Posted on 07/16/2004 4:53:39 AM PDT by JohnHuang2
Edited on 07/16/2004 4:55:29 AM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
Last July 17, the major media made no comment that seven years prior, on July 17, 1996, TWA Flight 800 exploded off the coast of Long Island, killing all 230 people on board.
If the media took note of the date "July 17" at all last year, it was only to observe that American soldiers had found it scrawled on walls throughout Iraq. July 17, after all, was Iraq's national liberation day, the day Saddam helped lead the Baath Party to power in 1968, the day he seized the presidency in 1979, and not impossibly, the day he took his revenge on the United States in 1996.
This year, as every year, thousands of TWA Flight 800 family members and other interested parties will honor the date. Among them is Capt. Ray Lahr. Just last week, the retired United Airline pilot learned that his case against the National Transportation Safety Board and the Central Intelligence Agency is still on track. On Monday, Aug. 2, Lahr and his attorney, John Clarke of Washington, will square off against the NTSB and the CIA at the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.
Lahr is hoping to force the NTSB and CIA to disclose the data upon which they based what Lahr calls "the impossible zoom-climb." As the agencies and Lahr both understand, the zoom-climb is the Achilles heel of the TWA Flight 800 investigation.
The FBI first publicly advanced the zoom-climb scenario when it bowed out of the case in November 1997. Its agents did so to negate the stubborn testimony of the hundreds of eyewitnesses who had sworn they saw a flaming, smoke-trailing, zigzagging object destroy TWA Flight 800.
To make its case, the FBI presented a video prepared by the CIA. A key animation sequence in that video showed an internal fuel tank explosion blowing the nose off the aircraft, which then "pitched up abruptly and climbed several thousand feet from its last recorded altitude of about 13,800 feet to a maximum altitude of about 17,000 feet." This rocketing aircraft, claimed the video, looked like a missile and confused the eyewitnesses.
This animation was essential to close the investigation. Without it, there was no way to explain what these hundreds of eyewitnesses – many of them highly credible – had actually seen. A veteran safety investigator and a serious researcher in the field of gravity, Ray Lahr watched this animation in utter disbelief. He knew this scenario to be impossible, and he set out to prove it. When he learned that not a single eyewitness had seen the plane ascend, including airline pilots who had watched it from above, he redoubled his efforts to discover the basic physics behind the alleged zoom-climb. For the last several years, however, despite numerous FOIA requests, the NTSB has refused to cooperate. The impressively stubborn Lahr finally took the agency to court.
Lahr has done an excellent job pulling the sometimes-fractious TWA 800 community together to assist him. Many key people have filed sworn affidavits with Lahr, including retired Rear Adm. Clarence Hill, and their collective commentary has to impress even the most skeptical of observers. All of this evidence, including the court papers, can be found at RayLahr.com, as well as in past articles on WorldNetDaily.
One question that has never been resolved is just how the CIA animation project came to pass. Two recent books, however, do shed light on the dynamics of the video's creation. One is the much-discussed "Against All Enemies," by Richard Clarke, then chairman of the Clinton administration's Coordinating Security Group on terrorism. The second is Murray Weiss's recent and highly readable book, "The Man Who Warned America," on the subject of John O'Neill, a terrorist expert with the FBI who died in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11.
Within 30 minutes of TWA Flight 800's destruction, Clarke relates in his book, he had convened a meeting of the CSG in the White House situation room. "The FAA," Clarke reports, "was at a total loss for an explanation. The flight path and the cockpit communications were normal. The aircraft had climbed to 17,000 feet, then there was no aircraft."
Clarke here serves up two significant untruths in a book replete with them. The first is that the Federal Aviation Administration was at "a total loss" for an explanation. In fact, it was the FAA that prompted the meeting and did so for a very specific and frightening reason: Its personnel believed the aircraft had been attacked. As NTSB Chairman Jim Hall would report in a confidential November 1996 report, "Top intelligence and security officials were told in a video conference from the White House Situation Room that radar tapes showed an object headed at the plane before it exploded."
Clarke also deceives the reader about altitude. The FAA never reported an altitude of 17.000 feet – nothing close. The FAA knew that the last recorded altitude of TWA Flight 800 was "about 13,800 feet" as even the CIA animation later admits. In the retelling, Clarke pads in the zoom-climb differential on the night of the crash and attributes it falsely to the FAA.
