This is absolutely insane, and makes me automatically start to view Cashill's work on the TWA Flight 800 - which I previously believed in - as highly suspect.
Brown's plane crashed because the AF pilots, flying an obsolete version of a civilian Boeing 737, failed to properly coordinate their landing based on a seldom used obsolete beacon instead of the up-to-date system they were used to. In a hellacious thunderstorm when visibility was ZERO. Flying into an airport located in a narrow valley FLANKED by TWO MOUNTAIN RANGES!!
Unfortunately, just a tiny error in their course, multiplied over the course of miles, meant that they hit a mountain instead of gliding down to the airport.
This kind of thing has happened uncounted times - especially in Third World countries during a blinding thunderstorm. Remember the Army electronic surveillance plane that did the exact same thing in Columbia a few years ago?
Secondly, THERE WERE NO MEMBERS OF THE ENRON CO. ON BROWN'S FLIGHT!! Check the records. Or just ask me (more below).
Thirdly, Tudjman's cancer was not diagnosed until 1997.
Other than that, its a GREAT article isn't it?
Gee, Al, you say. How do you know so much about this? Well...one reason is...I was there. I was with Brown that entire morning at Tuzla. I briefed him on the local parties he would be seeing, while we were flying in the UH-60 on the way to the various meetings he attended that morning. I have a photo of him trying to figure out how to buckle his safety belts (they're not your standard airline lap belt when you are in a Blackhawk). I was with his party. I met them all. They all personally thanked me profusely for everything that I did to facilitate their meetings that morning, saying it had been the highlight of their trip. I can still see many of their faces - and I have photos I snapped of many of them, smiling, chatting, oblivious to the cruel twist of fate that awaited them but two-three hours later.
And what happened that afternoon after we saw them off - in a driving rain and a ceiling that was only about 250 feet - was the worst tragedy I have personally seen in my life. The weather in Dubrovnik was 10 times worse by the time they got there.
And don't tell me the weather was not that bad because - I WAS THERE AND YOU WEREN'T!!! I was in the US Army Command Center in Tuzla, and had access to all of the weather and other info in real time as this nightmare unfolded; I was next to and helping the CG that entire first, unreal, terrible night.
OK. The 'tinfoil hat brigade' can now have at me. Do your worst....
The type of approach used is determined by Air Traffic Control, not the pilots. The pilot can ask for a specific approach, but the ATC has the final say.
Al....do you have any idea of how many ADF approaches have minimums of 250 ft.....I do...NONE.... Your weather observations are highly suspect....
As for an obsolute version of the Boeing 737....what is your basis for that brillant observation....
I appreciate your comments but answer me this: Do you agree that Ron Brown had a bullet hole in his head? If so, then he was murdered, and the rest is just an effort to determine the who and how.