Word: air
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Lott may have been playing to the millions of Americans who will soon participate in the second busiest travel week of the year. James McIntyre speaks only for himself. An air-accident investigator, McIntyre observed the hearings as an ex-pilot who flew TWA's New York-Paris route repeatedly with a nearly empty central tank. (Drained to reduce weight, it was filled only for longer flights.) Asked if he'd try it again after the week's disclosures, he replied carefully, "I wouldn't have a problem--in the wintertime...
...huge surprise of last week's testimony was the determination that when a mostly empty fuel tank gets as hot as TWA 800's was (about 145[degrees] at takeoff, because of the 400[degree] exhaust thrown off by air-conditioning units a foot away), the electrical charge necessary to detonate the resulting fumes is roughly a quarter of the smallest spark you feel when scuffing your foot on a rug. Said safety-board officer Peter Goelz: "We had no idea how little energy it took to cause an explosion." Hall remarked, "I for one don't see how every...
...deceptively soft drawl. "In this country, we look to the FAA for regulations on safety." Incensed that in the months since the crash, industry inspectors have checked the fuel-tank safety of only 52 of the 970 Boeing 747s in operation, Hall asked Boeing officials whether the 52 included Air Force One. Receiving the predictable affirmative answer, he harrumphed, "Every airline passenger has as much right to safety as the President...
...fairness, it must be noted that the various fuel-tank solutions are fraught with complications. Two seemingly simple answers--distance the air-conditioning units from the tank or fly with it full of fuel--would boost ticket prices. So would "inerting," injecting a nonexplosive gas to decrease the fuel's volatility, although the manufacturer of the $1.5 million inerting units used in some military planes claims that simpler civilian versions would cost just $80,000 per plane. Some inerting gases, however, are potentially lethal: they reduce one danger to passengers but increase another. Cautioned Boeing's chief fuel-system engineer...
...moving at last. In public, Gore said he had urged U.S. delegates "to show increased negotiating flexibility"--a signal that America was ready to cut some sort of deal. Just how far the Administration was willing to go, however, wasn't clear until the very last minute. Even as Air Force Two was landing in Kyoto, Gore was on the phone with White House officials trying to nail down what the strategy should be. They finally agreed that Gore would quietly give U.S. negotiators permission to move to a 2%-to-3% reduction from 1990 levels...