My wife’s uncle was a TWA 747 guy based out of JFK and had his misgivings about the investigation. I believe that both the FBI and CIA were involved in the Egypt Air Crash. I was also in the Navy, and I find all the conspiracy theories that involve the USN to be nonsense. There is just no way that the USN could fire that type of missle in that situation and have everyone keep quiet.
Besides all that, the conclusions that the investigation came up with were quite realistic. The conclusion in this case are much firmer than the conclusions in the 737 U.S. Air Crash in Pittsburg or the United 737 crash in Colorado Springs. The FAA made several changes to operating procedures as a result of this investigation: changes that involve the center wing tank and the resetting of circuit breakers.
I just don’t buy the conspiracy theories out there.
McClaine was Navy too. He said the same thing to me. I asked him if he knew anything about the USS Liberty. Turns out that one of his good friends was on that ship. He changed his mind. You will too, if you think about it.
Regarding FBI/CIA involvement in the Egypt Air crash, here's what the NY Times reported:
F.B.I. MAY BE ASKED TO TAKE OVER CASE OF EGYPTAIR CRASH By MATTHEW L. WALD AND DAVID JOHNSTONSo two weeks after the NTSB was "considering" asking the FBI and CIA to get involved. I don't think the NTSB initiated anything with TWA800. The FBI was clearly involved the day after TWA 800 went down because that's when they talked to McClaine.
Published: November 16, 1999Government officials said this evening that the National Transportation Safety Board was considering asking the F.B.I. to take over the case of EgyptAir Flight 990 because of suspicions raised by a review of the plane's cockpit voice recorder.
The officials said they were focusing on a cryptic utterance, possibly a prayer. They said there were questions about exactly what was said and what it meant, but they were concerned that the statement might be the last words of a pilot determined to destroy himself and the airplane.
The plane crashed in the Atlantic, near Nantucket Island, two weeks ago, killing all 217 people on board.
[Emphasis added; the rest here]
Actually, I don't think the FBI and/or the CIA ever officially became involved in the Egypt Air crash because of objections made by the Egyptian government. And there never really was an investigation of that crash either because the truth would have been quite inconvenient. (My guess, knowing that there were several Orthodox Jews on that flight, is that Pilot Batouty was sitting near some of them when something they did or said set off his Islamic Instinct. He got up, went to the cockpit, pulled rank to get control of the plane, and then dove the plane into the ocean to kill the Jews for the glory of Allah.)
Regarding the TWA 800 conclusions, they were silly. Numerous attempts to ignite Jet-A fuel and/or fumes under even remotely similar conditions with sparks or open flames have all failed so far as I am aware. I don't believe any 747s were ever grounded as a result of the supposedly dangerous CFTs. (Contrast with the DC10 Engine mount problem.)
BTW, there is other evidence of a missile I forgot. The original NTSB report contained data from the FDR which ended with one or two strange looking lines of data. E.g. the reported altitude of TWA800 dropped from 13,100 to something like 10,500 on that last line. What folks like myself pointed out was that this was consistent with increased pressure outside the aircraft probably from an explosion close to it. Other data at the end were also consistent with an explosion outside the aircraft. So what did the NTSB do? They deleted the data from the report saying that it was left over from a previous flight. (I have the original data someplace if you are interested.) This is just so absurd when you consider that the entire purpose of an FDR is to record data accurately at just such a moment. There are timestamps and checksums included so that one knows the data are accurate reflections of what the sensors were reporting and consistent with other collected data. And really, what prior flight data would have had that 747 flying with an AoA of -97 degrees (or whatever it said). You must know the government explanation of this is all BS, but none of it seems to trouble you. I think it should.
ML/NJ
ML/NJ