Posted on 07/09/2025 4:16:16 AM PDT by MtnClimber
A Pair of Lawsuits Promise to Expose the Truth Behind the July 1996 Disaster.
On July 17, 1996, TWA 800, a Paris-bound 747, blew up ten miles off Long Island’s south shore, killing all 230 souls on board. In the days leading up to the anniversary, I will share some fresh insights on this tragedy and the much too successful cover-up that followed.
After 25 years investigating the destruction of TWA Flight 800, I have learned to temper my enthusiasms. That said, I continue to take heart when I see signs of life. Perhaps the most promising development in the case is the progression through the courts of Krick v. Raytheon.
Ronald Krick is the father of Oliver Krick, a 25-year-old student flight engineer killed in the crash. Krick has been joined in the suit by relatives of other deceased passengers and crew. The defendants are the Raytheon Company, the Lockheed Martin Corporation, and the United States government.
The Krick suit gained momentum when it absorbed information gleaned from a FOIA suit brought by Tom Stalcup, a no-nonsense physicist who has been pursuing this case since he was a grad student in 1996. To establish his claims Stalcup was granted subpoena power and was able to depose several key witnesses from within the investigation.
Stalcup appeared in the 2001 documentary, Silenced, produced by me and my late partner James Sanders. In 2013 Stalcup and the late Kristina Borjesson, formerly of CBS News, produced the excellent documentary, TWA Flight 800. What follows are extended passages from Krick v. Raytheon.
—On July 17, 1996, a Boeing 747 headed for Paris took off from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport at around 8:20 p.m. Within twelve minutes of takeoff, the plane exploded and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Long Island, New York. All 230 passengers and crew members perished.
—After the incident, the federal government released a false report contending that the explosion was the result of an electrical fire in the airplane’s center fuel tank.
—Only recently, thanks to the work of physicist, Dr. Thomas Stalcup, through his Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) litigation in Massachusetts federal court, has evidence emerged proving that TWA 800’s explosion was not caused by any defect in the airplane, but instead by an errant United States missile fired at aerial target drones flying nearby.
—The evidence unearthed by Dr. Stalcup establishes that the United States, including its agencies, such as the United States Missile Defense Agency (formerly known as the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization), the United States Department of Defense, and the United States Navy (the “Government Defendants”), acting in concert and working side-by-side with Raytheon Company and Lockheed Martin Corporation (the “Contractor Defendants”) and DOES 1 through 20, inclusive (collectively the “Defendants”) were testing the Aegis Weapons System and firing SM-2 missiles with live warheads from warship(s) at aerial missile targets off the coast of New York in close proximity to commercial airline flight paths. One such missile struck TWA flight 800, causing it to break apart and crash into the Atlantic Ocean, killing everyone aboard.
—Newly discovered evidence also shows that these Defendants engaged in a top-down cover-up to prevent the public from learning the truth about TWA 800. Proof of this cover-up, and of Defendants’ underlying culpability for the crash, was only recently unearthed by Dr. Stalcup after more than a decade of FOIA litigation against the Government Defendants.....SNIP
“Jet fuel is freaking *HARD* to get it to ignite. You can’t do it with sparks, and you can’t even light it with a blowtorch.”
Did you watch the NTSB demonstration?
https://shepherd.caltech.edu/EDL/projects/JetA/facts.html
Point is you first have to understand the true physics and chemical realities before you can even get close to the truth. To “explode” jet fuel the temperature of combined operating temp and compression temp have to reach 3000 to 6000 degrees under load before it will self detonate. And it CANNOT do so without an oxidizer.
Even a gasoline engine with an electric spark plug cannot ignite and/or run on jet fuel. The temps created in the combustion chamber are just not high enough even with an intentional arc spark added.
“I suspect it was a terrorist launch.”
Then a different set of questions.
As near as I can find out, TWA 800 was at about 13,700 feet when it exploded. Which realistically available SAMs were capable of reaching it?
