Did The Department of Homeland Security shoot at a U.S. Airways Jet?

A .40 cal bullet was found in the fuselage of a U.S. Airways jet in Charlotte N.C.
The pilot saw the 40-caliber bullet hole on a pre-flight inspection. The penetrated bullet the plane but did not make it all the way into the cabin, and appeared to have been fired from above the plane. www2.nbc17.com...
www.msnbc.msn.com...
Doesn’t the DHS carry .40 caliber pistols? www.gunreports.com...
I have to wonder if one of these WalMart rejects fired into this jet.

False flag? We'll know if they put mobile scanning units on all roads/highways near airports.

Originally posted by leemachino
False flag? We'll know if they put mobile scanning units on all roads/highways near airports.

I hadn't thought of the false flag angle.
It was more of limiting the amount of ammo that they would give Barney Fife

Are they the only people who have .40/10mm firearms?

I don't think so....lots of law enforcement agencies use the calibre, and it seems to be popular with some private owners too.

If the a/c was shot, and from above, IMO the most likely location would be at an airfield from a building overlooking the a/c, such as a terminal - otherwise it requiress someone to fly higher than the jet......which would be a difficult thing to do withotu being noticed - the only place a light a/c is going to do so is while the jet is taking off/landing, and if it is close enough to be in handgun range it's breaching minimum separation limits.

How about the possiblity of a round fired from some distance away falling to earth?

there's a lot of possibilities that need investigating - idiot law enforcement is certainly 1 of them.....but it seeems far to early to be condeming them without the actual evidence!

pretty weird. any chance the bullet was actually on it's way down from being shot up straight in the air, and just an accident?

reply to post by Aloysius the Gaul


I opened this thread so I could say the same thing. I too am thinking this was a bullet falling from above. It never penetrated the cabin so that makes the most sense. Good point!

reply to post by Violater1


This sounds like it was fired into the air and then penetrated the skin as it fell back to the ground. If it were fired directly into the jet, it would have easily penetrated, plus, how can anyone fire at a passenger jet from above?

ETA
Dam, everyone already said that. Good job guys!

Originally posted by Aloysius the Gaul
Are they the only people who have .40/10mm firearms?
I don't think so....lots of law enforcement agencies use the calibre, and it seems to be popular with some private owners too.
If the a/c was shot, and from above, IMO the most likely location would be at an airfield from a building overlooking the a/c, such as a terminal - otherwise it requiress someone to fly higher than the jet......which would be a difficult thing to do withotu being noticed - the only place a light a/c is going to do so is while the jet is taking off/landing, and if it is close enough to be in handgun range it's breaching minimum separation limits.
How about the possiblity of a round fired from some distance away falling to earth?
there's a lot of possibilities that need investigating - idiot law enforcement is certainly 1 of them.....but it seeems far to early to be condeming them without the actual evidence!

For one thing, your assuming that the FBI is telling the truth about what direction the bullet came from. After all, the FBI would NEVER lie to us common folk.
Secondly, didn't myth busters debunk the myth that a bullet fired straight up and then falling to the ground, could not kill a person, wound yes, but no kill. Puncturing the aluminum skin would be more difficult. In this case, it was intentional (IMHO).

OK I get it. So it could have been an accident.
But it is still disconcerting that Elmo has not only the power to strip search and feel you "junk" but can now fire his side arm up into the air.
I must be the only one that sees this as an abuse of power.

Originally posted by Violater1

Originally posted by Aloysius the Gaul
How about the possiblity of a round fired from some distance away falling to earth?
there's a lot of possibilities that need investigating - idiot law enforcement is certainly 1 of them.....but it seeems far to early to be condeming them without the actual evidence!

Secondly, didn't myth busters debunk the myth that a bullet fired straight up and then falling to the ground, could not kill a person, wound yes, but no kill. Puncturing the aluminum skin would be more difficult. In this case, it was intentional (IMHO).

I wasn't thinking of anything being fired straight up - I was thinking of it being fired at an angle into the air - 20 deg, 30 deg, 45 deg, from some distance away from the airfield, and fallign to earth while it stil has a considerable "forward" velocity.

Aircraft skin is not thick - less than .1" probably (it could be as thin as 0.050" when I was still working as a structural mechanic a few years ago...), and is aluminium which is pretty soft - so I have no problem with the idea that skin could be penetrated by a shot from long range.

I wonder if they found the bullet - 'cos if there's no exit hole then it's still rattling around in there.

Originally posted by Aloysius the Gaul

Originally posted by Violater1

Originally posted by Aloysius the Gaul
How about the possiblity of a round fired from some distance away falling to earth?
there's a lot of possibilities that need investigating - idiot law enforcement is certainly 1 of them.....but it seeems far to early to be condeming them without the actual evidence!

Secondly, didn't myth busters debunk the myth that a bullet fired straight up and then falling to the ground, could not kill a person, wound yes, but no kill. Puncturing the aluminum skin would be more difficult. In this case, it was intentional (IMHO).

