Posted on 06/12/2002 2:07:01 PM PDT by Asmodeus
Yahoo TWA 800 forum
Message #8272
From:Richard Savage
Date: Wed Jun 12, 2002 5:17 am
Subject: Fritz
This will be a difficult letter to write, but it must be done.
Some of you may know that Bill was scheduled for back surgery to rectify some lower back problems such as weakness in his legs. More recently he began to experience weakness in his left arm and a couple of weeks ago he began to loose some vision in his left eye.
On Monday, January 22nd, Bill's wife took him to the emergency room at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington where an initial CAT scan showed a brain tumor. Over the next few days many other tests were done and on Thursday he had a detailed MRI which showed that there was not one, but two tumors. The largest of the tumors was located in an area which was accessible, but close to the brain stem. The other, much smaller tumor is in an area of the brain that is not operable. On Friday morning, January 26th, the neuro surgeons at Walter Reed performed a 6 hour operation and removed as much as they could of the larger tumor. The part touching the brain stem could not be removed. Bill spent Saturday and Sunday in the Intensive Care Unit and was transferred on Monday to the general Neurosurgery ward where is recuperating. He is alert and cracking jokes about the permanent part in his thinning hair. His progress over the last two days has been excellent. He has regained some of the use of his left arm and left leg and began walking today. If he continues to improve he may be transferred to a rehabilitation center nearer to his home in Southern Maryland early next week or possibly as early as the end of this week.
His long term prognosis is still uncertain. The doctors will not speculate until they see the results of the biopsy but their initial reaction was not very encouraging. They plan both radiation and chemotherapy, but we don't know when that will start or how effective it will be.
In the meantime, he is surrounded by his family and friends but could use a couple of extra prayers.
Some of you have been asking about his surgery thinking it was the long planned back operation. I was reluctant to say anything until he could advise me how he wanted to handle this. For that I apologize. This morning I asked him what he wanted me to tell people and his reaction was typical: " Just tell them the truth!", "Its a fact, we can't change that.".."Just tell it like it is". It's too bad that our government doesn't have the same faith in people's ability to handle the truth as Bill Donaldson.
Bob Donaldson
Donaldson Brothers TWA800 Website
Updates on Cmdr. Donaldson's Condition
Dear Friends of Bill, Bill passed away yesterday afternoon. Bob CDR William S. Donaldson, III, USN (Ret) Bill Donaldson was an All-State football player at the Rancocos Valley Regional High School in New Jersey where he won a Football Scholarship to the University of Maryland and has since been inducted into the RVRHS Hall of Fame. He joined the Navy and entered flight school in 1965 and in 1968 he flew more than 70 Strike missions over North Vietnam and Laos in an A-4 Skyhawk off the aircraft carrier Intrepid. In later years he was the Air Traffic Control Officer on the carrier Forrestal and flew an A-6 Intruder off the carrier Eisenhower. In the mid 1980s he was assigned to NATO in Naples Italy as a Nuclear Weapons Targeting Officer. Over his career he held assignments as Safety Officer and had extensive training in aircraft crash investigation and investigated numerous crashes, including one that was accidentally shot down by a missile. Bill was awarded the Defense Meritorious Service Medal; the Air Medal, 7th Award; Navy Commendation Medal (with Combat V) and numerous other medals and awards. Bill retired from the Navy in 1991 and moved back to his family home on St. Clements Bay where he took up farming and was appointed to the St. Marys County Planning and Zoning Commission. In 1997, after reading an editorial by the Chairman of the NTSB about the tragic crash of TWA Flight 800, Bill had a letter to the editor published in the Wall Street Journal that began a 4 year effort to bring to light the true cause of the crash. Over that time he was interviewed on several hundred radio programs and appeared on several national TV broadcasts as an expert aircraft crash investigator and vocal critic of the NTSB and FBI investigation. He founded the Associated Retired Aviation Professionals (ARAP) and started a website, twa800.com, to document the many discrepancies in the official version of the crash and to the end remained committed to proving that the aircraft was shot down. He was not alone in this crusade as there are hundreds of other aviation professionals who will carry on the fight. Bill is survived by his wife Joyce, one son, Michael of Houston TX, a daughter, Teresa of Avenue, Maryland, three grandchildren, Christopher, Hailey and Hana, one brother, Robert who lives in Falls Church, Virginia, and two nieces Jennifer & Jessica. The family will receive friends at Brinsfield Funeral Home Sunday evening from 6-8 pm. The funeral service will be held at Christ Church, Chaptico Maryland, 10 am, Monday, August 27th. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the 7th District Rescue Squad, Avenue, Maryland, 20609.
