Or, admit as evidence the testimonies of 150 eye witnesses and around half mention orange streaks originating from the ocean surface traveling upward, and then the fire balls.
The following personally prepared report of two airborne witnesses scuttles the conspiracy theorists missile shootdown notions. Everybody originally believed the huge fireball explosion took place at 13,800 feet at about 8:31:12 but it's clear from the detailed report of these 2 airborne witnesses that the huge fireball exploded at or below 7500 feet long after 8:31:12 and it's accordingly obvious that by then all the wreckage was falling. There was only one fiery streak - which immediately preceeded the huge fireball explosion, lasted only momentarily and was also descending.
THE REPORT OF SVEN FARET AND KEN WENDELL:
Situation:
Pilot : Sven Faret 1.516.349.5999 x1#
Passenger : Ken Wendell 1.516.271.2681
8500 feet over Riverhead LI, NY.
Apx 20:40 hrs, July 17, 1996
N1182J climbing at 95 knots (AC-12 Privately Owned)
090 heading
Visibility 8 miles in haze below. Top of haze 6500 feet
Visibility 50+ miles above haze
Setting sun lighting up clouds to the north, above the haze
Ground very dark, Ground surface lights outlining Long Island
Ocean waters very black
Prior contact with Long Island departure control on 118.00.
Frequency change approved, squawking 1200.
Monitoring 118.00, listening to local traffic.
Observation:
Being cautious of traffic in a dark sky, we had all marker lights, strobes and sky flasher operating on our aircraft. Ken pointed out traffic at 3 o'clock low (actually 2:30). Sven saw a white light steady in the sky. My first impression was landing lights pointing towards us putting it in Northerly direction. Ken saw 2 lights very close together. A short "pin flash of light " appeared on the ground (perhaps water). Very shortly thereafter the white light exploded instantaneously into a huge red-orange ball. My initial thoughts were "who's shooting fireworks tonight. " The magnitude of the fire ball, and altitude, quickly (less than a second) ruled that out. Immediately thereafter a large fire ball emerged from the bottom of the initial fireball, accelerating straight down, as if it had just started to fall. Like a teardrop it drew with it a tail of fire down to the water surface. We watched intently as the descending fire fell closer to the water. Sven was awaiting the fire to illuminate the water surface as it fell. At the same moment a pilot reported it to the controller on 118.00. A second pilot responded and then we reported it. We saw it hit the water, lighting up the surrounding surface very well. Large splashes could be seen all around the fire. The fire on the surface was relatively small, but was spreading quickly. I asked Ken " What was that!?... It's probably the National Guard boys losing a C130 or something...Maybe they shot down one of their own planes."
We proceeded to fly over to the smoke cloud. As we crossed over the shore line I looked down and saw 3 boats enroute to the fire, about 25% of the way. I estimated the flames to be 6-7 miles off shore. We watched intently seeing a flashing light at the SE edge of the flames, but it soon stopped. We observed a steady blinking light drifting SW away from the scene. Ken said it appeared to be a helicopter just west of the flames. Sven thought it could have been a marker beacon on a life raft. This was about 5+ minutes after the explosion. We approached the black-gray smoke cloud on the west side. We were at 7700 feet and were at the top edge of the cloud. The cloud center was at 7500 feet. There were 2 small bumps atop it. There was no smoke or smoke trails above it. It was still lit up a little by the sun, clear above. There was a tornado like tail leaving the bottom of it leading down to the flames. It had a small arc in it as the winds gently moved the cloud NNW. I said to Ken " I have an eery feeling about this place, what ever stung this thing could sting us too. Let's bolt out-a-here." We swung north. As we were turning, we saw twin engine commuter traffic above us at 8000+ traveling NW. We called Flight service on 122.6 and reported what we saw. We flew back to Riverhead and East. Over Mattituck Airport we decided that the event had to be enough of a finale for the evening. We called approach on 132.25 for clearance back to Islip. We also told that controller what we saw.
Immediate Personal Impressions:
No thoughts of commercial air traffic accident.
Some aircraft with a lot of fuel.
A missile attack seems improbable, but not impossible.
The quickness of the eruption.
A white light exploding into a fire ball.
Very vertical accelerating descent of debris.
The length of the flame tail extending from the descending debris.
Clear sky above the gray smoke cloud.
Dark thin drifting smoke trail down to the debris on the surface.
Post Flight Actions:
We returned back to the hanger and called our wives. We let them know that we were OK, in case they might have heard of any air accident reports. When we got to Ken's house, we heard that a 747 went down. We called Fox News and told them what we saw.
Post Media Personal Impressions:
We were interviewed by the FBI and NTSB. They took our report, but we felt that they did not capture the detail we expressed, or the certainty of our facts.
Comments:
Although Sven & Ken are in no position to conclude anything, this piece of the puzzle MUST fit into any official version of this incident.
Notes: Only burning debris was visible to us.
Feb 97: Addendum:
Time has passed, the mystery of the downing of Flight 800 still eludes us. (probably not all of us). Until all data is evaluated, we’ll have to wait for the official facts. From an idealistic view, there is no reason to think otherwise. (what a perfect world we live in). Since Ken & Sven made this report public, we have heard many opinions on our sighting. We saw what we saw and report it as such. We have nothing to gain or loose. It has apparent that some aviation experience is required in reading this report. There is one fact that bothers us, however. No mention is ever made of the fact that the explosion was at 7500 feet! We do not dispute the fact that something happened at 13,800 feet, but what happened after that. There is 5000 feet unaccounted for.
We would like to emphasize:
We approached the black-gray smoke cloud on the west side. We were at 7700 feet and were at the top edge of the cloud. The cloud center was at 7500 feet. There were 2 small bumps atop it. There was no smoke or smoke trails above it. It was still lit up a little by the sun, clear above. We don’t why this has never been discussed in any scenarios.
Nov 97: Addendum:
In our opinion, the CIA presentation of what happened to flight 800 seems to be the best explanation to date. There are of course, different opinions. Ken & I agree that it's closest we'll get to an official explanation with the facts as presented.
http://208.65.234.212/flight_800.shtml