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
“And now do the plane that crashed into a NYC neighborhood shortly after 911.”
Can’t “do” without a date to identify it.
https://aeronav.faa.gov/visual/02-20-2025/PDFs/New_York_TAC.pdf
TWA-800 was flying in the commercial air corridor off Long Island as marked on the Terminal Area Chart.
There is no military restricted air right under that corridor, as it would obviously endanger all air and sea commerce and a few million people living within 20 miles of the coast.
In other words, the answer is yes.
Here are three cases of aircraft that have had fuel tank explosions:
Of course not. I was pointing out:
I’ve seen posts of yours before and I’d definitely drink a few beers with you and discuss some... shall I say, things?
Wait I think I hear some black helicopt—
One of the first big suspicious gov’t coverups for me.
corruption and/or incompetence. That falls under Corruption not competence.
American Airlines Flight 987 on November 12, 2001.
wikipedia says the cause was
Loss of control following separation of vertical stabilizer due to excessive rudder inputs
but one wonders if there was a mechanical problem.
Almost always dummy warheads. Every sub every year or so exercises torpedos - with dummy warheads.
Almost always...
The Atlantic Undersea Test and Evaluation Center (AUTEC) is a U.S. Navy facility that conducts testing and evaluation of undersea weapons systems, including live warheads, in a controlled environment. It features multiple test ranges for various types of warfare simulations and assessments, ensuring the proficiency of Navy personnel and the effectiveness of their equipment.
You put it all together live warheads are used pretty much daily at different ranges all over the US and at extended ranges between all services. It doesn’t rarely happen.
I don’t know about you but sometimes it is a curse. I get on something curious and it even bugs me in my sleep. I just have to know more... It is like a treasure hunt. :)
As for skills, I don’t know why the old middle ages tradition of only being allowed to “have one trade skill” still lingers. We live in a world where the only thing holding us back from self teaching ourselves many different skills is our own time and effort and many times it is free. You do not have to go to formal school, pay out the nose, and get a paper to get good at something on your own for yourself. Not having paper does not mean you are not allowed to be very good at something you like. Just like learning how to build something for yourself personally instead of buying it is absolutely acceptable and legal despite proprietary claims.
That peer control is pressured onto us by society. “Someday I will take a class and learn more”, Why? Everything you want to know about it is online for free, just dedicate time and research it in depth until you have learned it well. If you are not trying to get hired on somewhere and just doing it for yourself no paper is required at all... There is no law against expanding your own knowledge base and learning multiple skills or being well versed in many different interests...
But I wouldn’t recommend buying an airplane and then try to teach yourself how to fly it... I actually watched a guy with money do that one time. Believe it or not he did teach himself how to fly and lived through it but was busted and grounded for life. So of course there are a few limitations to this concept of self instruction but very few.
But at the same time there is nothing to prevent one from learning everything they can about flight physics and flying if they are interested in flight. It is free prerequisite knowledge towards maybe taking lessons someday and getting a license if you really want to. Making the personal extra effort is already a huge step ahead by understanding what flight is and how aircraft work or even if it is just to understand how the shape of bird wings allow them to glide and soar...
“someone I know who is in a position to know, *TOLD ME*.”
I’m sorry you do not have any friends that share personal privileged knowledge with you... That could be because you don’t have any friends... It would be quite logical based on observation...
How interesting. The page was created in 2008 and immediately tries to link to the Flight 800 disaster.
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Philippine_Airlines_Flight_143&oldid=207536648
This would be more compelling if this entry existed *BEFORE* the flight 800 disaster, but I don't think Wikipedia even existed back then.
It describes the exact situation claimed for Flight 800. It is so eerily similar that one cannot help but think it was deliberately written that way to establish "precedent."
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The Thai Airways flight smells a little funny too. It says a fuel pump impeller caused an ignition source that ignited "vapors" in the fuel tank. Fuel pump impellers are generally *IN* the liquid fuel, and so consequently couldn't create actual sparks, but they could perhaps create enough friction (the article mentions metal shavings) to heat the fuel past the point it would combust.
