Fowler Associates Labs

Response to TWA Articles

by

T. V. Prevenslik
11 F, Greenburg Court, Discovery Bay, Hong Kong

I have read with interest Jack Cashell's version of the TWA 800 accident published in the ESD Journal. Given the facts presented by Cashell it is reasonable to conclude that a missile and not static electricity was the cause of TWA 800 accident. However, this does not rule out the possibility that static electricity may be the cause of the next air disaster.

In the latter regard, please find the attached a paper entitled:

"Flow electrification and cavity QED" revised (Word 97 format)

"Flow electrification and cavity QED" revised (pdf format)

"Flow electrification and cavity QED" revised (ppt presentation)

This paper proposes that the source of flow electrification is the air commonly dissolved, but not usually removed in liquid petroleum pumping systems. The entrained air nucleates bubbles as the flow pressure drops below the pressure at which the air was dissolved. Electrification occurs by the cavity QED induced photolectric effect that forms the basis for the papers that I have submitted to the ESD Journal.

I did not write my paper to explain the TWA800 accident. But I understand the NTSB proposal to avoid static electricity problems in aircraft by purging the fuel lines with high quality fuel has been rejected by the airline companies as too expensive. Instead, I would like to propose to reduce the hazard of static electricity in aircraft fuel systems it may be far less costly to add defoaming agents to the fuel to reduce the level of entrained air. Tests would have to be conducted to verify the validity of this proposal - perhaps funded by the NTSB.

I submit this proposal to the NTSB by this article. It is hoped that others may also perform tests on this important issue.