Thinking Sideways: Argo 16

you can get off your tickets, which is pretty awesome. Um. It's gonna be June nine through in Daniapolis at the JW. Marriott. So join us crime Con dot com and sideways twenty is that code for you to get off? And thanks? Thinking Sideways I don't know still is and things to be simply don't know the answa to Well, Hi there and welcome to another episode of Thinking Sideways. Um, I'm your host, Joe, joined this week as always by Devon and Steve, and of course, as usual, we're going to

talk about another really awesome mystery. Yeah yeah, this is I sort of poaching on Steve's territory. Here, we're gonna talk about a crashed airplane. That's usually that's usually what Steve does our airplane mysteries. But you take boats, I take airplanes. You do this all right? The field is open. Next week sinking a ship? Yeah, I think he's going to cover a submarine mystery. You're going to think a ship. Okay, I didn't say that. Okay, yeah, that is our mystery.

What sect that aircraft carry? Your next week? Well, okay, back to our mystery here. Our plane that crashed was a World War two vintage C forty seven Dakota airplane. Dakota was actually known as also the Skytrain, which is an awesome name. Skytrain, Skytrain, sky Tree Okay, sorry, sorry

lost it? Where was I? Okay? So, but then the U. S. Government gave about two thousands of these things to the to the British and also the Commonwealth countries during World War Two on the Least program, and for some reason, those planes, which as far as I know, we're the same, got renamed the Dakota, which is nothing against Dakota. That's a cool name too, but not quite as awesome as skytrain. You did you see how they think that came about. Yeah,

it was. It was actually an acronym country condensation of some other words. Yeah. Yeah, so, but anyway, we don't care. It's a Dakota. Well that's good enough. Our plane crashed not too long after takeoff. I'm thinking a couple of minutes, maybe a little more, in November nineteen seventy three. And it was not just any old plane. It was a spy plane. That's why you're doing this, because it's got spy in it. Oh no, wait a second, I'm sorry. I just read there it's a spy plants okay, and

and okay, spy plane. Ah. And then it was code named ARGO sixteen, which I think is kind of a cool name. I like the Argo sixteen. But that's that really was his code name. It's definitely not that Ben Affleck movie. No, it's not Argo. Different thing, entirely different part of the world. Even Yeah, it's not that far away from Iran. Yeah, okay, but like I said, it was a spy plane. It was operated by the Italian s i D, which is short for Military Intelligence and

Security Service in English and something else. They use different words in Italian for some reason. Yeah, I don't get that but alright, but also by the CIA. Apparently it's some sort of joint product project. Apparently it also had a multitude of various black out missions, but its primary purpose was essentially to be a big flying radar detector, at least ostensibly if I can steal the word from you, Yeah, I mean, as long as you're using it correctly exactly.

Uh So, it's mission on November twenty three, nineteen seventy three was to fly up and down the coast of Yugoslavia over the Adriatic Sea, monitoring radar emissions. And I'll leave it. I'm sure we have at least one spook listening to to us. He's gonna email and correct me on this. But essentially, what these planes do is they want to know about changes in radar behavior. So if there's a flurry of activity, well maybe that means something

we can try to like suss that out. Or maybe they're building new radar installations, Well maybe that means something too. Maybe they're building an airbase somewhere and god knows what, and best of all, a whole new type of radar. Uh if they detect one of those, like let's say they installed a new Soviet air defense system for example, that's gonna have a radar that's gonna be attached to it.

NATO is probably gonna want to know about that, right, Yeah, And of course they're gonna want to test the radar, and really they have to. And of course you want to have an asset somewhere, whether it's a plane, submarines, something, And that's one of the things submarines don't do. A lot of people don't realize that is they just hang out on detected off enemy shores and just sniff radars and stuff like that. Just chill underwater, I just search, chill, I keep an eye on things and just see what,

you know, what radars they're lighting up and whatnot. But according to what I've heard, Argo sixteen was a little bit more than the radar detector. Uh, it did some other special ops missions. And it makes a little bit of sense because you can't do the same thing every day with a spy plane, because then the Yugoslavians get used to the idea that Argo sixteen is going to be hanging out off its shores between the hours of

two and five pm every day. Yeah, and so well, they're just not gonna send you anything useful if you do that, So you gotta mix it up a little bit, or they're gonna spoof you even worse. They can do that too. Yeah, So so they mix it up a little bit for Urgo sixteen apparently, And so it was sent out out missions to transport armaments, ferried special ops guys around Italy, and it gave the occasional PFLP terrorist

a ride to Libya. But more on that later. I'm gonna ask what is PFLP And actually, uh, PFLP has prop Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestines PLO. Uh. They sort of became affiliated with the pl later. It's a complicated Okay, Yeah, that whole area is really complicated, And I know I'm probably gonna pepper you with a whole bunch of questions. Yeah, I didn't even know if the p f LP is still around. Actually, Devin, what's question?

Are they actual terrorists like operating outside of the log suicide? Yah? The PFLP was, Are they like warfare? They were more more terrorists. They were they were sort of oriented towards hijacking airplanes. I would say that compared to what we call terrorists today, they were they were pretty civilized, but still created terror to inflict gentleman, Yeah, to achieve a goal. They I just wanted to make sure that we weren't.

But like, for example, they hijacked four planes in September nine seventy, which I might mentioned a little bit later on, the hijacked from Europe, took him to Jordan and parked him in this this desert airfield called Dawson Field, where they let most of them go, left about sixty of them hostage for a long time, and uh and then eventually evacuated them, blew the planes up. And this was

a huge, huge deal. I mean, this was considered you know, ultra horrible terrorism, but all the hostages eventually eventually were released unharmed, and so by the standards of today, well that was pretty damn civilized. Room. Yeah, I mean, yeah, nobody got killed. I just wanted to make sure that we weren't just calling you know, we were that's fine. Well they were certainly called terrorists at the time, but you know, but they almost make me nostalgic for the

old days of terrorism, to be honest with you. Okay, yeah, okay, Well anyway, so our back to Urgust sixteen, it was based in Italy. I have a question, Joe, Yeah, why is the script? Have a question for me to ask? What is Italy? Yeah, there you go. It's a place where they keep the Italians, some of us have escaped. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Uh so Italy is a country on the south side of Europe. It smells like a boot like I'm sorry, I misread the script. I'm sorry. Okay, So it's shaped

like a boot. Okay, So that's Italy. Um. And of course it is right across the Adriatic Sea from Yugoslavia. And oh, by the way, this is our mystery taliant for this week. The Adriatic Sea has also been proposed as one of the many, many possible sites for the lost city of Atlantis. And I'm not lying. So somebody has seriously proposed the Adriatic Sea. The Atlantis is down there somewhere. Um. And of course, along with like twenty four thousand other possible sites, there's a lot of them

out there. Uh. And And of course OURGO sixteen wasn't just anywhere in Italy. It was stationed in Venice. Yeah, which I don't know you've been in Venice, I have Yeah, what do you think it was nice. It's smell kind of like a boot, kind of like a boot. Really okay, giant rats? How big are we talking about? German shepherds? Yeah? Really wow? Yeah, remember that really awesome. But yeah, I hear Venice. It's pretty you know, you know you never see those postcards, do you know? I know I've I've

