KLM Boeing
747 with 1500 kg DU flight KL
4805
PanAm Boeing 747 with 1500 kg DU DU is completely burned in the high temperature fire? The DU remains are secretely taken away and buried together with the victims somewhere? |
DU - involved crashes in the world
The Tenerife Airplane Collision 27 March 1977
Visie
Foundation
Federal
Aviation Administration Circular 1984
Estimate
of radiation dose from a depleted uranium oxide particle
The Starmet Corp. website, however, states that "wide-body aircraft such
as the Boeing 747, Lockheed L-1011,
McDonnell Douglas DC-10 and Lockheed military C-130 all require the use
of counter-balance weights for proper flight
control."
DU weights have been installed on more than 1,600 jumbo jets operated by
all major world airlines, including: TWA,
United, Delta, Continental, Pan Am, Northwest, American, Air Canada, Lufthansa,
Air France, Alitalia, BOAC, British
Airways, Qantas, Air China, SAS and Swissair.
Since Boeing 747s were first deployed in 1968, 27 of the superjets have
crashed. Several of these accidents, may have
left crashsites contaminated with dangerous residues of incinerated DU.
The danger may have begun as early as 1974, when a Lufthansa jet crashed and burned at take-off in Nairobi, Kenya.
In 1977, two 747s burned in a horrendous landingstrip collision on the
Spanish island of Tenerife. The Pan Am airliner
blown out of the skies by a terrorist bomb over Scotland in 1988 may also
have rained DU on the residents of
Lockerbie.
Between 1991 and 1993, three 747s crashed after pylon-mounted engines fell
off. One was the jet that crashed into
Biljmer. The other incidents included a China Airlines jet that crashed
in Wanli, Taiwan and a Japan Airlines jet that
crashed in Anchorage.
On December 20, 1995, a Tower Air 747 crashed at JFK International. On
July 17, 1996 a TWA 747 crashed shortly
after take-off in New York. In 1997, a Korean Air Lines 747 crashed in
Guam.
Between 1980 and 1997, two DU-equipped Lockheed L-1011s have crashed -
in the Arabian Gulf and Malaga, Spain. In
the same period, seven DC-10s have gone down - in Spain, Libya, Portugal,
New York, Dallas, Boston and Iowa.
The airline industry, aware of the "stigma" of DU, has been quietly replacing
the aging radioactive counterweights with
equally dense but more expensive tungsten.
In light of the Journal's findings about the health hazards of on-board
DU, the Environmental Protection Agency would
be well advised to revisit all past 747 crashsites and test both the crashsite
environment and the local residents for
possible DU contamination.
Epidemiological studies of the neighborhoods surrounding crashsites would also be advisable. - GS