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What would indicate murder? Obit says he died of a brain tumor.
Fred Meyer
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This guy was "surprised how well the government fooled everyone."
For my part, I'm continually amused at how these conspiracy buffs continue fooling THEMSELVES in the face of incontrovertible evidence that they're full of sh*t.
I don't know what that has to do with the price of eggs. In any tragedy like this there will be far-out theories as well as good evidence. Frankly I had never heard of this murder theory before, and if it isn't true it makes no difference to the other overwhelming evidence that TWA800 was shot down by a missile or missiles.
I never heard it either but I am not surprised Meyer would be paranoid.
I am the furthest thing from a conspiracy buff but I do know that the investigation of TWA800 was not normal and the questions raised that conclusively rule out missles or bombs is not there and further the implied cause is nonsense.
My first interest came about when I was flying a TWA flight and two pilots were seated behind me and they began talking about the disaster among themselves. Both believed it was a missle. That was enough for me to at least keep an open mind and to this day I don't feel we have satisfactory answers.
I never followed him on FR but if its the same person he would need to change his name just to get people to read his mantra.
FLIGHT 800: COMDR. DONALDSON'S GRAPHICS & COMMENTS ON RADAR REPORTS DRAMATIZE TIMELINE CONFLICTS
TWA 800: COMDR. DONALDSON'S GRAPHICS & COMMENTS ON RADAR REPORTS DRAMATIZE TIMELINE CONFLICTS/PART 2
This one starts with eb44 on 12/10/99 and continues with Asmodeus on 12/15/01
Boeing Lawyers Still Saying Missile May Have Downed TWA Flight 800
Personally, I don't believe there's anything there. Personally, I don't believe it is POSSIBLE to cover up something this huge and this "expensive." It just flies in the face of all logic. Insurance payouts, airlines going bankrupt, and not to mention all the congressmen who'd just LOVE to catch the current administration doing something like this.
Nope, sorry, just won't wash. It works in pulp fiction, but not in real life.
As a fellow retired Naval Officer and Viet Nam Vet, I salute Commander Donaldson and his family for his, and their, service. My prayers for them will remain.
Re: the above mentioned "murdered"...is nonsense.
But, what he and many of us knew, and know,..TWA 800 was stung by Stingers off the southern beaches of Long Island. As to the spin that US Navy ships were conducting a "missle exercise" in that area is total Clintoon CYA and BS. The navy does not have a MisEx op-area anywhere close to NYC flight patterns.
Once again, the truth will come out, maybe, just maybe, our grandchildren will be told what the truth is.
Best FReegards...Mustang sends.
Same here.
LSoft Flight 800 Forum
Date: Fri, 22 May 1998 From: Bardonia
Subject: Eyewitness Report
New addition to Eyewitness Reports. See "On a Clear Day You Can See Forever" at http://members.aol.com/bardonia.
Lisa Perry - Dan's Papers, Long Island, May 15, 1998
I saw the missile. I was facing eastward, toward the Hamptons, the ocean on my right, the deck of the house on my left. The deck is about 22 feet about the beach. On a clear day, as you look straight down the beach along the line of the shore, you can see the parking lot at Smith's Point Beach, 12 miles away. There was a plane in the sky ... out from the left, from the North, something was moving North to South over the dunes ... from the direction of the Great South Bay. The object came over the dunes of Fire Island. It was shiny, like a new dime; it looked like a plane without wings. It had no windows... It was as if there was a flame at the back of it, like a Bunsen burner .... It was like a silver bullet ... It was moving much faster than the plane. The silver object took a left turn, and went up to the plane. The plane stopped for an instant, as something would when it had suffered an impact, not just an explosion. Then it began to fracture - as if you had slammed a frozen candy bar down onto a table. You could see the spaces in between the parts of the plane. Then a moment later there was another explosion and the plane broke jaggedly in the sky. It was sideways to the way it had been ... there is smoke, fire .. the plane starts to fall apart in the sky ... the nose is continuing to go forward: the left wing is gliding off in its own direction, drifting in an arc gracefully down; the right wing and passenger window are doing the same in their direction out to the right; and the tail with its fireball leaps up and then promptly into the water below. The sounds were hugh BOOM! - then another BOOM! There was a hugh rumbling rolling in the sky... I told the FBI the nose of the plane had come off; and I told them this before the Navy pulled it out of the water. (Mrs Perry was interviewed by the FBI )- The two agents were very supportive; I was very comfortable with them .. I got the impression that they themselves thought a missile had hit the plane. After the (NTSB) hearings I spoke with one of the agents, who told me the FBI had concluded I was too far from the accident to see what I had seen. (Speaking of the CIA video) It wasn't like that at all. They said most people turned to the sound and then saw something. I was already looking at the event, before any explosion.