Weiss, who had excellent access to O'Neill's FBI colleagues, gets much closer to the truth as to the motive behind the emergency White House meeting. "The FAA," he writes, "initially reported spotting a radar blip on their tapes that indicated there was another plane or projectile near TWA Flight 800 when it exploded." This much is true. Weiss, however, is misled on his next point, namely that the FAA told the FBI one day later that "there was no blip. There were no missiles picked up on the JFK scanners." The sighting was an "anomaly."
In truth, to its credit, the FAA refused to change its story despite the pressure to do so. When in November 1996, the NTSB leaned on the FAA to "agree that there is no evidence that would suggest a high speed target merged with TWA 800," the FAA refused.
"We cannot comply with your request," the FAA's David Thomas responded. "By alerting law-enforcement agencies, air-traffic control personnel simply did what was prudent at the time and reported what appeared to them to be a suspicious event. To do less would have been irresponsible."
To set the record straight on this issue, Ray Lahr persuaded one key witness, James Holtsclaw, to go public for the first time. In 1996, Holtsclaw was serving as the deputy assistant for the Western Region of the Air Transport Association. Within a week of the crash, Holtsclaw received the radar tape directly from an NTSB investigator frustrated by its suppression. "The tape shows a primary target at 1200 knots converging with TWA 800, during the climb out phase of TWA 800," swears Holtsclaw on the Lahr affidavit.
In fact, before the investigation was through, authorities would introduce five different explanations to rationalize away that "blip." This obvious dissembling may explain why investigators felt the need to smuggle out evidence. Holtsclaw's informant would be the first of several – at least four of whom would be either suspended from the investigation or arrested.
Within weeks of the crash, the FBI would interview more than 700 eyewitnesses. By its own count, 270 of them saw lights streaking upward toward the plane. Defense Department analysts also debriefed some of these witnesses, 34 of whom, according to the FBI, described events "consistent with the characteristics of the flight of [anti-aircraft] missiles." There were also scores of witness drawings, some so accurate and vivid they could chill the blood.
About four weeks after the crash, Clarke reports in "Against All Enemies," he met with O'Neill, who told him that the eyewitness interviews "were pointing to a missile attack, a Stinger." Given what the FBI knew at the time, this much seems credible.
"[TWA 800] was at 15,000 feet," Clarke allegedly responds. "No Stinger or any other missile like it can go that high." One would think that on so sensitive and contentious a point, Clarke would have made an effort to get the altitude of TWA 800 right or even consistently wrong. He does neither. In his scarily sloppy book, the boastful Clarke finesses credit for the zoom-climb and, in a stunning revelation, seizes full credit for deducing the exploding fuel tank part of that scenario even before the NTSB did.
Clarke, however, has had a hard time keeping his story straight. In an earlier New Yorker article on O'Neill soon after Sept. 11, Clarke tells reporter Lawrence Wright that it was O'Neill who insisted that TWA Flight 800 was out of the range of the Stinger, and O'Neill who believed that the "ascending flare" that the witnesses saw must have been something else, like "the ignition of leaking fuel from the aircraft."
Weiss likewise gives all credit to O'Neill for the zoom-climb scenario, thinking that it is indeed "credit" O'Neill deserves. Weiss contends that O'Neill not only conceived the zoom-climb scenario, but that he also "persuaded the CIA to do a video simulation of his scenario." Under an eight-panel recreation of the zoom-climb in the photo section of his book, Weiss writes that O'Neill used the CIA video simulation "to quash any fears that the disaster was a terrorist event." This last point is tellingly true.
Clarke and O'Neill have not been the only two agents angling for credit. The best-documented claim, in fact, comes from "CIA Analyst 1" during his April 1999 grilling by a few honest, rank-and-file NTSB investigators. As the CIA analyst relates, the zoom-climb insight came to him like an epiphany. He traced the moment of awareness to the precise hour of 10 p.m. on Dec. 30, 1996.
Said the analyst, "There was a realization, having all the data laid out in front of me, that you can explain what the eyewitnesses are seeing with only the burning aircraft." The analyst came to his startling conclusion after reviewing only about 12 percent of the interview statements. The CIA did no interviews of its own.