seen pictures. It looks pretty free on awesome' I gotta go there someday soon. But anyway, for those of you haven't heard of Venice, it is the city that floats, and actually it doesn't quite float it, but it's kind of actually yeah, yeah, the city that almost floats. And believe it or not, Venice has an airport, which I, believe it or not, is not actually in the floaty part of the city. It's about three miles north on dry land. Can we use that term regularly from here

on it? Yeah? Yeah, I like that. Yeah, And so the actual city of Venice is, of course much more than just a little floaty part. It's a bunch of most of us on land dry land. At seven thirty am November twenty three, Argo sixteen took off from Venice Airport with a crew of four and the plane was a lot for around two minutes heading west, and I'm assuming that because the standard climb rate for the d C three, as far as I can find out, it's

about tweet a minute. It sounds about it, right, Yeah, And so the plane was reported to have been an outstreade of about feet when something went wrong, So that gives them a little over two minutes in the air. Sorry, you may have said this, but I may have missed it. The d C threees, Yeah, is what Argo sixteen is? Yeah, I said, I said it was a Sea forty seven. So let's clear that up. The the d C three was originally the plane the plane that the Sea forty

seven was based on. The Sea forty seven is a military version of the d C three, and there's variants that have passenger door. There's variances have a rear door, there's variances that have the toe hooks on the rear to pull gliders. There was a whole slew of versions. Sorry, I just charged you use the term for a plane that I hadn't heard yet. Yeah. So the d C three Sea forty seven kind of the same thing, and it was a really reliable plane and they made tons

of them. My understanding, about sixteen thousand overall were built. Yeah, a lot of them were, Yeah, and about ten thousands or so those were for the military as a sea forty seven and of course Urgo sixteen about World War two vintage, which would make it about what three decades old around the time of cars, roughly, but assuming it was well maintained, it should have been totally reliable in nineteen seventy three. Planes aren't quite like cars. As long

as they're maintained, they can last a long long time. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you know, as long as the engines are maintained and it doesn't suffer any major mechanical malfunctions that they're typically serviceable. Well, yeah, for a long time. Argo sixteen took off reaching outde like I said, of about feet, something went wrong which caused it to suddenly lose altitude really quickly, and it crashed in an industrial park about six miles west of the airport. Yeah. And they do

have industrial parks in Venice apparently, Yeah, everybody does. You don't seeah, you don't see those in the movies. Those are also not on the postcards. They're not on the floaty parts, so they don't count as much exactly. So there's our mystery. What caused Argo sixteen to augur in? Yeah, well that's a that's a quick little mystery. So this is gonna be short, short episode. I totally short. In fact, it's we're almost and then uh yeah, five more pages

of script. Three more. Yeah, we're fun alright. So theories, uh, and of course, get you guys, feel free to chip in with any theories that you might have. These are just a few of the ones that are out there. I've got the book. We're going to sell that thing. I swear to God, we'll ation it off somewhere. It's taken three and a half, almost four years, and I'm about three quarters of the way through. We get a while ago. Well yeah, just people just scribble more in it. Yeah,

just I'll just write stuff and then sharpe it out. Yeah, and I'll leave it with me and I will I will scribble all kinds of stuff in it. So yeah, by the time you get here next week, it'll be mostly full. So first, what's our first first theory is pilot error, which was the conclusion of the original inquiry. They of course, they had an inquiry, of course, and had uh, the inquiry, of course, has been reopened more

than once. This has actually been bad at a about and talked about an Italian politics for quite a long time now. The crash of our six. Yeah, oh yeah, it's it's a it's a big national thing. It's yeah, it's a big controversy there. Yeah, but the original inquiry concluded pilot error. And this is kind of a tough one because frankly, almost all the documents for this mystery are in Italian and Google translate. While it's not bad, it's not exactly ideal. The other problem with all the

documents is that they have slowly disappeared over time. That is one of the biggest biggest complaints I have seen in the reading. When you know, when you go through, it's like there's all these officials who want to investigate and are furious because stuff is just literally missing. Uh what's going on with that? Huh? Yeah? Makes you well, that's why everybody, see, Yeah, that's that's why this is

such a juicy little mystery. Yeah, we should have nicknamed this the C and C Music Factory apparently, because yeah, everybody's been guilty, so there must be a guilty secret. I'm a little skeptical of the pilot air theory, although I I could see, I could sort of see some ways that it could happen. Maybe. And by the way, I forgot to mention our pilot's name. He goes Anano Boreo, and I hope I'm not mispronouncing that. Devin your Italian. You pronounce it okay, sounds good. Uh. He was a

very experienced pilot. The plane did not crash on takeoff, Okay. So that's where that's where pilot air can really come in. It's like, you screw up, I forgot to pull up quick enough or whatever. You overrun the you know, I mean things like that. He didn't do that. He was well off and supposedly kind of safely up in the air. Yeah, I mean yeah, I mean so, I'm not sure what he could have done, but there are a few possible ways that let's suppose that the engines quit total loss

of power. And let's suppose he turned the plane around and he headed back to the airport, which is what I would do, and and he was hoping to be able to glide back and get landed, and posing he maybe chose the wrong glide pass. Something a bit too steep, then you can see where it might have fallen a little bit short of the objective and crashed short of the airport. So I want to ask a question on that. Yeah, I haven't been able to determine this, and I don't

know if you have. I mean, I read all this stuff about the fact that the plane crashed, it skipped off a building and then it ran into the front of another building as when it crashed and caught on fire, obviously enough. But what I could never tell is which direction was it headed when it made that impact. That should have been heading northish to for for its intended route. So but if it was, if it crashed and was heading south, that would you know make sense based on

what you're saying. Yeah, I do not, to be honest, I'd really like to know that too. Again, the stuff that's out there, at least the stuff that I can read or get translated by Google, doesn't really tell you. A lot says basically went up, something happened, they plummeted to the ground and crashed, and then they cover nothing but the political are in fighting that happens after that.

That's what I came across. Yeah, I could, I could totally be something like, well, they flew up, they past, they flew past the industrial park by always, and then turned around and came back, because that's actually the kind of the direction they needed to go for their mission, which was over the Adriatic Sea. It's you know, it's off to the east, so I can see what they want west, turned around, coming back, something happens and then bang, yeah, but we don't so we don't know what direction it

was traveling when it impacted the ground. Now, ok, we don't know that. Okay, it's one of those things. There's a lot, a lot of the details on this stuff are kind of skimpy, unfortunately, because the documents keep disappearing. Uh huh, that's frustrating. Uh. But as far as him choosing the wrong lightpath and missing his objective, that seems

like kind of a bonehead of mistake. If he was that experienced of a pilot, well, and I'm you know, I could actually see though, I could see a guy being very confident and he's going to get these engines restarted. So he spends let's say thirty or forty seconds longer than he should trying to get the engines. What you were saying in this in this supposed scenario, died, he's trying to get him restarted, and by spending too long on that, he loses that window of opportunity to get

himself spun about and on a good path heading back. Yeah. Or you know, it could be too that he actually was a really selfless guy and that he chose to crash into an industrial park because it's less populated than a residential area. So maybe you crashed it there on purpose. Yeah, maybe we realized, Yeah, did you look at the aerials of that place. Yeah, I mean, it's not not densely populated, and this is like you know, the venice we know,

which is pretty densit, right, So I questioned, that's all. Yeah, Well, let's let's get back from that. Let's let's look at another couple of options for pilot air. Another one would be a stall with a tail spin. So you guys on the tail spin is right, yeah yeah, spinning yeah yeah, horizontal to the ground by the tail yeah like yeah, um, and actually usually kind of vertical of the ground, kind of like headed towards the ground and spinning around yeah,

like you say. And then by the tail yeah, cork screwing what kind of cork screwing down? Yeah, and uh, this is something I learned how to do in flight simulator. Actually, you go up until you go up till your stall, and then put the rudder on one way or the other and then you'll just sort of go over to one side and start spinning. And it's pretty easy to handle them flight simulators. Yeah, you are never piloting us anywhere. No, No,

