Posted on 06/22/2006 8:43:39 AM PDT by canuck_conservative
Editor's note: On the evening of July 17, 1996, at 8:19 p.m., TWA Flight 800, a Boeing 747, took off from Kennedy Airport, bound for Paris. At 8:31 p.m., over 730 people watched Flight 800 explode, killing all 230 of the people aboard.
Not long afterwards, millions of Americans watched their televisions in fascinated horror as search and rescue crews looked for survivors among the flaming debris. Only dead bodies were recovered.
Flight 800 is mostly an ugly memory for people these days. The U.S. government issued an explanation that a fuel tank had somehow exploded. Yet, they flatly denied any evidence existed of foul play, including the possibility that Flight 800 had been blown out of the air by a missile.
All but a few journalists accepted the government's version of events. Few bothered to investigate the numerous eyewitnesses, the radar records and the physical evidence that all suggested a strikingly different explanation of Flight 800's untimely demise. And those few who did question the government's version were made to look like fools or, worse, thrown in jail and prosecuted as criminals for meddling in an official investigation.
What really happened to Flight 800? ....
(Excerpt) Read more at wnd.com ...
Yes we're all sure that people like this guy are shilling.
CDR. William S. Donaldson, USN (ret.), challenged the official NTSB position on the cause of the crash of TWA Flight 800 in a series of letters to James Hall, Chairman of the NTSB between April 1997 and December 2000. During those four years, CDR. Donaldson worked with other Retired Aviation Professionals, including some previous crash investigators as well as persons inside the NTSB investigation itself. CDR. Donaldson has extensive experience as a Naval crash investigator and he and others concluded that the NTSB's explanation of the Center Wing Tank explosion was not credible. With the help of these other concerned aviation professionals, CDR. Donaldson produced an extensive report on the cause of the crash. The initial Interim Report was delivered to the House Aviation Subcommittee on July 16th, 1998. Since that time a great deal of new information has surfaced.
Information uncovered in early 1999 now shows that TWA Flight 800 could have been shot down by one or more shoulder-fired missiles. The FBI was briefed by military missile experts in the Fall of 1996 that Flight 800 was well within the range of a shoulder fired missile. The FBI conducted a covert dredging operation for stinger missile parts between November 1996 and April 1997. CDR. Donaldson brought this new evidence to the House Aviation Subcommittee in testimony on May 6, 1999. Unfortunately, the major media and the Congress are content to swallow the official line without question.
Associated Retired Aviatlion Professionals The Flight 800 Investigation
This is why they put ejection seats in military aircraft during peace time.
There was also a ANG C130A that had one side of its engines reverse on final. We had flown with that unit about two weeks before that happened.
I never said I wan't an AH.
You need to look a little deeper into Donaldson's qualifications. He never once led an accident investigation, and his participation as an accident investigator does not give him any special qualifications to make the bogus claims he made before he died. The world is full of former military men who make all kinds of claims. None of them are infallible. In fact, typically the men who speak the loudest are the men who know the least. Donaldson had good intentions and little else in this matter.
Since kerosene has a boiling point range of 175-325 degrees Centigrade (347-617 degrees F), well above the boiling point of water, anybody doing that would be boiled alive well before the match was lit
Are you postulating that the temp in the center fuel tank was at or above the boiling point of kerosene?
I wasn't kidding, but I was factually incorrect in my statement. The NTSB was involved, but they were not the lead agency. The FBI basically controlled the investigation, with the assistance of the CIA. Never before, or since to my knowledge, has an aircraft accident investigation been under the jurisdiction of those agencies.
You will still get fuel vapors below the boiling point. It shouldn't be difficult to set a test up like this in perhaps a 10 gallon container. Put 1/4 gallon kerosene in a 10 gallon tank sometime and heat it up to about 180 degrees F and induce a spark. You will have to try it several times but I think you will get an explosion.
And why don't planes explode when hit by lightning?
Associated Retired Aviation Professionals
The NTSB's theory is that some unknown spark ignited the Jet A fuel vapors inside Flight 800's center fuel tank. This theory depends on 2 things: a) sufficient fuel vapors at the proper fuel/air mixture; and b) a sufficient spark to ignite the fuel vapors. Neither condition has been found to have been present in subsequent tests. In Boeing's recent filing with the NTSB they have stated that they have not found any source of spark in Flight 800. The NTSB would have you believe that Jet A fuel vapors are a virtual bomb waiting to go off, yet every day hundreds of 747's are sitting on hot runways in places like Saudi Arabia, India, etc. with empty center tanks and none have ever exploded. Every day aircraft with empty fuel tanks are hit by lightning, a spark thousands of times greater than necessary to ignite this vapor, yet these aircraft do not explode. Why, because the fuel vapor is not explosive.
The plane hitting the WTC was going several hundred miles/hr. When it hit the WTC, all that fuel splashed out in a fine mist, which could then be ignited
Residential heating oil works similarly. Take a can of it and drop a match into it. The match will go out. But spray it in a fine mist into the furnace and apply an electric spark and you have a nice flame
What turned the kerosene into mist in the center fuel tank?
They sometimes do.
That also is factually incorrect. The CIA participation was only in producing the animated sequence shown as part of the investigation. The FBI had the lead initially because it was initially assumed the incident was a criminal event. When it became clear that there was absolutely no evidence pointing to a criminal incident, the FBI stepped aside and the NTSB took over. That is standard procedure in any accident investigation in which criminal activity is expected. The NTSB does not have the authority to handle criminal events.
Do you have an example?
When they are both wrong, I believe neither. They aren't the only options in this matter. In the case of TWA 800, I believe the NTSB.
"And why don't planes explode when hit by lightning?"
Sometimes they do. And they certainly have in the past despite massive engineering efforts to prevent that from happening.
Originally, I had considered a possible bomb. At that time the story was floating around that AK State Troopers were on board and were flying to the UK to spill their guts out about Clinton. The time frame was not very far from when Ron Brown was killed in the plane crash and so on.
Anyway thanks for the help.
Extended exposure to heat created vapor. Vapor is even more explosive than "mist".
Please give an example.
And I have to tell you that I believe these guys before anyone else.
Has anybody check out the passinger list on this flight?
Except that statement has this problem.
The NTSB would have you believe that Jet A fuel vapors are a virtual bomb waiting to go off, yet every day hundreds of 747's are sitting on hot runways in places like Saudi Arabia, India, etc. with empty center tanks and none have ever exploded.
Plus the fact that I've flown recently and the floor of the plane gets cold VERY quickly. It would need to be hot, in the air, to explode.
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