Zn3, your points are very well taken.
Boeing testified that the engines on a 747 are fly-by-wire and require a constant control signal from the cockpit. Without that signal the engines will automatically revert to idle. Break the wire from the cockpit and all of the engines immediately would go to idle. Idling engines are insufficient to overcome drag, much less accelerate for climb. There are two ways for a plane to climb: add more speed by increasing engine power thus increasing lift on the wing, or sacrificing forward momentum (speed) for altitude while changing the angle of motion through the air in an climb, or a combination of both.
In the case of TWA-800, at the time of the incident, we know from the record the aircraft was climbing at a rate of ~1000 feet per minute, passing through 13,800 feet of altitude. Something caused the catastrophic loss of the nose of the aircraft, some 77,000 pounds, or almost 15% of the total weight of the aircraft. It broke off and up and over, opening up the fuselage, destroying the aerodynamic integrity of the aircraft and vastly increasing drag. Simultaneously, according to its manufacturer, all forces opposing that drag went to zero as all four engines reverted to idle at loss of cockpit control signal. The tail of the 747 pitch down almost immediately and the airframe which had been trimmed for a 1000 foot per minute climb was suddenly completely out of trim/balance, with 77,000 lbs now missing from one side of the balance point and the center of gravity and therefore lift moved too far back. No energy is being added to this equation as the only source, the engines, are at idle. The angle of attack for air moving over the wing rapidly changes as the forces being applied act exactly wrongly for flight; gravity pulls the unbalanced tail down and drag on the now non-aerodynamic, open fuselage pulling it upward and slows it down... think of the difference of holding your hand out the window of a speeding car, first with your fingers parallel with the road, then palm into the rushing wind and recall the difference in the force on your arm. Now think of that in a 400 MPH wind and your hand is 21 feet in diameter! The wing will stall! It can’t climb!
Both the CIA and the NTSB claimed the eyewitnesses did not see a missile trailing smoke climbing up to strike TWA-800, but instead saw a crippled Boeing 747 "Zoom climbing" trailing fire and smoke after the center wing tank exploded and the aircraft had lost its nose. The CIA claimed the plane climbed 3,200 feet, from 13,800 feet to 17,000 feet, and then fell to the ocean while the NTSB claim the plane only zoom claimed a more modest 1,600 to 15,400 feet altitude. To accomplish this feat, it was necessary to add TIME, time to climb to both the CIA’s and NTSB’s faux altitudes, and more time to fall back from reaching those altitudes, plus they had to add DISTANCE, distance while those times were used in movement from the location of the initiating event!
Unfortunately for both the CIA and the NTSB, there are two pretty well fixed points in time for the TWA-800 disaster that prove either of their are completely bogus! Those are the times when the initiating event occurred within a five second window of secondary radar pings, and when the two main parts of the wreckage of TWA-800’s airframe landed in the ocean from two separate primary radar sweeps to about 3.5 seconds. In addition, the USS Rude, a US Naval ship that was closest to the area received the last position, heading, speed, and altitude of flight 800 at the time of the initiating event, plugged those data into their ballistic computer, calculated a simple, unpowered ballistic fall from those data and sailed directly to the spot the computer calculated the wreckage would impact the ocean… and found flaming wreckage, bodies, luggage, flotsam, etc, within a couple hundred yards. Had there been any “zoom climb” of ANY altitude, distance, or duration, it would not have been a ballistic fall, the wreckage would miles away from where the Rude was looking.
Another failure of both CIA and NTSB cartoons is you’ll recall that the 747 was climbing toward cruising altitude at ~1000 feet per minute under ideal conditions, yet both film scenarios have the aircraft zoom climbing at very high speed to cut the time factors… 3,200 feet in under 30 seconds for the CIA, 1,600 in the NTSB’s fraud. However the fact remains that between the initiating event and TWA-800’s final airframe splashdown in the Atlantic was a mere 41 seconds, plus/minus about 4 seconds. There’s literally no time for a zoom climb and fall from additional altitude.
The NTSB used the Zoom Climb scenario to exclude the eye witness testimony of over 220 witnesses, regardless of who, where, and how well it coincided or agreed, relying instead on FBI 302 reports that often the eyewitnesses claimed completely misrepresented what they told the agents who interviewed them or were complete fabrications! Not one eye witness was actually allowed to testify IN PERSON before the NTSB hearings.
Also, the primary, direct radar recordings were confiscated by the FBI and have not resurfaced to this day. They were reported to have gone directly to the Clinton White House.
I don't believe that is true for the 747-100. (The flight 800 747 was built in 1971.) I don't think that what you have written is true until the 747-400 variant, which wasn't introduced until 1989, some 19 years after the original -100 model. However, I am not an aircraft mechanic so I may be wrong.