I probably not a good idea. But the airplane was, as far as I know, still gaining altitude, so I could see where you know, when you're getting altitude, you're gonna be going slower than just flying level and straight right. Maybe possible the pilot and copilot didn't realize that they were going slower kind of than then they were heading towards the stall. Maybe that maybe their stall indicator was broken,

which is not unheard of. Uh, and supposing to say the pilot was putting the plane into a turn and then just write about them the plane stalls while he winds up a tailspin, which are as I said, generally recoverable as long as you have enough altitude to work with the ground. Yeah. Yeah, because stunt flyers do them. All the time, And of course I did in flight simulator and it works out fine for me, but I

usually like a big margin, even in flight simulator. But from what I read on the interwebs, and and yes, of course there are there's at least one web forum to vote it to nothing other than flying the d C three of course, of course, and lots of good information out there. But according to these guys at d C three, slash C forty seven doesn't actually recover so well from tailspins. It's an oddly shaped plane. Yeah, in terms of its proportions, just like in the script, he says,

and they're not recommended. Yeah, yeah, yeah they are. Yeah. I mean this this plane is it is one third wider on its wings than it is long, because it's sixty three ft long, and it's ninety five ft across from wing tip to wing tip. For folks on the other side, that's nineteen meters by twenty nine meters. So it's I can see how that would be rather ungainly and difficult to pull out of a spin. Yeah, definitely, and it's of course, but but of course those big

old wings could generate a lot of lips. That's what they're for Yeah, and that's why the d C three was so great. It could it could it could land in short little spaces and stuff like that, and it's really good for all that kind of stuff, you know, a very versatile plane. There's still some around actually even today flying. There are a few left. Yeah. Actually, we used to have one right here in Portland at arms.

Did you ever see that thing? No? I didn't. Yeah, years ago with the old arms up by the Zoo, they had a d C three on public display there for many many years. I remember that. You remember that one? Yeah? Yeah, And unfortunately when they moved down to the river they got rid of it, which kind of Actually, I'm still kind of angry about that. That was really cool. And I'm sure they sold it to somebody who's going to restore it if they haven't already. Is it not at

the Aviation and Space Museum? I don't know. Maybe I would think that's where they'd send it. Yeah, yeah, I mean hopefully they didn't send, like to sell it to a scrap yard. If you would think not, let's pray that they didn't do that. Well anyway, where were we? Oh yeah, Tailspan's uh, I don't know. I think the pilots would have had to have been really kind of asleep at the switch for this to happen. Although it was early, maybe they hadn't had their coffee, but that

I mentioned they took off a seven thirty in the morning. Yes, maybe they just hadn't had enough coffee. And maybe they but I it just seems like that'd be such a bonehead of mistaked to that pretty big stretch. Yeah, I kind of is. Uh. And there's one more possibility into the pilot air theory, which is at the Sea forty seven slash DC three, we had a little design flawed its engines. I don't know if you guys researched this at all, but uh, And I'll talk about that in

a minute. So if the Captain Barreo was but a yeah, but I was unaware of this problem, or for some reason he shows to ignore it, then I suppose that could have caused a little bit of an existential crisis on the plane. Um. And so I'll explain what the

problem is in a second air. Okay, So that would be a combination kind of mechanical malfunction plus a little bit of error on the part of our pilot and have we said, by the way, that the pilot air is the most popular theory according to the original investigations, not the most popular theory, but the original investigation. That's what. According to the original investigation, it was the most popular.

It was the most popular theory, as in, that's what everybody believed, including the public and everybody in the beginning. That's what the investigators said. Yes, yeah, they were the ones who were saying, yeah, it was totally pilot air. I know, the investigating more it's totally pilot air. Well, that doesn't mean it was the most popular theory. It just means that it was the one that the government opinion, which is always the most popular opinion, is always the

most popular. So, yeah, what's our next theory. Okay, let's talk about another theory. I could see the nineteen seventies three version of the internet. Government says pilot area. Heck, yeah, I like that a lot. Well, let's let's start a letter writing campaign. It was a different Internet back in those days. Yeah, that totally was Well, it's our next series, mechanical malfunction. Um. So, as I just mentioned, there was a little bit of an issue with those engines. Of course,

this is a prop plane. It's not a jet prop plane. Got piston engines, and you all, I'm sure know how piston engines work. If you, if not paused and go out and do a little work on the internet. Seat, Yeah. The manufacturer McDonald Douglas recommends running these engines full out

as much as possible. And the reason for that is apparently, with this particular engine, if you're running it less than full RPMs for a long periods of time, Uh, then deposits will form at the head of the cylinder, at the top of the piston stroke from unburned fuel residue, and you'll wind up with a nice hard ring at the top of your cylinder on the inside. Got that it makes me? Yeah, I I understand, Yeah, I get

the engine. So yeah, And so apparently if you if you run the engines full out all the time and then that that rain does not appear. But if you're if you're running your engine at lower i p ms, and you'll you'll wind up developing that ring probably And you know the thing about not running it at full erpms at least. This is my understanding based on a guy a new years ago who was a pilot as he said, you you typically don't want to be running

your airplanes engines at high RPMs all the time. You want to be at just the low enough rpm that you're you've got speed and you you keep lift, but you're not maxing it out, so you're trying to keep it at a lower rpm. Does that make sense. It's kind of like your car. I can drive it three thousand r p ms in second gear or two thousand RPMs in third gear, and I'm going to get better mileage and especially the engine. Yeah, And it's the same thing. So I can understand a pilot who got the same

kind of advice this guy gave me. Let's run at the lower RPMs all the time. You're gonna get better field economy and stuff like that. Sure, and so the theory goes that the ring somehow interferes with the engine. Yeah this ring, Yeah, this's this ring of this hard ring of residue. Essentially, what happens is that if you've been running your engine at less than full RPMs regularly a lot, then you get and you get that ring. And then if suddenly, for some reason, with this particular engine,

if you've suddenly got it up to full RPMs. What happens is your piston which and you know what a piston ring is, right, not the same as a ring on the inside of the cylinder. The piston with the piston rings actually can hit that hard ring on the inside of the cylinder and break and from the problem. That's a big problem. It's kind in the engine world. That's kind of catastrophic actually, because those rings keep the oil that's in the engine from going into the fuel

system and vice versa. And if they start to mix, really bad things happen. Right, And on top of that, just having these things break into pieces and and being stuck between the pillar of the piston and the cylinder wall is also getting ground in and so yeah, they're gonna they're gonna be the hell out everything, destroy it quite quickly. Yeah, the engines tend to go. It's several thousand revolutions per minute, that's what RPMs are. You can

just see how quickly that's just going to destroy something. Yeah, you wind up your hole, engine can just fly to pieces. I'll get an email from at least one mechanic about that. I'm sure always change your oil. Yeah, yeah, that actually good advice. Uh, and rotate your tires also. Yeah, But anyway, let's imagine that you're flying our Go six one find

