Posted on 02/15/2005 1:19:18 AM PST by JohnHuang2
On April 20, 2001, a Peruvian military jet pilot confused a small plane carrying missionaries for one carrying drug runners and shot it down. In the last two weeks, MSNBC has been leading the charge to bring this case to closure.
Its on-air personnel – Chris Matthews and Joe Scarborough in particular – have been asking hard questions about why no charges have been brought against CIA agents who may have lied about the nature of this crash. The MSNBC website invites citizens to communicate their concerns about this presumed cover-up through MSNBC to the U.S. government.
This would be all well and good were it not for the likely role that MSNBC played in the cover-up of TWA Flight 800. On July 18, 1996, about 12 hours after TWA Flight 800 exploded off the coast of Long Island, a military officer – off the record – told a very tired Fox News senior reporter that "a major screw-up" had occurred and that the "White House" had ordered the military to "stand down" for 48 hours until policy decisions were reached.
This did not surprise the Fox journalist. For hours the previous evening, Fox News had reportedly been involved in a bidding war for an amateur video tape of the 747 being destroyed by what appeared to be missile fire. When the electronic bidding war reached $50,000, Fox was eliminated from the process.
The high bidder seems to have been NBC and/or its new sister network, MSNBC. This makes market sense in that MSNBC had been launched just two days prior, and the publicity would have been well worth the cost. Still, I say "seems" because my sources here will not speak on record, nor will MSNBC follow up on queries. Here is exactly what I know, no more, no less.
In the summer of 2001, my partner James Sanders, and I were negotiating with Broadcast Network News (BNN) – the world's largest independent news producer – to distribute our documentary on the subject of TWA Flight 800, "Silenced." These were serious negotiations. The person with whom we were communicating was BNN's chief executive officer, Steve Rosenbaum.
One day that summer, Rosenbaum called me in a state of high excitement. "Jack," he said, "you will not believe the conversation I just had." Although Rosenbaum thought our video had market potential, he was not at all convinced of our thesis, namely that missiles had been fired at TWA Flight 800. The conversation in question eliminated just about all doubt.
As Rosenbaum explained, he had been interviewing a candidate for a position as BNN's technical director at a rooftop cafe when an airplane passed overhead. The conversation moved naturally to airplanes and then, with Rosenbaum taking the lead, to TWA Flight 800.
"I've seen the video," said the candidate, who had until recently been working at MSNBC.
"You mean 'Silenced'?" said Rosenbaum, a little surprised.
"No," the candidate answered, "the video, the actual video of the plane being shot down."
As the candidate told Rosenbaum, late on the night of the crash, editors at MSNBC had the tape on their monitors when "three men in suits" came to their editing suites, removed the tape, and threatened the editors with serious consequences if they ever revealed its contents.
The threats worked all too well. Despite my repeated requests, Rosenbaum could not get the technical director, whom he hired, to go on record. Over the years, I have asked various producers at MSNBC to follow up, but if they did, they kept what they learned to themselves.
Earlier in his research, Sanders had been approached by a technician at another station who had monitoring the competition's feeds from Long Island and made a bootleg copy of that same amateur video. What is more, he withheld a copy from the FBI when its agents came to confiscate whatever relevant tapes his station might have. Despite a series of phone calls, Sanders could not persuade the technician to hand over the tape. His fear was palpable enough, however, to convince Sanders that he was telling the truth.
Although I have not seen the video myself, I have heard from scores, if not hundreds, of credible people who swear they saw it on television in the first hours after the crash. That at least one among the hundreds of eyewitnesses would have had a video camera handy during a beautiful summer sunset evening makes perfect sense. The FBI admits to having confiscated two still photos and predictably writes off the images to dirt or scratches on the lens. A video would have been much harder to dismiss.
Nelson DeMille has obviously heard these stories as well – and perhaps more. In his best-selling novel, "Night Falls," a confiscated amateur video drives the plot. Although he spices the video up a bit in the retelling, DeMille is not just spinning fantasy. His insider details have the ring of authenticity about them.