What you said points to it being an Iranian group and not the Navy; could their munitions reach that airliner?
Good points; now I’m going back to the Navy shot it by mistake and it wasn’t the Iranians.
I'm sorry *YOU* don't have the technical background to understand the report, but I had no trouble picking out the discrepancies in it.
The ignition source they claimed in the center fuel tank is completely inadequate to reach the energy level necessary to initiate combustion.
Even including their efforts to point out how hot the air temperature was at the time.
Learn what you are talking about before you hold up lying "experts" as evidence.
Now I’m back to the Iranians.
“Even a gasoline engine with an electric arc source will not ignite or run on jet fuel even if it is atomized. The compression ratio and combustion temperatures are just not high enough. It is a settled science that has been around since Lenoir in 1860. The combination of conditions absolutely have to be correct.”
I know you never accept scientific evidence so here is a demonstration proving you are full of it:
https://youtu.be/MTlNjRDOJ5E?feature=shared
I’m sorry *YOU* don’t have the technical background to understand the report, but I had no trouble picking out the discrepancies in it.
The ignition source they claimed in the center fuel tank is completely adequate to reach the energy level necessary to initiate combustion.
Excellent points; I second my other post about going back to it being the Iranians.
Did you go look at the youtube video that proves it's crap?
Yes, I know the government can rig a demonstration to blow up. The government is very good at making things blow up, and if it won't blow up on its own, they will give it a little "help" to make sure it does what they say it will do. Kinda like NBC showing how Chevrolet trucks fuel tanks explode.
It never happened before in all of aviation history, but they are saying it happened this one and only time.
Bullshit on the face of it.
Yes. They had missiles that could reach that airliner.
1”Even a gasoline engine with an electric spark plug cannot ignite and/or run on jet fuel. The temps created in the combustion chamber are just not high enough even with an intentional arc spark added.”
Jet fuel is basically kerosene. Video of gas engine running on kerosene:
https://youtu.be/MTlNjRDOJ5E?feature=shared
The list should be available by search; I have the list.
Interest here on FR was in a specific passenger,
To: Jim Robinson
"Mohammed Samir Ferrat, an Algerian business associate of Brown who had been scheduled to accompany Brown on the Croatian trip but withdrew at the last minute for reasons still unclear, died in July of 1996 on the ill fated TWA Flight 800...."Finally we know the person on TWA Flight 800 whose presence made it necessary for the flight to have an "accident". From: A Whitewater Researcher (awhitewatrrsrchr@xxxxxxxx.com) *
12/21/97 23:46:32 PST
You may remember that Commerce Sec Ron Brown's flight to Croatia crashed, killing him; there was some evidence of a bullet wound to his head after the crash was investigated.
“Jet fuel is freaking *HARD* to get it to ignite. You can’t do it with sparks, and you can’t even light it with a blowtorch.”
Jet fuel is basically kerosene. Video of gas engine running on kerosene (spark ignition):
https://youtu.be/MTlNjRDOJ5E?feature=shared
Yes indeed
“I know you never accept scientific evidence.”
I grew up using kerosene lanterns. And being raised in a shop I was a dangerous kid and personally tried everything I could to cause fires or create explosions and blow myself up just for fun because I was bored.
You and I once had a debate years ago about whether Sulfuric Acid electrolyte would burn. Under the proper conditions atomized at the right temperature it will indeed create it’s own hydrogen.
So if anything I would err towards your argument.
Except... I know better... Played with it. Like I say, I have literally arc welded on half full iron tanks full of diesel, kerosene, and propane. I once watched an old timer weld on a gasoline tank and not have it light up. Now THAT I would have never tried but he did it under controlled conditions.
Impact causes great heat. Consider the kinetic energy of something travelling 300 miles per hour falling 10,000 feet. That and compression of hitting the ocean will definitely ignite JP8 and jet fuel.
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