So maybe. A bad fuel pump creating intense heat in a concentrated area is a reasonable explanation for how fuel inside of a tank could have ignited, but that is not what has been alleged by the flight 800 "investigators."
The China Air example has a fuel tank punctured by a bolt, with the tank leaking fuel and being ignited by an engine. This is not even close to what is being claimed for Flight 800.
So you have 1 suspicious example. 1 maybe rational example, and a third that is not any sort of example.
According to an AI bot, Boeing has made 19,565 commercial airliners. We have in theory, three examples of the center fuel tank spontaneously exploding?
Even if we accept all examples of center fuel tank explosions as valid, that works out to be a 0.00015333 percent rate for center fuel tank explosions.
That's a pretty weak nail to hang this theory on.
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The performance of small missiles like the Stinger means their motors would burn out long before impact.
Nobody said it was a stinger. Pretty sure the Iranians wouldn't have those anyway. They probably have/had some Russian surface to air missiles.
Stinger type missiles do not have the sufficiently reliable performance needed to shoot down TWA-800 under the circumstances it exploded.
Nobody said it was a Stinger.
Regardless of what witnesses claimed, given the limits of what the human eye can resolve (1 minute of arc, .0003 radian) seeing a Stinger to Standard sized missile in flight, at night, after motor burn out, 10 to 20 miles away, is impossible.
Nobody said it was a stinger.
Exactly.
But I wouldn’t recommend buying an airplane and then try to teach yourself how to fly it... I actually watched a guy with money do that one time. Believe it or not he did teach himself how to fly and lived through it but was busted and grounded for life.
All the original pilots learned that way. Of course it is my understanding you can fly "experimental" aircraft without a license so long as it is less that 500 some odd pounds of weight.
There are a lot of kit planes out there that fit these specs and it has been a subject for which I have had some interest for some time. I've actually thought about buying one of these and and flying it.
I have actually gone through the flight training school and I got my paper certificate, but I have never racked up enough flying hours to get my actual license. Back when I was doing it, it was hard to schedule an instructor and a rental at the same time.
Not just a friend, but a friend who was *IN A POSITION TO KNOW* what was going on regarding this incident.
The only thing that makes me wonder about this is why other such people have not yet leaked knowledge of this in the 29 years since flight 800 was destroyed.
I find it hard to believe that this could be kept secret for so many years.
“Back when I was doing it, it was hard to schedule an instructor and a rental at the same time.”
I get that for sure. And it is EXPENSIVE... I think the current rate for both together is around $250 an hour. If you go up once a week it would be like a monthly mortgage payment on a real nice home.
I was an enlisted submarine sailor at the time of the TWA 800 explosion. We had torpedoes, mines, and tomahawk missiles onboard my 688 class boat. We never had (sub)surface-to-air missiles. We would just hide from aircraft below the thermocline. I suppose you know that, hence this super secret "black program" that no one knows about and can't be proven.
But let me get this straight. Your belief is as follows:
-there was this super secret black program for submerged submarines to shoot down the largest flying object in range (as submarines cannot track objects in the sky while submerged)
-the CO would indiscriminately fire something out of his torpedo tubes that he "would not have a need to know" about. IOW he just shoots weapons out without a clue what it was. Could be a nuke. Who knows? Who cares? Not him.
-that this CO had these super secret live warheads (that he possibly didn't know about) fired out in an area not approved for weapons exercises (as it was in a flight path of the busiest airport in the largest city of the country)
-the CO was not able to put two and two together that an airliner blew up right near his boat within minutes of him firing something super secret out of his torpedo tubes (that he didn't know about)
-but it was all just an accident, yet not one member of the crew talked about it afterwards?
Is that really what you believe?
That is not my post.
Way back, we were in an exercise with a carrier fleet. Of course limited on staying in the x-y-z “box”.
We could hear the sonobouys but they couldn’t locate us.
We went under the carrier at a shallow depth and fired a flare showing our location and then disappeared!
No it is not, it is the post you were making fun of.
Your statement might carry water but for the main character having spent 30 years developing/FOIAing evidence and preparing for court…
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