What puzzled the NTSB guys was just how many eyewitnesses actually saw a plane with a ruptured center fuel tank rocketing upward with burning fuel spewing behind it (especially with the center fuel tank being essentially empty at take-off). The CIA cited only 21 witnesses. But as the questioning of CIA Analyst 1 wore on, it became clear there were fewer still. An NTSB investigator finally sighed in frustration, "If it's only one or two of [the eyewitnesses], it's not representative of all of them."
Analyst 1 then pulled out his trump card, his key witness, the man who had seen everything: "That [zoom-climb] is something that a few eyewitnesses saw. The guy on the bridge saw that." As we have documented on these pages before, the man on the bridge saw no such thing. The CIA or the FBI (or both or Richard Clarke) manufactured an interview with this man, Mike Wire of Philadelphia, out of whole cloth. Wire's "second interview" is the most crucial bit of evidence in the entire investigation, the evidence around which the zoom-climb scenario was created, and it's fully and provably counterfeit.
Whether Clarke or O'Neill or the CIA analyst were responsible for the zoom-climb scenario individually or together is not relevant to technicians like Ray Lahr. Nor has he focused on how an FBI middle manager like O'Neill could have breached the historic wall between the two agencies and enlisted the CIA in a project that would take at least 11 months from conception to execution. No, what most troubles Lahr is how three men with no discernible aviation or engineering experience could possibly have used any science whatsoever to arrive at such critical conclusions.
The truth of the matter proves elusive. The CIA analyst lied shamelessly in his testimony. Richard Clarke lies shamelessly throughout his book. The jury is still out on O'Neill, but the evidence is not encouraging. As Weiss well documents, O'Neill maintained a wife and two children in New Jersey and simultaneously cajoled at least three women in three different cities into thinking that he was going to marry them. What is more, despite maintaining two households, O'Neill somehow managed to live extravagantly on a government salary. In an otherwise flattering profile, Weiss concedes of O'Neill, "He always seemed to be lying about some aspect of his life."
Whether O'Neill helped conceal the demise of TWA Flight 800 remains unclear. Although Weiss attributes both the zoom-climb scenario and the final TWA 800 report to O'Neill, no reporter made this connection while he was alive. In her book on the crash investigation, "Deadly Departure," CNN reporter Christine Negroni does not even mention O'Neill. In her FBI-friendly book, "In The Blink of an Eye," AP reporter Pat Milton pays O'Neill little heed, but she does reveal that upon hearing the news of the crash, John O'Neill's first call went to none other than Richard Clarke, and it is O'Neill, Clarke's best friend in the FBI, who plays the role of tragic hero in "Against All Enemies."
Ray Lahr will leave it to other courts to establish who was the architect of the greatest peacetime deception in American history. His interest is the zoom-climb scenario itself, according to Weiss, "the most significant part" of the final case-closing FBI presentation.
"A little basic physics," adds Weiss naively, "helped explain what witnesses saw and heard in the summer skies off Long Island." Lahr is hoping that the federal courts will finally force the NTSB and CIA to explain finally what those "little basic physics" are.
I'm not much of a conspiracy fan, but this is pretty easy, really.
Suppose it isn't a terrorist, but it is Saddam. He makes a point of communicating to the Clinton Regime that he is perfectly capable of perpetrating these kinds of attacks at will -- unless, of course, BJ holds the course, drags his feet, and makes sure that we lay off Iraq. Do you think, for one minute, that Slick Willy would have the kahones to confront Saddam and bring it public? (Not I.)
Great article!
God Bless Ray Lahr for his persistence in finding out the truth about "the greatest peacetime deception in American history".
The parents of the fifteen students from Montoursville, PA, who were shot out of the air that night, deserve to know the truth. So do all the other families and loved ones of the victims of the terrorist attack on July 17, 1996.
And Richard Clarke deserves to be hanged from the tallest tree.
BWAHAHA!
Yeah-- a shoulder-fired boloid.
Of course, now that I look it up in order to check the spelling I find that it actually means 'long winded'.
And to think, I thought his s&*t eating grin was due simply to his utilization and subsequent definition of a word I was unfamiliar with.
Aye carumba.
So the boloid came in one of the wndows.
Link, please, Mr. Kallstrom, disgraced former FBI agent.
Look for the section titled "Witness Group Chairman Factual Report". There are 32 appendixes of witness testimony.
An NTSB report.