November morning. Suddenly your left engine gives out. And that's not a huge problem because all you gotta do is crank up the right engine to make up for some of that powerless. But under certain circumstances, of course, this can cause our right engine to fail too, and that

that's when things get a little serious. That's what I'm talking about pilot Air, because Carta Breo should have been aware of this issue with these engines theoretically, theoretically should have been And you know, again, this is all supposition on my part two, because we don't know how he

ran his plane. He panted this thing all the time, an rather he might have run it full out seven I don't know, But just supposing and this guy went on long flights over the Adriatic kind of radar sniffing missions, I would not be surprised if he didn't run it full out all the time, because field economy and all that stuff. But I guess if that's if that's what happened, I suppose you could argue that pilot Air did contribute to that crash. So here's another question for you, is

that the sort of are those rings? Could they form if you were just sitting on the ground with your props running. It takes a while for it takes a while for the for deposits like that to accumulate, talking like days, weeks, hours, lots and hundreds of hours of operations. Yeah, it takes a long time. It's not gonna happen just that morning. It's the same thing. Have you seen those hideous commercials from like Chevron where they showed the super

crud engine. Yeah, that means that's what I'm time to happen, right of course. I mean it's the same thing in this scenario. Okay, I just wanted to make sure that that was happening, So Joe, I have I wanted to see what the service record of this kind of plane was. Do you know how often these freaking things went down?

You know? I saw that there were a lot of incidents out there, and I started going through them, and a lot of them were not through actually a failure of the plane is you know, a bunch of them they flew into stuff like mountains. They fell in the mountains where they got shot down by the enemy. Are all kinds of stuff happened, and I didn't want to sort them all out and try to figure out how many of them were due to mechanical failure. And there

do seem to be a lot. Of course, You've got to keep in mind they made a help a lot of these planes. They did. They did so, and I understand that I'm I'm narrowing in on a small portion, but that could be an important portion because aside from flying into solid objects like mountains, uh, there there's a number of things that I came across that seemed to be issues that were accidents related to take off. So I tried to find things that were take off only.

So there's like you were talking about, just a random, unexplainable engine failure failure. But I'm also finding that in terms of like pilot air, which we were talking about before, it was it seems like it wasn't too hard to starve the engine of fuel by leaving your choke on or choking the engine too much. What's the best way to describe what a choke does, because nobody has a choke anymore. Yeah, it's where you bought it with more fuel yeah, it chances see the air, It chances to

see the air fuel mix. That chances that ratio, which is what typically you would do on a cold engine so that it it starts and it heats up. But if you do that and you end up accidentally starving it of oxygen, you can kill the engine like the flu on a fire, very similar. Yes, yeah, you do, you do have You do have to adjust that as you change attitude. And I found that out actually some years back when I wanted to flight with this guy in a little two seaters h Cessna. We were flying,

went up to fly over Mount St. Helen's. I was just turning around, just looking at the back window and just checking out the scenery and stuff. We were well up in the air, and he chose that moment to adjust the fuel air mixture. And also I was sitting there looking at the back of All of a sudden, they hear the engine going to like that, and I kind of turned around and I can't imagine what my eyes looked like. I'm sure they were as big as saucers.

And he's probably having a good laugh. Oh yeah, oh yeah, he laughed. But yeah, and but yeah, that's what you do is it changed that mix till your engine start to miss a bit and you crank it back a little bit. And so that is one thing. Not having enough air speed can be a problem. There was there were situations where people were the you know, like a gust of wind help them take off, and then that disappears and they don't have their engines going fast enough,

so they lose their their loft. There was just in general not having enough air speed, which I think is the ones where people basically ran into the end of the air the runway. Those were the ones, um. And then like you were talking about stalling, and there was somebody there was one that randomly the rear door popped open and ripped off the plane and then tore through

the tail. So there's there's a lot of stuff. But I'm wondering, though, is that if it isn't this is kind of mechanical or this might kind of be pilot. Is that accidentally um starving the engine and that would be it's kind of very plausible accidental thing to do to to to kill it. Here's the problem with that, though, correct me if I'm wrong, Joe. But there was no radio communication between the plane and the towers saying we're going down. Yeah, not that I am aware of. And

I looked around for that. I saw no indication, which to me tells me that it was not. It was something very very sudden and catastrophic, which you know, starving the engines by accident and then losing all aloft. That's going to take a minute or so. You probably have time to call in. You know this automatic habit for pilots. You gotta call the airport and go say, hey, clear the runways, I'm heading back your way and hopefully I can get there, or I'm heading here. Please send somebody.

We're going to go down. It seems bachelor. It seems kind of like a rookie mistake to me. I mean, you know he was. It sounds like he was flying this plane like almost daily, and you know, if not definitely at least once a week. And yeah, I just have a hard time thinking that, you know, yeah, it is unless unless you had a rookie co pilot and you know, he say, and he just told him to

take the controls and then have that. Well, he slept off the night before he headed back to go to the head or get a cup of coffee or but even then, you know, then you call in. Yeah, you would still call in. So yeah, the the only exception to that one would be if there was a tailspin. Uh, And then you can imagine that both pilots are busy just trying to pull the plane out of that and there's no there's no way you're gonna reach out and grab the mic and radio something. And then that's a

four man crew. There's four of them there. Well, yeah, but those of the other guys were in the back and they were probably plastered to the ceiling. I think he got it true from the probably about impossible for them to get to a radio. That's true. I okay, I would presume that. And obviously I've never flown a plane, but not We've done enough plane stories that it seems to me that communication with the tower in a in

a problem situation is almost automatic. It's almost you know, you hit to which and you you you start making your calls, even while because it's it's pretty easy to talk and frantically push buttons and pull levers and stomp on things. Oh yeah, no, it totally is. But if you're stop doing something like a tailspin, I mean, there's there's gonna be a lot of g forces as you

spin around and stuff like that. At the point, it's gonna be hard, I think, to reach out and grab your microphone at that at that point really but yeah, I mean, but that's just assuming it was there was a tailspin. I mean, I don't know. I mean, I kind of like the tailspin theory, because after all, they did crash just six miles from the airport. Essentially they got ut and then they crashed. Well, they didn't really glide that far. It seems like they went up and

it's basically almost went straight down. Well, they skipped with the plane skipped when it hit the ground. It's it hits something it hit was a building or a series of cars, I can't remember, suddenly and then continued forward, Whereas if it was a tailspin and it was dropping, it should have continued to drop straight down. Well unless they pulled it out, you know, somewhere at the last minute and then just managed you know, so they might

have been moving at least something somewhat horizontally. Again, it's frustrating with this one. A fun little mystery and I like it a lot, but I wish there was a little more information that'd be nice. I mean, for example, I've looked at a few US air crashes and I'll be able to find like actual reports of the board of Boards of Inquiry and all this. Uh, they can find a lot of you really useful detailed information. Ain't nothing with this now, Well, where we move on to

our next theory. Let's take a quick break. Dave patrols the perimeter dozens of times a day. Whenever he spots a potential threat, he alerts everyone around. He is proud of his work and is convinced that without him, anarchy would rain. The problem is that Dave can't call you at work and tell you what is going on. And maybe that's a good thing, since no one can really understand what Dave is trying to say. Anyway, he's now assists is the mailman. The garbage man is a close second.

