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
“
Anyone know if the fuel tanks were vented? I would think if the fuel was hot and vapors were rising it would push oxygen out. I have no idea, but seems logical. I know on hot days my lawnmower gas container gets bloated.”
Minimal. Jet fuel, even at 100 F has a very low vapor pressure.
They took an instrumented plane up under the same conditions.
The measured fuel/air ratio was about 0.05, indicating the vapor was displacing only 5% of the air.
That was definitely interesting. But you might note that it was an autumn day in the northeast (fallen leaves/dude is wearing a hoodie) so all those fuels were likely in the 50-65 deg F range.
Jet-A, diesel, #2, and kero all have flashpoints above 100 deg F, so it is no surprise that they don’t burn with an ignition source. They aren’t hot enough to give off vapors yet. If he kept the torch on them long enough, they would definitely burn.
Or if he put the jars on a hot plate to raise the temperature to around 150 deg F, the would all light up with a match like the gasoline at room temperature.
Note that the flashpoint of gasoline is -45 deg F. That’s why it lights so easily. Get the Jet-A above its flashpoint and it will light off too without being sprayed.
Also note that an electrical arc is much, much hotter than a propane torch. Electrical arcs are hotter than the sun. Arcs ionize air and form plasma. Literally hot enough to vaporize metal.
Haha nice. We never played around with the fleet. I was on a non VLS-boat, and all we ever did was specops by ourselves.
The only exciting thing during Westpac was being chased by an Oscar for a few days where we would try to lose it, but it would be on us no matter what we did. Then it would just disappear for a few hours, and then follow us again, and then of course disappear again.
It did this so regularly that an electrician helping sonar plot things recommended to one of the officers to get a list of all the equipment that had been started in the last 30 minutes. I ended up renaming one of our auxiliary drain pumps “Oscar.” We then unbolted Oscar and hung the pump and motor from ratchet straps for the rest of the operation. The Engineering Dept Master Chief got mad and made me paint over the orange stenciled name. Yet I’d always call up for permission to start Oscar, and people in Maneuvering liked that.
Well look at JFK... It is possible for super sensitive situations. NDAs are a very serious thing.
Fast Attack. Two westpacs out of Pearl. One Westpac out of Oakland. CVA(N)-65, her seventh, first with the F-14’s.
Ah the Enterprise! And Tomcats!!! Nice.
I was aboard subs the whole time. One Medrun out of Groton, and one Westpac and an Eastpac out of Pearl.
The Medrun was with Submarine NR-1. Got to meet the guy who found the Titanic. He was kind of a jerk to me though.
“Yet I’d always call up for permission to start Oscar,”
We had a forward officer that had to stand EOOW and he hated it. Always bugging machinery watch sup for relief and sneaking around trying to catch watchstanders radioing logs. He totally ignored his Maneuvering station duties, keeping his back turned and nose in non-engineering books.
One day we got him. The LLM room put the sound powered phone next to the primary sampling pump and called Maneuvering. I picked, “Maneuvering, Aye” and released the button do it went to the speaker. The speaker was emitting a sound just like it was coming from the DG room while it was running.
Note: We were transiting at greater than 400’, greater than 20 knots.
The LLMR watch proceeded with “Maneuvering, Diesel Gen. Diesel warmed up and on the Governor”
I replied Maneuvering Aye” and hung up.
Without saying anything word to us, the EOOW dialed conn and asked if they wanted to load the diesel. About 5 seconds later the CO came over the 1MC:
“EWs relieve EOOW, EOOW lay to conn, ASAP. Less than two minutes later, the EOOW returned, took all his forward materials bak forward, came back aft and resumed the watch in a professional manner.
Not a word about it was said to me or the LLMR watch about it.
I won’t ask how deep you went?
Great post. Trust me, I don’t want to believe that the 747 has design flaws that could lead to it exploding, but the lack of evidence of a missile hit is too great. I’m basing this on there being no perforation of the fuselage from an external blast like you can see on the Malaysian Air 777 flight 17. I don’t know enough about the missiles themselves, so your post was quite educational.
“You might find this interesting. Guy tries to light jet fuel on fire with a blowtorch.”
Thanks.
I liked that big ball of flame when the jet fuel was ignited by the blowtorch! FF to 2:40.
Okay, that literally had me laugh out loud just picturing it happening.
I never went down on NR-1. Only stood SRW on it in port. Had a crew of about 45 but could only take 11 crewmembers down plus two passengers, usually scientists. Most of us were on the MV Carolyn Chouest while out to sea.
However, NR-1’s test depth was declassified in 1995. Could go down to 3000 feet.
Most of our ops in the Med were at 2800 feet (with me recovering objects on the surface in a zodiac boat to tie onto to the Chouest’s crane to lift onto the deck).
So whenever anyone asked me how deep a 688 class can go, I always answered that it was greater than 400 feet... but less than 3000.
(Actually, I think we’re allowed to say “greater than 800 feet” now but not when I was in. So, somewhere between 800 and 3000 feet would be the new answer to them.)
Also, NR-1 was supposedly used to recover pieces of the Challenger disaster. Those stories were passed down from crew to crew all the way until I was there and likely until it was scrapped.
Okay, time to get off the computer and go for some beer and wings.
We never expected him to dial up Conn without asking us.
We didn’t know the CO was in Conn. I don’t a single word was spoken for the rest of the watch.
We had a new chief come aboard right before we left. After he got to know us, he told me that the Engineering Officer warned him when he came aboard about me and my best buddy.
Crazy times those were. Yep, Bill Clinton was president at the time. Former governor of Arkansas. A fine upstanding American who never benefited from any cocaine trafficking out of the Mena airport. It is all above board. Don’t question a thing and take your shots when told to do so.
And that center fuel tank was heated to 140 degrees?
Also note that an electrical arc is much, much hotter than a propane torch. Electrical arcs are hotter than the sun. Arcs ionize air and form plasma. Literally hot enough to vaporize metal.
Judging by the close proximity necessary to ignite hot jet fuel, unless that arc is right at the boundary layer between liquid and gas, it isn't going to light it off.
Also, the arc produced from a sending unit's current would have to be extremely small. Microscopic, perhaps.
Years ago when I argued this with someone else, I looked up the wiring of that aircraft and found out how much current was available for the sending unit. It was extremely small. Certainly not enough to form any significant arc.
That conversation is still somewhere on free republic, and it includes links to reports and diagrams.
Had I been my friend, I would have likely said nothing of the matter. In retrospect, I surprised he talked about it.
And it was out of the blue. We were *NOT* discussing flight 800. I was telling my friends about how fake Obama's birth certificate was.
Thanks to you for watching it. A lot of people will simply not bother to look at evidence that they think contradicts what they wish to believe. It takes some guts to hear a man out.
I liked that big ball of flame when the jet fuel was ignited by the blowtorch! FF to 2:40.
Everybody knows jet fuel burns because they fly planes with it. What surprised me when I first saw that video is the guy showing how it doesn't burn so easy as I thought it would.
“Everybody knows jet fuel burns because they fly planes with it. What surprised me when I first saw that video is the guy showing how it doesn’t burn so easy as I thought it would.”
At 2:40 he shows how EASILY goes boom! And that is at cool temperatures. Dude is wearing a jacket. Imagine those vapors at 130 degrees!
You have lead a sheltered life. One of my childhood chores was ti light off the kerosene heater each morning.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.