What makes the MSNBC involvement all the more ironic is that the CIA was responsible for producing the 15-minute animated video used successfully to discredit the eyewitness testimony. If the MSNBC producers are interested in exposing not just a routine CIA cover-up, but the most consequential cover-up in American history, my fellow investigators and I will be happy to lead them right to the source.
There is admittedly much we still do not know about the explosion of TWA Flight 800, but we know enough about the CIA cover-up to bring indictments. Before turning on the CIA, however, MSNBC might want to look inward. The CIA at least had the excuse of national security. If MSNBC had reasons for betraying its journalistic ethics, I am not sure I know what they are. Indeed, had its new executives stuck to their guns that night, they might very well have prevented Sept. 11.
Never said he didn't exist.
Seriously doubted wisdom of using him as sole source for an event, when he is far from the major player poster described him as, and he was only supposedly repeating what he had been told by some unnamed person, who was given a title not commensurate with situation described.
Other than that, and he has a very ugly beard and is probably a big time Hillary fan, all was fine. :~)
Imagine test missile, with unarmed warhead, suddenly goes way off course and locks onto a large airliner that is also 'off course'. Another armed missile is sent to destroy the first, and gets there too late to destroy the missile, and too late to turn away.
Where did you get this info?
One of the MD's who worked on the autopsies reported finding shrapnel on most of the bodies. I can find his name and transcript, if you want.
Was it an Achmed missile or an errant shot from the navy on maneuvers?
You didn't?
Finally, BNN? 30 years in the business and I've never heard of Broadcast Network News. The only BNN I know is the Bulgarian News Network. Krep.... and bad krep. After 30 years covering cops and courts, I've been lied to by pros; criminals, lawyers, (pardon the redundancy), cops, etc. This is really light weight BS.
I did a Google search just now. The only thing I find is a 1997 article about the company.
So we are now depending on the word of the CEO of a company that does not exist.....
Now you claim you know the man personally and know what happened to his company, and what he is doing right now.
You didn't state at the offset that YOU KNEW WHO HE WAS, and WHAT HAPPENED TO BNN, and that you had little faith in his word due to....... whatever. Now did you?
You purposefully hid the truth, and you plain lied. WHY?
Clever way of avoiding the questions I put to you.
(And I disagree with your contention that the pattern is used when IFR. At least when I was flying you cancelled IFR if you entered the pattern and then landed VFR.)
ML/NJ
Sorry if you took this as a personal attack (and I can see how you might).
I was just being sarcastic. I'm sure you know that, "There's not a shred of evidence," is one of the Commodities Scam Queen's favorite lines; and of course it was never true when she said it so far as I can recall. She really meant, "There's a lot of evidence but I refuse to acknowledge it."
In the case of TWA 800, would you agree that the high volume of consistent eyewitness reports collected by law enforcement, including several from experienced observers, constitutes evidence?
I would agree with your contention that there is quite a bit of disinformation around about TWA 800. Unfortunately quite a bit has been proffered by the government. (e.g. the plane soared up after it was stricken.) I believe that this disinformation is also, in its own way, a sort of evidence.
ML/NJ
Typically, incoming airliners will fly directly down onto the runway on the ILS, after being vectored onto the latter by ATC. Outgoing traffic is usually routed out along well-established routings, often to a nearby VOR beacon, and then onward (on a flight plan given during clearance delivery.)
As regards 'the questions', I assume you are talking about the military Warning area south of LI. These are all over the waters off the East Coast, and are used primarily for mil flight operations. Maybe you are suggesting that the Navy was conducting surface-to-air missile firing operations at the edge of W-105. I guess anything is possible, but as I said at the start of this discussion, I think it's higly unlikely that the Navy would be irresponsible enough to deliberately fire heat-seeking missiles up into the air that close to JFK operations (and that close to the Hampton VOR and airway V-46). An accidental firing? Maybe.