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after all, he's a chihuahua? Or is he the cheap of cobra? Pull up? Pull up? Okay, okay, there we go. We're out of our tailspin Um, Why are why? Why did you decide we had to go to the simulator? Were you proving that you get? Why? You will never fly us anywhere? I don't even know that I want to be in a car with him again, I've never been in a car with It's it's weird. Yeah, like to keep it that way. You probably don't want flight simulat to guys because they're just not that worried about dying.

It's like, yeah, you can get killed, and it's like, hey, what's a big deal? All right, So what's our next series here, sir? Our next one is air frame failure. That's one things like you know, wings and stuff falls, the back of the back of the plane falls off. Yea, so it's not great. That can happen. It has happened. Yeah, I guess I'm walking to Indianapolis. Yeah, she yeah. Now the freeway is a lot safer than flying, that's for sure.

But yeah, we've all been there. I mean, you're on a routine flight to l A. Suddenly the starboard wing falls off. The plane is this is just spinning downward towards certain dyn You suck a bunch your neighbor and take her bible from her so you can pray a little bit before you die, and then you wake up and you realize it was just a nightmare. But then you look around and you realize that well, and you're on a Boeing seven thirty seven on the port wing

has fallen off. Yeah, and your neighbor doesn't have a bible, so you've got a resort to just begging God to please, please, please let you live so you can give these jerks a really really crappy Yelp review, and God hasn't said anything back, and the ground keeps coming closer. And then you wake up and you're not on a plane. You're

not spinning towards certain death, thank God, I know. And then you become aware that you're on a Greyhound bust being driven by a guy with a hockey goalie mask on who's speeding ninety miles an hour towards the cliff. Oh and at that and at some point you're subconscious just gets bored with all these lame plot twists, and you wake up in your own bed and you're all safe and sound. We just went through the entire dream sequencing.

How does that relate to failure of this aircraft? Well, yeah, I mean that's well, you know, some fluke happened, Like I mean, air frame failure does happen, Like if you're pulling nine g s out of a dive and you're plane is not raged for nine g s, well you could you can see a plane like a wing snap off or at least bend, But there was nothing that stressful happening with Argo sixteen. You know, nothing out of the ordinary. Um, and of course this is this is

what you're talking about. I mean, well, in terms of what they were doing, I mean, they weren't pulling nine g s. No, not they were, as far as I know, they were either still climbing or they they were leveling off. They weren't. They weren't pulling some monster killer dive and pulling out and putting all sorts of G forces on their air frame. They didn't have enough time, No, not

at all. Yeah. I mean, the only thing I can think of with an air frame failure is just sabotage maybe um or possibly say a bomb plane, a bomb in the right place on the plane. Well, that's good. I can cause an airplane that could Yeah, catastrophic failure, yeah, yeah, yeah, I believe that is the epitome of Yeah. He put in the back and blows the tail off. You know, there's the whole tail of the plane. Well that's bad news.

It's not great, No, not at all. So. But but as far as their airframe failure, I nobody's ever put that forward. I just thought i'd show that. Well, actually I saw some hinting added that was kind of cleared up because one of the wings was taken off, But that's isn't not the one that hit a lamppost and it's still there. Well, that was the weird thing when

I was doing the reading. Is that there? And and the wing hit this lamp post and it shared in the wing broke off, and they're like, yeah, if that happened, the lamppost would have been destroyed as well. And the lamppost is still there. Again, This is one of those things with the reporting on this story, that's weird. Sorry, the reports at the time said the lamppost just still there or somebody today. Investigators. Investigators were people who had

gotten the original investigation. I was gonna say, well, Steve, they just put a new one back. No, that was the thing that I'm pretty sure it was people in the area at the time. We've got the report like that doesn't make any sense because I'm looking at it and it shouldn't have been here anymore. It just depends on how stoutly that thing is made and how you know, and how well anchored it was. It also depends on the efficiency of municipal services. They might have been right

out there. Johnny on the spot with a spare and put it up that Day's I doubt that, Italy, I know, I know, I know, but I mean it's always I know they have spares. Okay, Okay, So yeah, air frame failure, probably not. Probably there was a bomb, not in and of itself, unless it was sabotage. And I don't know how easy it is like to do subtle sabotage of a seaporty seven, Like can you sneak inside and sort of loosen all the bolts to one wing? I don't know.

Probably not. I don't think. I don't think that's the case. They probably don't make it easy to do something like that. So air frame failure, probably not, unless there was, of course a bomb. Okay, so you've said that four times. I know you're you're leading me somewhere. I'm kind of Yeah, this is called in the literary world, it's called foreshadowing. Didn't he say that last week? He did? Okay? Did that? Okay? Okay, so that last week was foreshadowing? All right, Let's move

on to some of our juice here theories. And this is probably the most popular one south there, which is the Mossad did it? Sorry? Who are the Mesad. That's Israeli intelligence. Yeah, yeah, and the Massade actually has a reputation as being a very very effective bunch. Oh yeah, did either of you read through the list of things that they are credited with doing retally freaking crap. They're good at what they do. They are really scary, they are. Yeah,

They're totally good. And then you know, Israel kind of lives in a rough neighborhood, so they have to be good at what they do, and you know, and they are good at what they do. And this particular theory the Massad done. It has actually been suggested even by members of the Italian government. So yeah, it's not just tin tintoil hat types on the internet. It's actual you know, cabinet ministers and things like that. Like I said, it's

the most prevalent theory out there. So the whole genesis of this story begins in February nineteen seventy three, uh Libyan Airlines Flight one fourteen to Cairo was thrown off course by a sandstorm and it wind up over the Sinai Desert um, which, as you probably know, maybe you

don't know. After the nineteen sixties, seven wore the sin I was occupied by Israel, Right, I've been to ask you a whole bunch of questions, so if you can preempt those, because that that area is very hard for me to keep straight because there's so many players and so many moving borders. Yeah, they do shift a little bit, don't they. Yeah. Well, anyway, so it was over the Sinai, um, and then it was trying to like turn back, and

of course Israeli warplanes intercepted. One of the things. The Israeli has noted this thing had just flown flown over the sus to no fly zone, and Egyptian ground defense missiles had not shot it down, which made them a little suspicious if I was maybe a spy plane instead of a passenger yet, so they shot it down, um. And well it turns out that was a bit of a mistake. It was full of civilians, um all. But I think nine people died in the crash, So yeah, kind of a black eye for the Israelis. And of

course this was a Libyan plane. Mostly Libyans on the plane, and muamarket Api, who was the ruler of Libya at the time, was thirsting for revenge against the Israelis. Uh. And so he wanted to shoot down in the l airliner and l Al, of course is the Israeli national airline. Yeah, and so they decided to shoot one down flying out of room, and they wanted to shoot the biggest one they could, which at that time would have been a

seven forty seven. So the plan was to shoot down a seven forty seven as it is it Uh, the Machino Airport in Rome? Is that how it was pronounced? Italian girl, We're just going with your pronunciations from now on. Okay, So movemar. Kadafi wanted to mount a joint Libyan Egyptian operation. And again Kadafi is in charge of Oliba of Libya. Okay. Then Arsadat, who was a successor to Gamal Abden last year, had recently died of heart attack as the president of Egypt.

