Farewell to the Titans (launch causes panic)

[DoYouEverWonder]

April 30, 2005

Some responded with awe.

But other residents of Tampa Bay had another reaction: horror.

From 130 miles away, the last Titan rocket launched at Cape Canaveral cut a blazing path through the Friday night sky.

Panicked callers notified area law enforcement offices and the St. Petersburg Times.

"They thought there was a plane on fire," said Hillsborough County Sheriff's Cpl. Patti Morris.

Others called authorities to report explosions.

http://www.sptimes.com/2005/04/30/State/Farewell_to_the_Titans.shtml


This story is a good example of why eye-witness accounts can be so unreliable. Now about those folks who saw a plane hit the Pentagon?

[demnan]

1. A plane did hit the Pentagon

It flew over Columbia Pike in Arlington, a very busy densely populated area. I know many people who saw a plane that day, vendors along Columbia Pike and in the buidling where I used to live on S. Courthouse.

[shadowknows69]

2. It does show however

that shrub's reign of fear is working perfectly.

[DoYouEverWonder]

3. Got pictures?

Got debris?

Where's the plane?

I am sure a plane or a missile that looked like a plane hit the Pentagon, but I still have not seen anything that proves it or that it was actually Flight 77.

[Botany]

4. Take off that tin foil hat ....

..... my brother saw the plane go overhead and so the smoke from the pentagon
shortly their after.

[DoYouEverWonder]

6. I am not say that people didn't see something

whether or not it was Flight 77 is the question.

[DoYouEverWonder]

8. Seems none of the experts

can provide me with the evidence that I seek?

[rzemanfl]

5. They need to do a better job of informing the public what is

going on in this area. Just a few weeks ago there was that double sonic boom. I know this was some secret spy satellite launch, but would it have compromised anything to say it was going up? What harm would it do to advise folks that planes over the Gulf were going to be breaking the sound barrier?

I remember in the mid-1960's lots of sonic booms from B-58 Hustler bombers flying training missions over the mid-West. Can't remember whether there were any advance warnings of those, does anyone here remember?

[DoYouEverWonder]

7. The people is this area should be use to this stuff by now

I live in No Central FL and the double sonic bomb of a returning shuttle is always a thrill. Once you've heard it the first time, there is no doubt to what it is when you hear it again. When the night sky lights up like noon to the SE we know it's something taking off from Kennedy.

[rzemanfl]

9. The sonic boom from the shuttle is expected. When it was

expected and didn't come I turned on the TV, knowing something was wrong. I have never seen an unannounced night launch from Cape Canaveral before from here along the coast in Pinellas County(have lived here nine years). Have seen several shuttle launches including at least one at night (although I understand night launches are a thing of the past now.) It may just be that people are edgy since 9/11 about unexpected loud noises and bright lights in the sky. There always seem to be lots of calls to the police, etc.