One of the problems with testing at White Sands and places like that is that they don't have the same "noise" problems as would be encountered near populated areas. These missiles have to be able to operate in high noise areas because that's where they would most likely be used. That's why they test in places like W-105.
ML/NJ
Please give your source for that statement.
First, as I said before, I really do appreciate your responses, and there would not be much fun in FR if everyone had the same thoughts and there was no disagreement.
It is also a responsbility, here on FR, to conduct disagreements in a courteous manner.
My statement listed above was accusatory, and I find it unlikely that most posters, especially MindBender26, would lie on purpose. I believe that in trying to communicate his/her position that third part info with no supporting proof should not be taken seriously, this poster slowly revealed items about his knowledge of the situation, and may have been gathering the info he/she passed on.
So, Mindbender26, in the Spirit of the good of Free Republic, I take fault for calling you a liar. That is not a good way to encourage further discussions.
I have been in the same situations where my 'discoveries' and the way I was revealing information led others to call me a liar. I could see what they meant, but it was not my intention, and I am sure it wasn't Mindbender26's either.
I hope he/she accepts my apology for making such accusation publicly. I continued the discussion with this poster privately, and that is the place where one should sort out such problems. I appreciate this poster making the first step on that.
I don't like the idea of losing any valuable source of information and experience, whether that source supports my position, or not.
I assume that if there was a conspiracy in the government and Navy to conceal an accident, that it will be sealed for 20 years, and there is nothing we can do about it. That is likely why President Bush has not revealed anything, if this allegation is true.
Look at your New York Sectional. What do you think this means:
Warning. National Defense Operating Areas. Operations hazardous to the flight of aircraft conducted within these areas.The "operations" they refer to are only "conducted" a few times a year. Almost everyone will acknowledge that July 17, 1996 was one of those times the Navy notified pilots that that was one of those times.
ML/NJ
Well, that is news to me. Was it for flight operations or something else? Can you refer me to the NOTAM in question?
I don't have a copy of the NOTAM. As per my It Wasn't Terrorists post previously linked on this thread:
Ian Goddard cites Aerospace Daily (08/28/96) as saying: "FAA sources and the Navy acknowledged yesterday...that the area known as Whiskey 105, or W-105, was activated at the time of the TWA accident... ". James Sanders in his Downing of TWA Flight 800 provides a copy of a Navy document addressed to the FAA which apparently was a request to activate the warning area.(You should read the stuff I link to!)
The Navy document to the FAA in the Sanders book I referred to was reproduced at #182 on this thread.
ML/NJ
However, that appears to be a NOTAM for the early afternoon (1800 to before 1900 ZULU, 1:00pm to 2:00 local) and not active at the time of the incident. It's a poor copy and hard to read, but it certainly doesn't appear to be active after 3pm.
The key points were that the IFF on TWA800 was disabled. There was apparently a target drone fired behind TWA800 and the shooter was in direct line with the target drone and TWA800 when the shot was fired. (according to the radar tracks)
A couple clinton enemies were on the flight so it could have been staged to arkancide them and yet look like an accident. All it took was a confusion about which miliary exercise areas were active, a target drone fired to be in the right place at the wrong time and a little sabotage of the iff transmitter on the flight.
Read the research thread for the discussion. (warning, it is a long and detailed read).
We always thought that 'Flight 800' had been shot down by a missle but we thought it was fired by a terrorist. In fact we still think that. Clinton had it all covered up so that he would not have that 'stain' on his 'presidency'.
I can't fathom that even the x42s would ever consider offing a planeload of Americans to get a few of their enemies. Also, to have the drone in line and all the other technical stuff happen in a planned manner stretches believability.
I guess an awful accident caused by a few individuals screwing up their jobs makes the most sense to me.
I saw the video, so did how many others on the night FL800 went down. It was shown constantly on TV until 11:30 pm, then mysteriously disappeared.
japaneseghost
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