Linda Jordan interviewed the passenger Charles Philip "Flip" Hollstein a number of times on the phone. Jordan worked at the time at "TheBirtherReport."
As TheBirtherReport has gone defunct, those reports are no longer available on-line to my knowlege, though perhaps in on-line archives. Hollstein was a former Army Green Beret. At least some of Holstein's accounts are demonstrably disinformation, in which he would have been trained during his time in the Army.
Jordan represented to me that Hollstein disclosed to her that all but one of the passengers had been paid by the commuter airline's insurance provider, Perry Brown. The one hold-out was purported to be the book author, who was ostensibly nailing down terms for the book he intended to write.
Hollstein represented that he swam the (and the accounts vary) 1/2 mile, mile, or even mile-and-a-half to shore from the crash site, estimating it took him "about 90 minutes."
He's on the video, standing 200 yards from shore until about six minutes before he reached the shoreline. Prior to his six-minute swim to shore, he was seen in the video always near the rest of the passengers, Multiple times he was apparently standing on the ocean floor. Thus, he lied about his lengthy swim, how much exaggerated time it supposedly took him, and that he swam ashore "to get help." When he reached shore, there was no resulting increased effort toward rescuing those who remained. He said the "guy in the State truck" he first saw while ashore was trying to raise the US Coast Guard, which by that time had been on-site for about ten minutes--longer than it had taken him to swim ashore.
The videographer, Ferdinand Puentes, was interviewed multiple times and seemed to be forthcoming in a very down-home, Hawaiian style. Years after the crash the 40+ year old Puentes was convicted on three counts of statutory rape. I believe the victim was 14-15 years old.
Puentes made two very clear statements about his camera use. First, at the end of the take-off video, he says, “[J]ust as soon as I turn off the camera, within…couple seconds—a few seconds, that…that noise of the plane’s engine just … just happened, so I just turned it back on and made sure it was on and I just kept on rolling.” For the ABC Nightline interview segment, he said, “GoPro running—you know—all the time.”
And yet, for the ditching portion of the video, there is only 15 minutes 48 seconds of footage, comprised of 31 seconds of video prior to ditching and 15:17 after. The viewer is told as well that he continued recording until his batteries ran out. GoPro batteries are typically good for an hour and a half of recording with a full charge, and as he was intending to shoot video, one can only believe he would have taken care to fully charge his camera's batteries before the flight, one should expect there would be about an hour and a half of video available. And so it was.
The videographer showed himself to be in charge of passenger activity far more effectively than the pilot. Despite claimed high winds, strong currents and whitecaps, he was at several junctures able to capture his video’s participants in scenes that included all of them in the cameras’ field of view, even 45 minutes apart.
Curiously, the videographer in an interview with KHON2 TV news interview, he tried to play both sides of the fence of the sounds in the cabin during the descent to the water, by saying, “As the sirens and bells of the airplane was going, and we--you know--it just, it was quiet.” I'd call it very planned, and yet very conflicted.
With the aid of the timestamps to be found in the Maui County Dispatcher's log, we see items in the video that were 70+ minutes apart. That's nicely in keeping with the videographer's representation that he "just kept on rolling," but then, where are all those intervening 70+ minutes? He provide only less than 18 minutes of video to the NTSB, as if that was all that existed. That shows clear misrepresentation. What could possibly have been his motivation to "misrepresent?"
Semi-retired Illinois Institute of Technology professor Bruce Briley, along with his wife, was a passenger on the ditching aircraft. Bruce has written a book he calls “The True Account” of the Fuddy crash. Briley was the subject of the MauiNews on-line interview, mentioned above.
There is actually very little in Briley's book about the crash and its aftermath, with far more that deals with Briley’s family history, his wife’s family history, how he met his wife, his family’s forebears, the horse thieves among them, descriptions of the other books he’s written, a brief history of Moloka’i, an in-depth description of the lighthouse at Kalaupapa, a background on his Kalaupapa Tour Guide, a recounting of his trip five years prior to Durban, South Africa, a Civil War Era document concerning his grandfather, a picture and description of the Catholic church on Kalaupapa, his other writing about the insect, the Ashborer, and even 8 pithy pages of his Reliability Polynomial Paper, first published somewhere else, of course.
Why would it be needful for the kitchen sink of Briley's irrelevant family history, early jobs, tangential Ash borer (and by the way, everyone agrees that it’s supposed to be two words, not one as the author puts forth) interests and other writings to be thrown into this breezy hagiography to Briley's supposed rescuers, Hansen’s disease patients and fellow plane occupants, whom the book demonstrably mislabels, left and right? ‘There is no “there” there.’ The "kitchen sink” was thrown in. Any “beef" was left out.
Why are all those other things in Briley’s account? Partly, because without them, his “true account” would be a mere pamphlet. But surely there was a lot to share that was never described! One could start with a complete narrative of what supposedly happened. That theoretically could offset the findings of this book, but this author is fairly sure the planning conspirators and passenger-actors would not want to talk about their hours of design, scripting sessions, briefings, training and rehearsals, etc.
Misspellings!? When was the last time the reader picked up a supposedly finished, commercial book, only to find numerous misspellings? What can that possibly indicate? It surely means no editor of any quality was allowed to pound it into shape! Therefore, what could that mean? Surely an only semi-retired professor collects a sufficient paycheck to be able to afford a few thousand dollars for a work that will inevitably, indelibly reflect directly on that author’s reputation!
Who should be made to puzzle at the string of characters: d-i-s-e-a-r-s-e when the author apparently means 'disease'? ‘Complementary’ stack of local newspapers? That perhaps originated with a math aficionado who has a failing memory. ‘Mikani Kai Air’ not ‘Makani Kai Air’? Mr. Gratton’s name gets spelled ‘Gratten.’