How do you keep all that in your head? I'm looking at my notes and I don't have any of that. You know, I've been sort of studying this stuff for a while. Okay, So we've got and Sadat wants to sort of pacify Kadafi, so you know, he cooperated with him on this. You could see it was very important to him, and so he since Egypt was supplied with Soviet weapon right, they just happened up a few extra Soviet Essay seven Strala anti aircraft vessels laying around. That's ground,

that's surfaced air missiles, right exactly. Yeah, kind of like our Stinger missiles. Yeah. And and so the Egyptians agreed to to help out the operation by supplying them with two of these missiles, which they smuggled into Rome. Uh. And that was they were smuggled. Any boy, a guy named Ustraf Marwan. He was an Egyptian who, oh, by the way, was actually working for the Massad at this time. Yeah,

he was. He worked for them sad for years actually. Uh. And Marwan actually wound up living in London, where he died in two thousand seven under what they called suspicious circumstances. Yeah. So there's another unsolved mystery. Ah. He fell off the balcony of his apartment building. Yeah, got it, Yeah, went over the railings somehow, and yeah, so it's considered a mystery.

But so he his wife actually smuggled him into room under diplomatic bag and have passed him off to him to Madawan and and then he had to meet up with these terrorists because if he had recruited five Black September terrorists too. And Black September is the Palestinian group called themselves Black September named after the events of September nineteen seventy in Jordan's which is getting often of the

weeds some more. But that's where they get their name from because that September nineteen seventy is called Black September by the Palestinians because of what happened the Jordanians Civil war and they got kind of got their asses handed to them by King Hussain of Jordan's and that's why they call it that. Um. So this this group pops up Black September. You might have heard of them the Munich Olympics in nineteen seventy two. They massacred a bunch

of Israeli athletes. That was Black September. Okay, So anyway, though I won't get too much into detail about this operation, but essentially Ostro mor Juan had to meet up with these guys to live the missiles, so he hasn't look the trunk of his car, so now he has the missiles. Yeah, so this is hilarious. So they're they're gonna rendezvous at this shoe store in Rome, and so they meet up.

The Black September guy walks up to him, gives him the past for the secret code word and all that stuff, and and then he says, Okay, well, you know I got I got to get that you guys need. So we're just gonna get it into your car and you guys can take it back to your place and get ready for the operation. And then the Black September guy says, what we walked here and have a car and I

and and they scratched their heads a little bit. And then and what the Black September you guys did is they went down the street to a carpet a carpet store, and they bought a couple of big Persian rugs and brought it back and they rolled up the missiles and the launchers in the rugs, and then they all threw them on their shoulders and and they went they actually went to a subway station and took them back to

their place on the subway. Missed the and the aircraft missiles rolled in carpets on the on the room subway. That's yeah, I know, that's it really is. Yeah, so they got they got their missiles back to where they needed to be. But it turns out that on our Sadat actually didn't want this plot to succeed um and he had actually told Ostro Marwan to rat out these

guys to the Italians. But Marijuana had already told the Massad anyway, so the Bisade tipped off the Italians, and the Italians were cooperative and they captured all the terrorists before they could shoot down an airplane and kill hundreds of people. So it was a successful operation all the way around, and all the Italians were kind enough. Also, the Israelis asked them if they could have one of the strellas them a the nentirecraft missiles, and the Italians

said shure, and they gave one. Yes. They hadn't seen Estralla before. They wanted to take it apart and I have a look at it. Yeah, But here's where the Italians didn't quite do the right thing. They released the terrorists because they were afraid of terrorists reprisals, and so it's and then apparently what I heard is that they tried them, may be convicted, and I'm not sure how for all it went. But then eventually they just let them go. What they did is say, supposedly Argo sixteen,

that's our plane that crashed. Supposedly it transported those five from Italy to Libya via Malta. And as the story I have heard anyway, is that in Malta, Mossad agents spotted the plane and figured out what they were up to. The fear enough they were taking the Black September guys back to Kadafi's home place, and that this theory is that the argue was was downed by bomb or whatever in retaliation for the release of the Black September terrorists. That this is so, that's why, and by saw so

what I so? I think so the reason that they released him, if I understand correctly, is that Italy had a double policy. In other words, because it was fearing getting attacked by anybody, they were Okay, well, we're on your side, so we will totally fight against them. Oh, we captured some of them. We're gonna return them to their place and make a deal with the place that

they came from so that they don't attack us. So you don't attack us, because we'll fight them and we and they won't attack us because we fight you and like they tried to be Switzerland in the whole deal. Yeah, but but it didn't work. Well. They're yeah, they're a little strategically to strategically located to be Switzerland, you know, Yeah, Switzerland's kind of out of the way. That works to

their advantage. But they were trying to be semi neutral, and they just they went about it in the wrong way. They tried to be sneaky about it. And well, they had a thing called the Moral Packed, although that was not yet in place at this time as far as I know, which essentially said exactly what you're talking about. They agree to sort of look the other way as long as the terrorist didn't blow anybody up or shoot anybody on a time territory, they would let them operate

and do whatever they wanted. And so that's a variant on this series that the Massad brought down Argo sixteen, which is that they were retaliating for the Moral Packed, as isn't named after the Prime minister at the time, Prime Minister more of of Italy concluded a pact with the Plough essentially a mutual non aggression packed And so what this was is that p could they could do whatever they wanted if they were apprehended, they would be like they could actually live in Italy and operate out

of Italy even as long as this is a quick, quick pro quo, no attacks took place on Italian soil. That's a variant on this series because San has said that this is why they Israelis did this, brought the plane down his retaliation for the Moral Pact. So just and again just because I need to tell I need to make sure I'm clarifying the parties here PLO Palestinian Liberation Front and Palestine Liberation Organization, thank you. And they

are totally anti Israel, Yeah, very much. So that would expect. So in the Massadi is the Israeli intelligence intelligence. Okay, so that explains the clashing of the heads in the reprisal. Yeah. Yeah. The PLO is as actually kind of an umbrella group. It's an organization that the largest group is in under this fatah, which is which was Yassa Arafats organization that he organized, and some other and then some other organizations

also were brought into the umbrella of the PLOS. So it was kind of a somewhat more fragmented thing than a lot of people like to, but in general, but essentially, but essentially this represented the Palestinian cause on the one side, and and they and they're not totally analogous. I mean, the massade is more intelligence and also wet work. They did plenty of wet work by the way, you know,

you know, as it comes with the territory. But as far as so it's being retaliation for the Moral Packed, I have a problem with this, which, as far as I can tell, the Moral Packed was not actually concluded or implemented until after December nineteen seventy three. But if they did release the five guys, then it could be retaliation for simply having done that. Craving released those guys exactly.

