Mystery fire
Woodall may have actually believed that the AMK worked for he also insisted throughout the news conference that the big blaze started inside the plane. Just after the conclusion of the conference an official whispered to him that the blaze was ignited externally. No attempt was made to make a correction although most of the newsmen were still in the room.

What caused what Woodall described as a "catastrophic" fire was inexplainable, newsmen were told. All previous tests had shown that AMK did what it was supposed to do: prevent keresone spraying out of a fuel tank from misting in a highly volatile form. Instead the fuel was to form in larger globs that don't ignite as easily.

There were hints that the fire was a result of the way the 720 landed; left wing low causing the ship to slew in that direction as it slid nearly sideways down the runway.

By news-conference implication the catastrophe was partly Fulton's fault. Other pilots who have flown 720s-although not by remote control-have said that one of its characteristics was to Dutch roll (roll and yaw) as it came into ground effect. Dalton--also flies NASA's 747 space shuttle ferry-had not flown the 720 that close to the ground before. It was also the only remote flight without a safety pilot aboard. He said that at an altitude of 150 feet the plane was slightly right of the center line and correcting. The plane "performed as advertised" in being the world's largest remote-controlled ship, Fulton added.

An immediate bright spot was that data continued to be telemetered from the plane for 10 minutes after impact, said Woodall, who also pointed out that the crash crews ran out of foam.

Edwards officials said later that the crash crews didn't attack the blaze with the same zeal they would have used in dealing with a people-filled ship.

Despite the fireball that engulfed the ship, Engen said he would still like to make a Notice of Proposed Rule Making by the Dec. 31, 1984 deadline.

That didn't happen. Instead, said FAA spokesman Dennis Feldman, the administrator is to appear at a hearing this month planned by the House Science and Technology Committee's subcommittee on transportation, aviation and material.