L-I-E-S Air was said to own the plane. Okay, maybe that wasn't a typo! God was seeing that “Truth will out.” But Briley’s book says the CGC had an RT6a engine. This is counter to Cessna’s ubiquitous representations! That should tell us that no pilot, Kawasaki or otherwise, ever proofread a draft of “Wing and a Prayer.”
Briley claims ELTs (an aviation radio transmitter that activates on sudden impacts such that rescue resources might be notified) are activated by immersion, but therein he has confused an ELT with an EPIRB, which does have that characteristic. ELTs are g-force activated. While Briley also suggests that the first-on-the-crash-scene pilot, Josh Lang could have homed in on the Cessna Grand Caravan’s ELT signal, the 1977 Grumman Cheetah which Lang flew that day almost certainly would not have had equipment on board that was capable of homing-in to such a 121.5MHz signal. ADF (Auto Directional Finder) equipment that is often found on General Aviation aircraft operates in the AM (kHz) radio frequency range, but not for 121.5MHz.
The passenger-author dramatically says the starboard rear passenger “door was eventually kicked open.” By the ten-second mark post-ditching—during which time one hears no kicking-type sounds, certainly none in desperation—the door has already been opened. Nonetheless, Briley says “[I]t finally yielded to vigorous kicking.” Thus, use of the words, ‘eventually,’ ‘vigorous’ and ‘kicking’ must be considered poetic license in ample measure.
Bruce Briley claims (though uncertainly) that he was the last person out of the cabin prior to the pilot, but it has been verified that Ms. Fuddy exited after Briley. There is also evidence that a non-passenger was still in the cabin with Fuddy.
In addition, who is this Governor Abernathy Briley writes about? Oh, perhaps it is a confusion with Pastor Ralph Abernathy. Yes, sure. Surely an author with ten other books, and also able to hold down a part-time professorship, knows that any author can’t afford to go without an editor! No? Ah, the perils of self-publishing—or rather those of the public who buy such "works" from self-publishing authors whose books have zero reviews, even after being on the market for more than a year and a half!
Briley should actually be hopping mad that his wife was so seriously injured as to need such long-term rehabilitation because of this misadventure. The insurance company did compensate everyone, though, did they not? Bruce told this author his wife’s credit card wallet was returned to her not long after the ditching, probably while she was still in the hospital, but without the large sum of cash she claimed it had contained. One can only imagine that the insurance company saw to its replacement. Curiously, HawaiiNewsNow was told that only some tools and a tool belt were found200. There were not supposed to have been any divers or their high-tech gear anywhere near the airplane, as you know, Bruce! The USCG and MCFD rescue swimmers only appeared 45 minutes after everybody had already left the "sinking" plane. So, who were these characters and those others "not on the manifest"? If this were a true story, it would have disclosed 1) that Fuddy was replaced by a red-wigged diver, 2) that military divers didn't bother to take 10 minutes to get the seriously injured or dying to shore, but instead left them on the water an average of 100 minutes. 3) This didn't happen in the open ocean, but the plane in fact "came to an abrupt stop" (per Flip) from hitting an outcropping of ocean floor that mustered a 14g+ force to break and send Marilyn's seat crashing to the cabin floor, 4) that occupants were able to stand in many places on the squishy ocean floor during those 100 minutes, 5) a bluehelmet- atop-red-hair mannequin in Fuddy's likeness was probably "coincidentally" on board, 6) Briley wore a helmet and yet was willing to receive a forehead abrasion to hide that fact, and 7) both Brileys wore special life jackets, neither of which were acknowledged and would not have been present if the scenario were not a hoax.
The author never bothers to explain how the videographer at one point calls out, “Everybody let’s go! Head to shore!” late in the scenario. Why was that any less of a possibility five minutes after the ditching? (It wasn't.)
How many times can one thank the pilot for giving up his life jacket to one’s wife? It seems three was not enough, so he chose to do that four times. For what could the author possibly be compensating? Ah, yes, we must not forget THE BAG with the phallus that his wife Marilyn will forever have to live down. It would appear that book’s author does not envy that much.
After the book author claimed to slide along the trailing edge of the starboard wing to bring his supposed wife, Marilyn, a life jacket, why does the video show that when he breaks off from the wing to stand beside the real book author, Marilyn still isn't in possession of a life jacket as the book author swims aft several yards and calmly floats on his back?
The book author/passenger was tremendously concerned about his wife’s life jackets (plural). One he kept at his chest still in its plastic wrapper, and the second—THE BAG—he tended at his right hand. The author/passenger just could not intone that one of the life jackets he tended for his wife was a clandestine Navy electronic communications package. When the facts were that Briley very much deserves to get kudos for keeping his wife’s safety in mind by tending to her life jacket, Briley chose overridingly to protect “the mission” even above his own personal interest. Therefore, he projected himself into the person of Flip Hollstein, and portrayed himself as the watchful caretaker, lest he draw attention to just what it was he had at his chest and right hand.
Despite the pilot's two different representations about the altitude at which the so-called "catastrophic engine failure" occurred (300' and 500'), both Puentes and Briley stated (as in the MauiNews interview) "around 1,000 or 1,500 feet altitude the engine blew up.". How could two non-pilots have gotten that fact (confirmed by the video) gotten it right, when the pilot was so far off--even so as to claim he violated company procedures to achieve his version of them? The pilot had motivation to lie, where the others were most likely just recounting what they heard the pilot say in an honest moment among friends.
Thank you for outing the truth about the Fuddy ditching. Q should link to your post.