Having asked for a copy of her testimony to the FBI she was told to file a FOI request.
I knew what I was seeing was a plane breaking apart with people in it. It still haunts me how it continued to be in the air not quite flying but not exploded apart. I'm heartbroken for the families of all those people who were on that plane.
Regarless of how carefully you refute his errors, misconceptions, and outright lies, he will ignore you and paste a multi-colored pastiche of obfuscation and dare anyone to prove negatives. NOTHING will get past his preconceived opinion of what happened. In his world ALL of the witnesses did not see what they reported they DID see... irregardless that unrelated accounts trangulate to the same places.
Ignore him.
Yahoo TWA 800 forum
From: John Fiorentino
Date: June 13, 2002
Well, we've certainly deep ended it now haven't we? Cmdr. Donaldson was murdered? Yes, we have now entered the Twilight Zone of conspiracy. we have our first subject to add to the "mysterious deaths" list. The Kennedy assassination has one, and now so do we. What we really have here is an abomination. A giant mass of absurd speculation and rumor mongering. Add an ounce or two of specious interpretation of evidence, then a dash of intrigue, shake briskly, now turn the whole damn thing 30 degrees counter-clockwise and wallah!
Is it any wonder people avoid this subject like the plague? What a pile of doodoo. My condolences go out to Bob Donaldson who is forced to endure this trash. If you butt cracks want to smoke some dope and BS, that's your business. This garbage has no place in this investigation. The choice is yours, an honest search for the truth or a trip down Alice's rabbit hole.
Yahoo TWA 800 forum
From: ACE1HIIGH
Date: June 12, 2002
Subject: Re: [twa800] Fritz
In a message dated 6/12/2002 6:31:23 PM Central Daylight Time, rsavage@nycap.rr.com writes:
Can you fill us in on what's happening with the Sanders.
No problem, Rick: Talked to him about three weeks ago, and as I stated, am going down sometime around the last of June.
Liz is currently doing contract corporate flight attendant work, and is quite busy. She's been off probation for about a year, now.
Jim is recuperating from a serious medical problem, working on his latest book, (tentatively to be released in September) and bouncing back and forth between New York and Florida as needed in the ongoing civil case against the feds.
I intend to ask him if Donaldson's death appears to him to possibly be under circumstances other than what has been reported.
In all honesty, Fritz spooked the h*** out of me.
I ran Elmer's current sorry attempt to discredit the eyewitnesses by demeaning his (Meyer's) description of the events of 7/17/96 by him. Elmer is using a snip from the NTSB witness group thusly on Free Republic:
If he's so unflappable and KNOWS that he saw a missile shoot down TWA 800, how do you explain his following statement while being interviewed by an NTSB Witness Group?
I saw a streak of light in the sky. I have no idea what it was. And my reaction when I saw it was, what the hell is that?
Fritz reply, "TYPO, I saw a streak of light in the sky. I HAD no idea what it was. Hell"
Yeah, Fritz. Me too.
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Yahoo TWA 800 forum If one goes to the "www.TWA800.com" web-site, AND SCROLLS DOWN TO "WARNING AREAS" and then if one reads what Commander Donaldson, himself, the FORMER COMMANDER OF THE ENTIRE U.S. NAVY, (I think!; somebody correct me please, if I am not correct about this...); HAD TO SAY ABOUT THIS QUESTION; one will read that the former U.S. Navy Commander himself had to say: which was (paraphrased); go to all web-sites included in this paragraph and pay particular attention to the last line...perhaps one of the last statements that the Commander uttered: (concerning the radar layout of any SHIPS in the vicinity that night)....."(COMMANDER DONALDSON BELIEVES THE RADAR COULD JUST HAVE EASILY BEEN SPORTS FISHERMEN AND NOTHING MORE...YOU DECIDE!!!". CONCLUSION ALL NAVY WARNING AREAS FOR THAT NIGHT DO NOT RELATE ANY TYPE OF NAVY EXERCISES IN THE AREA...." THEORY ONLY/ANNE. |
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