I wasn't thinking of anything being fired straight up - I was thinking of it being fired at an angle into the air - 20 deg, 30 deg, 45 deg, from some distance away from the airfield, and fallign to earth while it stil has a considerable "forward" velocity.
Aircraft skin is not thick - less than .1" probably (it could be as thin as 0.050" when I was still working as a structural mechanic a few years ago...), and is aluminium which is pretty soft - so I have no problem with the idea that skin could be penetrated by a shot from long range.
I wonder if they found the bullet - 'cos if there's no exit hole then it's still rattling around in there.

Yes they found the bullet according to the one news article. That is, if you can trust the source.

Originally posted by Aloysius the Gaul

Originally posted by Violater1

Originally posted by Aloysius the Gaul
How about the possiblity of a round fired from some distance away falling to earth?
there's a lot of possibilities that need investigating - idiot law enforcement is certainly 1 of them.....but it seeems far to early to be condeming them without the actual evidence!

Secondly, didn't myth busters debunk the myth that a bullet fired straight up and then falling to the ground, could not kill a person, wound yes, but no kill. Puncturing the aluminum skin would be more difficult. In this case, it was intentional (IMHO).

I wasn't thinking of anything being fired straight up - I was thinking of it being fired at an angle into the air - 20 deg, 30 deg, 45 deg, from some distance away from the airfield, and fallign to earth while it stil has a considerable "forward" velocity.
Aircraft skin is not thick - less than .1" probably (it could be as thin as 0.050" when I was still working as a structural mechanic a few years ago...), and is aluminium which is pretty soft - so I have no problem with the idea that skin could be penetrated by a shot from long range.
I wonder if they found the bullet - 'cos if there's no exit hole then it's still rattling around in there.

According to the FAA,
www.tc.faa.gov...
Skin obtained from a sidewall of a B-747, 1.75 mm thick, white epoxy coating on
exterior surfaces, green epoxy coating on interior surfaces.
More info can be found here.
ze-engineer.blogspot.com...
What type of aircraft did you work on? They must have been UltraLight.

Originally posted by Violater1

Originally posted by Aloysius the Gaul
Aircraft skin is not thick - less than .1" probably (it could be as thin as 0.050" when I was still working as a structural mechanic a few years ago...), and is aluminium which is pretty soft - so I have no problem with the idea that skin could be penetrated by a shot from long range.
I wonder if they found the bullet - 'cos if there's no exit hole then it's still rattling around in there.

According to the FAA,
www.tc.faa.gov...
Skin obtained from a sidewall of a B-747, 1.75 mm thick, white epoxy coating on
exterior surfaces, green epoxy coating on interior surfaces.

1.75mm = 0.069" - as I said it can be as thin as 0.050", and unlikely to be any thicker than 0.1" - 0.069" fits that pretty well last I recall

More info can be found here.
ze-engineer.blogspot.com...
What type of aircraft did you work on? They must have been UltraLight.

B737's - just like the one in question - which is not a 747......

As per this article , the skin on a 737-300 is actually only 0.32" thick in many places, with another 0.032" bonded to it in "selected areas" - so I was over-estimating!!

The "selected areas" are a web on the inside that elave quite large areas only 0.32" thick - the extra thickness is supposed to limit cracking - if a crack starts in a thin area, then it will progress only as far as thr bonded doubler, where the extra thickness will slow its progress.

The photos show the doubler but it's not clear if you are not familiar with the concept, so I've marked the edges of the doubler in red in this - the edges are faintly visible "inside" the rectangle formed by the rounded corners.

It was probably some redneck with a .40, which are dime a dozen....

"Hey yall check this out, Im una shoot down that thar plane with nutin but this here pistol".........Yeeeee Hawww

Moonshine and guns don't mix.

Originally posted by downtown436
It was probably some redneck with a .40, which are dime a dozen....

"Hey yall check this out, Im una shoot down that thar plane with nutin but this here pistol".........Yeeeee Hawww

Moonshine and guns don't mix.

Isn't that a prerequisite to be in the TSA/DHS?

Originally posted by Violater1

For one thing, your assuming that the FBI is telling the truth about what direction the bullet came from. After all, the FBI would NEVER lie to us common folk.
Secondly, didn't myth busters debunk the myth that a bullet fired straight up and then falling to the ground, could not kill a person, wound yes, but no kill. Puncturing the aluminum skin would be more difficult. In this case, it was intentional (IMHO).

While I agree that the FBI will lie whenever it suits them, I'm having trouble figuring out how saying the shot was fired from above wouldn't just make life more complicated for them. Everybody would believe it was an errant round fired from below, so why include this odd detail? Why, in fact, not lie? Something about this is very strange to me. But I also can't work out how you'd shoot a jet from above.

reply to post by downtown436


I've always thought alcohol+firearms as evolutionary pressure.....

.40 cal is the second most popular handgun round out there. What exactly makes you immediately just to DHS?

Without evidence I dont see ANY correlation.

Originally posted by downtown436
Moonshine and guns don't mix.

Well, as far as I am concerned, moonshine and guns mix nicely....just so long as the gun looks like this:

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/7456dab8e710.jpg[/atsimg]

In the Flight Safety foundation newsletter today they say the hole is just above a passenger window, and no-one heard a shot.

It's sounding more and more to me like somone fooling around with a gun off-airport, and a shot accidentally struck the a/c.