Is this the same NTSB that bowed to FBI pressure and wouldn't allow eyewitness testimony at the Baltimore hearing?
Where do you think ALL the witness reports came from? Remember that NY Post article you posted? Same witnesses. Remember that newspaper ad you posted in post #123? You got it. Same witnesses. Go to www.twa800.com. It is one of the most widely read TWA 800 conspiracy sites on the internet. Guess where all their witness data comes from. The same 755 witnesses. Now, unless you have another source for witness data concerning TWA 800, I've just sent you a link to the most complete set of data that exists. Enjoy.
And hyperspaced through the cabin deck? That's what it'd have to do, to get to that CWFT without leaving a mark. Also -- any idea how much energy anything from space has when it's still solid at 13,800 MSL?
Anyway, read that Appendix or Annex to the investigation and you'll see chapter and verse on how it was investigated and by whom.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
".... remember one of these spectacular meteors on a Friday night in October 1992. A brilliant greenish meteor traveled slowly across the sky in front me and astonished fans at a Westover High School football game. The meteor was a primetime event all along the East Coast since many other Friday night football fans caught a “falling star,” too. The meteor would become a meteorite seconds later, so called because wasn’t consumed by our atmosphere, it fell to Earth. Actually, it fell on the back of a 1972 Chevrolet Nova in Peekskill, N.Y. It pretty much totaled the car, which was parked in a driveway.
(SEE: http://www.fayettevillenc.com/special/backyard/98as2607.htm )
Blather and conjecture. Nothing more.
"Sorry for singling you out from all the people that post that guff, but I ran across your post exactly at the point where I had had it with endlessly repeated falsehoods, myths, and lies."
Bit fed up with yourself I take it?
But... could it do it without leaving a trace of itself or its entry? It couldn't. Look what happened to that Nova:
It pretty much totaled the car. There would have been zero doubt looking at that Nova what happened to it, I bet. People wouldn't have been looking for a guy in a turban driving a phantom Kenworth.... This post, to an astronomy group long before the TWA investigation has closed, expresses some skepticism about the meteorite theory and discusses the evidentiary difficulties. The author notes that "even if [a puncture] is found, a meteorite impact is still the least likely cause. A man-made object is still far more likely." At that time he had no way of knowing that no suspicious puncture would be found.
We don't have an aircraft known to have been downed by a celestial object for comparison, but the wreckage of aircraft known to have been downed by bombs (ex. PA103) and struck by missiles (three civil a/c I've seen the photos from are the two Air Rhodesia Viscounts and the DHL Airbus) have always had plenty of evidence of that damage.
Here's another list where a JPL scientist is addressing some of the shortcoming of the meteorite theory, in a polite discussion with a meteor-theory supporter. You may wish to read the whole thread. Early in the investigation, a letter writer to Scientific American led them to question several scientists, who come up with a split decision. They say car strikes happen from time to time: one guys says three times last century, one says five or ten in a decade. An aircraft strike is much less likely than a car strike -- maybe 1,000 times less likely -- but certainly not impossible.
Here are official links on TWA 800:
That should give you some interesting reading. Bottom line: a meteor strike on an aircraft in flight is possible but extremely improbable. One that gets in and blows up the plane from inside out without leaving its mark from outside in is even more so.
Personally, I don't sweat any meteors while in a plane... most crashes are still human error, which happens a hell of a lot more frequently. The meteor event that concerns me is the possibility of a dinosaur-killer making all the environmentalists happy by messing up life for us humans (and this is probably even more unlikely. Also, we humans can consciously adapt, a capability the poor lizards lacked). Anyway, here are a few links for you to chew on.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
We'd had half a dozen other folks on that same floor die in a bit longer period of time from various types of cardio-vascular problems ranging from inflammation of the soft-tissue surrounding the brain to plain old fashioned aneurysm.
This is out of an employee population of about 200 people, so it was fairly frightening. Intriguingly most people didn't seem to notice!
During that same period of time, on January 13, 1982, to be precise, we had a plane crash in DC. SEE: http://www.roadstothefuture.com/AirFlorida_SubwayDis.html
Roughly a half hour after the crash there was a subway derailing. My secretary was in the car where she saw, upfront and at close hand a couple of men crushed to death. She was never right again particularly after she heard about the lawyer whose office was directly overhead ours who'd died on the plane.
