00-02-16          0700    Morning routine.  …..

            Meeting in the afternoon with the back office.  Karl put on a presentation of what he will be taking to New York next week.  Also had a discussion of the physical evidence.  I brought forward the idea of time line for the actual fire compared to the timeline from the FDR.  In view of the airflow, when would a fire have to start to present sufficient smoke to be smelled in the cockpit, and then be seen?  It then took almost ten minutes before anything was recorded on the FDR as going off line.  What during this time was burning?  Our experience from Seattle was that Kapton, once ignited, would burn rapidly and would take out any adjacent wires.  Since the wires are bundled, then large numbers of things should go down fast if it was a short in the wires.  It is food for thought and indeed did get them thinking.

            Message in from Dr. BROWN as follows (with my message edited out):

Afternoon Tom,

I've been away on business trips (2 in last 2 weeks) so my promised e-mail with a short work statement is not yet ready.  Sounds like you've moved ahead well with TSBC on the sea-water/Cu bead reference work anyway.  I'll review the plan and contact you later this week.  Thanks for the support; I also appreciate your comments concerning the possible interferences and will monitor the situation carefully.

best wishes

Jim

…..

(Clarification:)  The first paragraph with the comments about the burning wires is of interest considering my belief at the time that Lathem, Purchase, and London would actually consider the matter.  But none of them had fire investigative experience, and no knowledge of the aircraft systems and layout.  What's more, conducting a criminal investigation seems not to have been part of their mandate while in the hangar, even though they were policemen.  So it was wishful thinking on my part, and it would prove to have been wasted effort to even mention the matter to them.