So I don't think it was retaliation for the Moral Pact, because essentially there's those two series one retaliation for the Moral Pact Number two releasing these five guys, it could have been pre retaliation. I mean, you know, if it was implemented in nineteen seventy three. November of nineteen seventy two is when we're talking. This happened, right hosts November seventy November seventy three, So the Pact was later seventy three, Yeah, well, I mean, we all know who politics work, right, I

mean it takes a while. So if they, you know, if the Massade had gotten wind that this was going to happen, it could have been like a preemptive like, hey, don't do this or else you see what happens. And they did it anyway, and you know, they, yeah, obviously this is like on the Massade really screwed up because they brought down this plane and the Italians looked at and said, well, is there a message here? Damned if I can tell, I think the plane just fell out

of the sky. And so obviously, you know, they picked the wrong target, or they were too good at their job. They just didn't. They just didn't. They chose to send a rather rather garbled message. But it could be well, no, actually you don't, Joe. I'll counter that though. It could be a garbled message, or it could be the people that they wanted to get the message got the message, they just didn't care. That is always a possibility. The guy that you're trying to send your message to, he

totally gets it. He just didn't give a rip. Well, it's you know that. That's the thing about it too, is that you know, the Italians. If the Italians got the message about the moral packed and they decided, oh, the Israelis are angry, but on balance, the Palestinians are going to murder a lot more Italians than the Israelis are going to you know, and so well, okay, it makes sense to make the Israelis mad, not not the plo. Okay,

there you go. Problem solved. But as to the other iteration of this theory, which was that it was retaliation for releasing the five Black September terrorists, um, I'm not sure exactly. And I looked and looked and looked on the interwebs to find out exactly how long they were held before they were released. I don't think they didn't just automatically catch them and just release them. No, this isn't like fishing, No, not at all. They had they had, so I don't know. Is it spy fishing like fishing

it it's like a movie about that spy fishing. But it really is hard to say if our Igo sixteen was in retaliation again without knowing exactly when they were released. And also there wasn't a lot of time to mount a retaliatory operation because remember there was the October War and you know, the sixth October nineteen seventy three, presumably that occupied Israel's time and attention quite a bit. So how much time and did they actually have in man

powerted into downing this obscure plane? Uh, you know, I don't know. And and also there's also the fact that the Italians cooperated with him. They actually helped to foil the plot to bring down the plane, the seven forty seven. There's a lot of problems. They gave him the missile and they actually helped them out in this in the October War of seventy three. Yeah, I think overall it's not it's not the best. It's a more fun theory than you know, they went into a tail spin on accident.

But I don't think it's a good theory. No, no, it's not. But you know, I think one of the reasons it's popular in Europe is that dark massade plots are really common currency in a lot of parts of the world, especially in Europe. There's there's a lot of you know, there's a lot of conspiracy theories surrounding the massade. I don't Yeah, this one just doesn't fly. I don't think the Massad did it, I see no reason to do it. Number one, I just don't. All right, so

what else not? There's not a lot else here, but there's a lot of people that brought up this this possibility, which is Operation Claudio. Ever heard of Glaudio? Yeah? I used to play Nintendo games and there was the game Gladius Gladius. That's close enough. Okay, it was Gladious. It was. It was Gladius, and I think it was a spaceship game. God, I can't remember too much. Go home and look that up.

If the name but if the name Operation Glaudio sounds familiars because we talked about it in our September one episode. Except up, so I'm given away of time travel secret. Okay, never mind, just blank that out of your head. Glaudio

was It was a shadowy operation. It began at the end of World War Two, and it was called Claudia Operation Glaudio in Italy, and as far as I know, that was out of the umbrella name for the entire operation europe wide, because there were similar organizations in almost every other Western European country, all under different names, with different names. Yeah, and there were a lot of cells out there, and uh, what these guys were is they were stay behind force of commando types, almost like Green

Beret types, like empliers. Yeah exactly, but these were, you know, hardcore trained military types, and obviously they had lots and lots of weapons caches. These were and these guys weren't just regular private citizens. I mean, they were government employees. They were soldiers. So the original Red Dawn, not the remake, then, Oh yeah, exactly, that's what they did remake that movie.

I haven't seen that yet, don't, uh really Okay, uh So the idea was that these guys would have there would be sort of deepcover guys, and they would stay in place. If the Soviets invaded Europe and occupied Europe, these people would stay in place and train and arm other citizens and mount guerrilla attacks and the subversive organized

their resistance. And that was the plan. And that's why, of course they had to have huge stashes of weapons, which I kind of wonder if they're all if they were all rounded up, if there's still a few out there, they'll be kind of cool. It has been rumored that the some of the Operation Claudio soldiers became kind of a rogue force in some places in Europe. They were staging assassinations and such on their own. I've never been

able to find any any real confirmation of this. That's the big question, is like, were these guys like disciplined military units who followed orders or did they go rogue? I obviously, from an internet standpoint or even a literary standpoint, it's more fun to think that they went rogue right over in the course of thirty years, that's easy to imagine. Yeah, they get they get a little bored, and they've been

waiting for World War three for how long now? And then, by the way, we have access to these huge piles of weapons. You know, I could see why going out and then you're creating a little may It would be kind of a temptation. It makes me think of more than one phone call slash test measters that I've got from you, sir, which is, Hey, you want to go blow something up? You want to go shoot some guns? Yeah, let's go kill something. Although you're you're blowing stuff up,

shooting it? Yeah, just a building or two, you know, yeah, just kidding, yeah, uh so, Yeah, I mean that we all have kind of those temptations. You know, it's fun. But these guys were eventually dismantled and they never really saw any actions, so we don't know if they were really doing anything. Well I'm furthermore, how does it connect to the Argo? Yeah, well here is the connection. And and this is not well documented either, but it's out there.

It's it's a popular theory. But it's been said that Argo sixteen, among other clandestine type planes, transported armaments and sold Jersey for Operation Claudio in Italy. And that's certainly plausible. I mean, a secrets byplane, you know, transporting secret armaments and secretcommando types. I guess that makes sense. It's not you know again, even though I can't document it, I don't know if you guys were able to find anything. No, yeah,

at all. But the theory on this one is that the Italian government tried to reign in Operation Claudio in Italy, uh, starting in nineteen seventy three, the reason being, of course, this whole out of control thing. Maybe they had rogue elements and uh, you know how politicians are. They just don't like the idea of having people in their country aren't totally under their control. And these people weren't under

you know, they weren't totally under Italian government control. And so the theory is here is that the Glaudio operators retaliated by bringing down OURGO sixteen that was there, and that was there sending him says, hey, don't mess with us, don't try to close us down and take our guns away. We dropped your plane, and then the Italian government there retically backed off, didn't try or didn't try anything more until about which was when the whole operation of Europe