I was on the bridge and saw the plane hit the cars on 14th Street Bridge and then bounce over upside-down into the Potomac.
At roughly the same time the controller operating a computer punchcard reader on our "ground" floor failed right as it was handling one of my jobs. The printout said "abend 15:28" (or thereabouts).
Adding to all of this, there were hundreds of automobiles in NW DC having ignition problems because, for some unknown reason, their electronic systems were working improperly. Then the new electronically controlled traffic control signals in the near downtown area went out.
The fellow at NTSB (whose article I referenced) believes the plane crash and the subway derailment are UNRELATED, except in time.
He doesn't know about the controller that went out ~ it was in a large windowed room immediately adjacent to the airshaft to the subway tunnel running past our building. The train derailed because a switch at the bottom of that tunnel failed.
One of my coworkers (who later died of a brain tumor) noticed that several of these events happened in a straight line. The plane sat at the end of a large hanger for several hours before it made it's fatal trek down the runway. That point connected with our computer room and the subway airshaft. The traffic control lights that failed were on the same line as were the expensive automobiles with the ignition problems. Eventually we discovered that all the folks with the brain tumors were on that line as were two Department of Defense microwave transmission towers.
Was there a connection of all these events with what was going on with those towers, or was this all coincidental?
Even worse, was there a cover-up? One thing about DOD microwave towers, the FCC doesn't officially know if DOD even has towers, nor do they regulate them! Fortunately the NTSB held hearings on all three sectors of its jurisdiction ~ air, rail and ground ~ at roughly the same time so it's possible to read the different conclusions regarding the probable causes of each "unrelated" event.
The plane crashed because it had too much ice. However, when the pilot throttled up the plane, his instruments record no additional fuel flow to the engines. On that plane the device controlling fuel flow was on top of the cabin in a fiberglas housing. Was it damaged perhaps? NTSB recommended that METRO put aluminum housings around it's switch controls in the tunnels, and to please remove them to someplace other than the bottom of those airshafts. The recommendation for the traffic control systems was similar ~ shield the switches! Again, was this a coincidence or a "Ko Inky Dink"?
Data supplied by the coverup agency. How convenient.
Since you have answers for everything, then please tell me when it became proper protocol during aircraft recovery to blast every object with saltwater prior to securing?
Every part of TWA800 was blasted with saltwater prior to up loading upon the decks of the Navy ships. News footage documented this.
I'm amazed that the lady has not become a gibbering idiot, as Fate singled her out for a pretty bad beating (Hubby didn't do her any favours with the secret kid thing, either, but you can only be so mad at a man that is dead).
I'm very familiar with the Air Florida crash (as you might expect). The wing icing was not as big a deal as you might expect: the two biggest factors were a tiny plug of ice in a hole that air travelers don't even know about, and the crew of the airliner not doing the right thing in the emergency. The rescue efforts that closed the highways were surprisingly effective, and one passenger selflessly passed a number of others to a Park Police helicopter before succumbing to exposure himself; a real hero.
Jets have a throttle just like that on a piston plane, but the pilot doesn't set the power level by manifold pressure or RPM as he does in a piston-engined machine. In the old days they did use RPM, or %RPM. But with modern high-bypass fanjets they use the EPR, engine pressure ratio, gage. This is a barometric gage that compares the pressure in the front of the engine to the pressure in the back. (I.e. the air is coming in to the engine at X pressure and it is going out at 1.4X, so we have EPR of 1.4).
Jets don't take off at full throttle (1) to save fuel and (2) for noise abatement. So instead pilots (or despatchers) calculate the necessary EPR setting for each takeoff. These are subtle differences but over a fleet of hundreds or thousands of planes the fuel bill really adds up. What happened to AF 90 was that ice had closed the forward port. So the EPR on the gage was higher than the actual EPR -- they took off with the throttles too low!
Computer studies showed that, airframe ice or no, the 737 was close enough to flying that had the pilots simply gone to full power, the accident would never have happened. They do deserve credit for one thing, because in that stressful situation with their doom staring them in the face, they flew the plane all the way to the ground. A plane that crashes under control is more likely to have survivors than one in which control is lost. So the pilots' performance was mixed in a very stressful situation.
On that plane the device controlling fuel flow was on top of the cabin in a fiberglas housing.
