes after the incident and alludes to an earlier conversation.

Whatever the pilot saw prompted enough concern for LAX officials to contact the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. It also prompted a very serious report on ABC radio.

The most comprehensive reporting on the subject appeared December 3 in an LAX area newspaper called The South Bay Daily Breeze. The headline says it all, “Smoke Trail Wasn't Threat to Plane, Say Investigators.”

The article describes what the pilot saw as an “an unusual vapor trail,” one that was “at least a mile below the airplane.” FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller assured the readers that this presumed trail “absolutely posed no threat.” This claim would be more reassuring had the FBI not also convinced the reporter that “whatever left the vapor trail did not appear on radar, and the pilot never reported seeing any kind of projectile.”

The existing evidence would seem to refute all of those claims. The pilots saw not a vapor trail, but a “flare or a rocket.” They saw it when the plane was no higher than 6,000 feet. Anything “at least a mile below them” would likely be swimming. The radar did pick something up, and the pilots considered the event sufficiently alarming to report it.

A veteran Airline Pilots Association safety investigator, Lahr was once much more likely to accept aviation authorities at their word. Having spent the last several years fighting them for information in the Federal Courts, he has grown increasingly skeptical.

The FBI may have its reason for quieting fears, Lahr understands, but as the distorted investigation of TWA Flight 800 has shown, a pacified population is a vulnerable one.