Wide was essentially phased out. Well it was uncovered, yeah, some of it became publicized, but also about that time, of course we've got to follow the Soviet Union and all that stuff, and so it didn't seem really as necessary anymore. And it will be interesting. Actually, I'm gonna deal a little more research on this, because there's got to be at least one guy who was part of this whole operation who wrote a book about it, and I want to find I want to try to find

that out. So far, I've looked around a little bit. I haven't found it. I haven't found that guy in this book, but there's got to be somebody who wrote a book about it. What was it that you said on the last theory um that this is really obscure messaging. And oh you mean with like Argo sixteen dropping in because of the Well yeah, that's um, that's the the

whole thing is that. Well, first off, I can't find any actual evidence or document station that the Italian government actually made any moves against Operation Glaudiol though of course they were super secrets, so so maybe, but it would be a secret if they made moves against them. How

did the argo connect to Operation Glaudio? And yeah, again it's it's like you're sending a pretty garbled message there, huh, Because the way I see it, if the Ministry of the Interior is trying to clamp down in your operation, then you want to go bomb their headquarters. Right, Well, I mean I guess I can see, you know, message

hits the right people. Everything super secret, so they're obviously not going to come out and say, especially investigators aren't going to come out and say, oh, yeah, these super secret agents that we have that have gone rogue that we've been trying to shut down and we can't shut down, bombed this airplane and brought it down, and that's who did it. Obviously you can't say that. I mean, so I can understand maybe the right person did get the

message and they did back off. But again it's so tinfoil. Well it is, I mean, it's again, it just strikes me that you're bringing down the wrong target. Yeah uh yeah, so yeah, so anyway they bringing down Argo sixteen is just to me just doesn't send any message at all. Yeah, I mean, yeah, they're not the guy. So the Operation Claudio one. But there's another Glaudio angle, which is this. It's entirely possible that Argo sixteen really was transporting stuff

for Operation Glaudio. It's entirely possible that day when ostensibly, if I can use that word again, sorry, that the they were supposed to be going off on a radar sniffing mission over the Adriatic. Maybe that was a cover for something else. Maybe they were actually taking some armaments or something else from Venice to somewhere for Operation Glaudio,

dropping packages, dropping packages, weapons, whatever. So maybe the plan was to sort of go off their usual route down the Adriatic, even do a little radar sniffing on the way, and then land wherever they're supposed to offload their cargo. And supposing some of this cargo was a little volatile or somebody screwed up and armed arms something that they shouldn't have armed inadvertently, and we've talked about that before. You have to package and properly still certain materials on

a plane to prevent them from going off. Yeah, and so you know what if that was actually their their main mission that day was not even radar, but to transport some stuff secretly and then up see something blew up on the plane to things vibrated together on takeoff and caused the combusted Yeah. Yeah, things like that could

happen when we're talking about volatile things like weapons. Uh So, Actually I kind of liked this series because to me, I mean, the stuff about the more conspiratorial stuff like the massad and Operation Claudio, like blowing it up on purpose, they don't make a lot of sense. You know, does that make Does that? I would agree? Did you guys say that they just don't make much sense? Yeah? I

don't think so. But then again, you know, if the cause was something mondane like pilot air or mechanical, that's super lame, that's super mouth, that's some Monday, And why would that Why would this stuff still be classified? And I still question it because they went down so fast and no, no, communication that we can find record of. Yeah, yeah, and and so this makes me wonder if and it wasn't even necessarily weapons for operation laudio, it could have

been something else. But if if maybe their mission that day the sniff radars was just to cover for something else, Well what might that have been? And could whatever it was there a carry on the plane that brought that plane down that day? Too bad, we can't just file a freedom of information that quest. And well we know the documents are gone. A lot of documents have disappeared.

The wreckage itself was chopped up and sold for scrap like shortly after the wreck They didn't keep it around for any period of time at all, which is a little suspicious. Again, well really, huh you think, of course this is Italy. They don't have as much room as America has. Yes, so they had this fast tract of kind of land in the middle of their country that is thousands of punk thousands of miles and nobody lives there. Let's just put all the funk airplanes on it. Absolutely,

that's what we do here any more. Theories, Well, there's a troop of copra theory. Yeah, yeah, he was smoking on the plane while the red lightn no smoking that he was using a cell phone and I properly turned it off. Well, I got this there from one of my massade contact. Yeah, and he I was asking about this and he was like, oh, no, Joe, You're all wrong.

It was yeah, and uh well, apparently what happened is is they were taking ancient choopy to train some operation Laudio guys just in the arts of phoeneasness and depravity, and things were going to be all good, and then they got to feet and suddenly Trippy kind of forgot himself for a moment, kind of what medieval on the pilot the coke pilot, you know. And I'm just kidding. I just have an implicated shoopy and so long, I feel kind of bad for our shoopy fans, So I

need to throw that one in there. Uh So, anyway, I'm gonna go with they had something in their hold that maybe shouldn't have been there, maybe that wasn't stilled quite correctly, and it kind of caused a catastrophic failure. That's kind of what I'm thinking. Yeah, but that's just me. Okay, well, we've got all that out of the way. Now it's tiding for the important stuff, which is all this housekeeping. I know that at least somebody wants to send me an email about this, so uh, let me get that

out of the way first. Our email is Thinking Sideways Podcast at gmail dot com. Uh. And so you know, if you know about our gust six, you know the real storytell us we'd really appreciate hearing it. We also, of course have a website, which surprisingly is called Thinking Sideways podcast dot com. Uh. And also well, of course, on our website we have our episodes out there. You can listen to them and unfortunately no comments anymore, but you know, you can still look at our fabulous website

and then listen to the episodes. It's awesome. Uh. And also you can find us on iTunes, where you can subscribe. You can also give us a rating and a review, preferably, you know, a good rating and a good review. We like those. And of course you can stream us everywhere Google Play especially, but there's a lot of other sites too, and you probably already know about that anyway. So why am I telling you I don't know? Uh? This is

this thing called social media. You probably heard about this Facebook, Twitter and read it. We're out there on Facebook, we have a group and we have a page. So join the group and what like the page? Or do you like the group and join the page? Okay, all right, there we get it right the first time. Yeah. And we're of course also on Twitter where we are thinking sideways. No g there, and Devon is our most serious practitioner the Twitter. Yeah yeah, so send send Devon a tweet.

And last of all, we have a subreddit. You guys have all heard of read it. Well, we have our own subreddit, our very own subreaddit. It's called thinking sideways. Uh, thousands of acres of land, people's store, defunct airplanes on. That's literally what that is? What redd it is? Yeah, there's that's what. Yeah, that's perfect. That's a good analogy. Or what's that literally true? It's literally true? Okay, okay, I'll take you there sometime. Yeah, I appreciate that when

we fly. What else merchandise? I know you're you've heard this once and you're just thinking, oh my god, why don't chuse you so bad? Well, thank god. There are places you can get t shirts and mugs, stickers, all kinds of stuff with dazzle red bubble. Also, they have all this stuff and you will find that linked. There's links to them in our website on the right hand side. So go out there and just bye bye bye do all your Christmas shopping now. And that's about it for

me for this week. Again, if you have any special insights into Argo sixteen and love to hear him. And until next week. Uh rib achi, Oh, I got nothing. We're just going down by I guess. Don't call me Shirley.