I'd like to know your source for this. I do not believe that the throttle in that 737 is electrical (will have to hit the books, but fly-by-wire wasn't happening then (1982), and IIRC it was a fairly old 73, a 737-200 which would've been built in the sixties. The throttles were strictly mechanical, or hydraulic, I'd wager).
As far as DOD use of the electromagnetic spectrum is concerned, there are certain frequency ranges that are reserved for military use and certain it shares with the public and commercial bandwidth users. military microwave stuff (US and foreign) is not too different from what long-distance telephone uses. New technology doesn't normally get tested inside the beltway, either: too many ears. If they are playing with something powerful and novel they try to do it in the middle of nowhere.
I don't know enough about ground transit to comment on how that works, but the train was backing up when it derailed? That's kind of odd; at least in my mind I associate derailments with speed. That roadstothefuture site is very interesting -- it looks like they are gonna replace the Wilson Bridge and make a whole chapter of FReeper Travis McGee's novel obsolete. Thanks for turning me on to that site.
As far as cover-ups are concerned, the military is not very effective at keeping secrets. Even important national security information leaks out unless it's very closely held -- and most people agree on the importance of keeping that secret. In the past, when groups inside the military have tried to keep unlawful or immoral acts secret, there has usually been somebody who's stood up and called "enough." Think of My Lai, the Sergeants' Scandal, the APG trainee sex abuse case, and Abu Ghraib. MG Taguba's report on Abu Ghraib singled out the young enlisted man who dropped a dime on Abu Ghraib for praise.
I note that the conspiracy guys, cause there is no substance to their story, can change direction on a dime. Before 911 the Navy shot down the plane and covered it up. (Gee, remember the Navy coverup when the sub hit the Japanese educational trawler? They hung the skipper out to dry. As a coverup you have to call it a bust). After 911 the Ay-rabs dood it (this change probably saved a tinhat or two from a beating by sailors, at least).
I think Boeing would have loved to say, "[Somebody] blew this out of the sky and our machine is good to hook." Instead they said "We have a previously unsuspected design and manufacturing flaw, so all y'all are gonna have to rip out miles of wiring, change some fuel pumps, and have every Boeing plane you own out of service (and not earning) for a week or two each. By the way, don't fly with this tank empty any more, even though it's gonna cost you big bucks to haul thousands of pounds of unneeded fuel on every flight."
People like the rogue-submarine or the terrorist missile angle because it ties everything up in a neat package, like the end of a television show. I guess a lot of people live so vicariously through the TV they have lost a grip on the fuzzy inconclusiveness of many things in real life.
Ah, well, back to work. Metallurgy and physics of structural failure in old wing spars - and how to repair same. Another one that we thought we had licked, that threw a curve at us in 2003. The operators want an inexpensive, but safe, fix. So wishful thinking drives them to tend to compromise safety if it is not right in front of their noses. The manufacturer wants all fixes to be declared invalid so he can close out his liability tail on these old airplanes. "Scrap 'em all, and we'll sell you a new one." The engineers are saying, "we didn't anticipate THAT failure mode." The lawyers are saying, "Whatever you do, better make sure there's a handsome paycheck for ME, and don't make the things stop crashing until my sailboat is paid for."
At least there's no conspiracy involved in small aircraft accidents when the people aboard die one and two at a time. Unless one of them is a celebrity.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
As a note, I have seen the wreckage of the V-22 Osprey that crashed into the Potomac River. This was after delivery back to Bell Helicopter Plant 8. The engineers wanted everything as found, so all mud, moss and other river trash was left in place.
>>A missile system like the SA-6 is not composed of a single, autonomous vehicle.<<
Right, two autonomous vehicles, connected by a single cable or data link. If a battery can "relocate to an alternate firing position in approximately 15 minutes", set-up can't be too complex. Iran's military has employed the SA-6 for quite some time, so skilled operators or training would not be a problem.
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/missile/row/sa-6.htm
>>...if a SAM had been responsible for the downing of TWA 800, the evidence would have been obvious and undeniable. Even the smallest SAM warheads are designed to direct thousands of fragments into the targeted aircraft with the hope of puncturing some vital system.<<
True. If all the sheet metal in the aircraft's vital areas, such as the fuel tank, had been recovered and was available for independent inspection, I might be looking at alternate explanations as well.
bump
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