Bill Clinton ordered a coverup because he was up for reelection. Had the public known the truth it would have likely caused a war with Iran.
I know stuff about this incident that I wish I could tell.
“Shot down by Iranian mercenaries in retaliation for the shoot down of Iran Air Flight 655 by the USS Vincennes.”
Or it was accidentally shot down by the US Navy. My husband’s military friends tend to agree that it was a US missile that did this.
I watched a very interesting doc on Netflix on this a few years ago. Probably the same one. Many witnesses said they saw a trail go UP, then saw the explosion. One woman, who was brought to tears in an interview for the film, said some G-Men came to her house to talk to her about it and TOLD her what she saw. One man, a former NTSB investigator, said there were things going on in the hangar by FBI agents that he said he had never seen before: A man was changing the evidence tags on the recovered parts. When he started to say something about it, he was told to leave.
Very shady goings on with this thing. The fuel tank spark was complete idiocy and only a fool would buy it.
Tease. ;)
If nothing else, the public can ask for de-classification after 25 or 50 years, depending.
With the aircraft around 15-16,000 feet ASL, that's outside the slant and ceiling ranges for MANPADS. Seems to me like a bigger missile (ship mounted?) would have been what was used.
(PS - love your handle. Great for a seeker of truth.)
Made easier by Tom Daschle's wife Linda heading up the FAA
What's stopping you?
I’ve said for years that IF the aircraft was shot down, it was far more likely to be a case of a military exercise gone awry than an act of terrorism.
One even suggested that TWA 800 was shot down by a Ticonderoga class Aegis cruiser in a gunnery exercise gone wrong. Except the wannabe Tom Clancy described the previous generation Mk 42 5" gun, not the Mk 45 Aegis ships carry. The plane wasn't blown up by a bomb, shot down by terrorists or by accident, and had problems with its fuel tank all at the same time.
As I recall, no one has ever said more than one missile was fired. Like many military missiles at the time, 1990's man portable SAMs were more impressive in testing than in the field. To shoot down TWA 800, using a single 1990's man portable SAM at the edge of its range for the entire engagement would have a high risk of failure. Failure means the pilot screaming over commercial radio channels someone just fired a missile at him. The country would have gone nuts, Congress would have demanded action, and the country responsible would get it so bad the Iraqi military would take pity on them.
If it wasn't a Stinger or SA-7/Strela, then what type of missile? Bigger missiles means bigger launchers, usually active radar fire control, and harder to hide. Bigger missiles mean bigger warheads and more obvious damage, which is harder to cover up. A better missile means a higher chance of hitting TWA 800. It also means a higher chance of getting caught before or afterwards, and a lower chance of it getting covered up for politics.
You would likely only confirm what some of us already know from spurious reports which were quashed by FBI and, most pertinently, witnesses which came forward who were never interviewed and/or threatened to remain silent about the matter...
Still, I’m curious.