Posted on 11/09/2006 9:04:16 AM PST by Hal1950
This week I received a communication from retired United Airline Capt. Ray Lahr. It contained two items of great interest – one dollop of good legal news and one unexpected and truly incredible report.
The legal news concerned Ray's success in Los Angeles District Court after years of "long and lonely and expensive" effort. Judge Howard Matz had succinctly mandated that "Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) shall produce to plaintiff the material set forth in Exhibit A and the National Transportation Safety Board shall produce to plaintiff the material set forth in Exhibit B." Significantly, the judge also authorized Lahr attorney John Clarke to file for fees and costs. This is a definite win.
Lahr has been suing for release of the information that the two agencies in question had used to produce their notorious zoom-climb animation subsequent to the 1996 downing of TWA Flight 800 over Long Island – animation that was used to discredit the testimony of hundreds of eyewitnesses, many of them military and aviation personnel. Lahr sees this animation as the Achilles' heel of a consciously skewed investigation, and in this he is correct.
Lahr also sent me a CD review of the case titled merely "TWA Flight 800 Crash Evidence Review," which I will hereafter refer to as "the Review." Before I finished reading it, I sent Lahr an e-mail, which read in part:
"Brilliant work on your explication. I am only halfway through it, but I am totally impressed. Everything else that has gone before it is the work of amateurs, mine included."
The message I got back from Lahr, however, floored me. He did not write this report. He received it anonymously in the mail. I was stunned. The Review in question is the most sophisticated piece of investigative reporting that I have ever read on this or any other crash. The unknown author likely put years into this work. He surely comes from within the aviation community, which may explain his desire for anonymity. He argues crisply, patiently and comprehensively. He provides ample illustration of his contentions and rarely, if ever, does he exceed his knowledge base.
Most impressive is his knowing synthesis of all the available evidence – radar, eyewitness, physical, audio, GPS, debris field – to recreate in detail the flight taken and damage done by each of the missiles fired at TWA Flight 800. What is more, the author uses only the evidence that was available to the National Transportation Safety Board to reach conclusions that they should have reached with the same data.
The Review author believes that based on the debris field alone, "the administration would have known within the first two weeks after the crash that missiles brought down the aircraft." Although prudent in his accusations, he strongly suspects that the long delay in recovering the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder indicates that the decision to misdirect the investigation "actually occurred the night of the disaster." With this conclusion, I fully concur.
No one who reads this Review can doubt for a moment that the government has engaged in a massive misdirection in the gathering of evidence. Every major media outlet owes it to its audience to assign its best technical writer to read and review this work. The one CD includes the entire NTSB report as well.
To make things simple, I will happily provide a copy of the entire Review to any interested major media party. The author asked that the information be shared. Interested observers, who are willing to identify themselves, can obtain a pdf copy of Part I of the Review by contacting me through my website, .
In the weeks to come, I will break down the information into manageable chunks. For now, allow me to summarize the author's approach. The Review is divided into four parts. Each of the first three parts is dedicated to the destructive path of one given missile.
In the way of example, the author argues that the first of the three was a large surface-to-air missile launched from 16 to 22 miles west of the crash site. The missile approached the aircraft on a descending track from the rear and struck it without exploding. The author is very specific in his detail, to wit, "This impact broke the horizontal stabilizer pitch trim jackscrew in tension and caused the aircraft to pitch upward." Not all the writing is this technical, but where specifics are needed, the author does not shy from providing them.
The fourth part, and the one least supported by existing evidence, is dedicated to other unidentified objects in the sky that night. The author makes the public relations mistake of calling them UFOs. What he means are unidentified aircraft. They do not come from outer space. I will call them UACs.
In the book "First Strike," James Sanders and I argue that a UAC may very well have been in the mix, and that UAC may have been a terrorist plane. The author, too, believes that a UAC was in the mix as well as three missiles, but he does not believe that the UAC was a manned aircraft. He makes a compelling argument that the UAC information that the FBI gathered was so hot that it was simply not allowed in to the official record. Every now and then, however, some information bled in accidentally. The most obvious example of the same was a photo taken by Linda Kabot that seemed to show a slender cylindrical object flying away from the scene of the crash.
Wisely, the author refrains from saying who fired the missiles or launched the aircraft, although the evidence strongly leads away from anything but a highly sophisticated military operation. It is possible that terrorist involvement may have gone no deeper than warnings given and credit claimed. Someone in Washington knows just how deep that involvement was.
The author argues that an independent panel from outside Washington is essential to conduct a new investigation. "Otherwise," he contends, "the same insider influences in both political parties, who have prevented the truth from being revealed previously, would control the investigation's outcome."
In the best of all possible worlds, Ray Lahr's case may just crack open the official door.
But surely you can answer this, what radar? Civilian, government, military, foreign? You can't possibly mean that air traffic control radar picked up submerging subs, do you?
I'm really not sure what your point is except maybe obfuscation.
I'm here offering the benefit of 24 years commissioned service in the U.S. Navy and my experience with Navy weapon systems and operations in the Atlantic fleet. I'm here because it's fun to point out the enormous holes that exist in all these conspiracy theories and show how easy it is to do by merely asking a few simple questions.
Do you doubt Reed Irvine's account?
No, just his conclusions.
What radar tape?
I don't have access where I am to my TWA files, so I don't know how much information I have on the provenance of the radar tapes that show the movement of the various objects in the area of the crash.You are a mad man. There are so many crazy statements in this thread, I'm having a tough time trying to keep them straight.
I notice you ask a lot of questions, but you avoid answering inconvenient ones that I have posted. You still haven't addressed the questions which I posed in my first reply to you on this thread (#182).
Regarding "what radar," I've already stated that I don't know the provenance of the radar with the information I have at hand. Did you not understand what this means?
ML/NJ
There were apparently radar tapes that showed two objects colliding. I think someone else mentioned it on the thread as well.
Ah, the old ad-hominem. You can always count on statements like this from folks with nothing to contribute.
I wonder if you have ever seen the NTSB's own data from the BlackBox recorder. I mean the first version they released, which indicates that there was explosion outside the aircraft, rather than the "corrected" one which removed data supposely left over from an earlier flight.
ML/NJ
See this is where the fun in questioning comes in. You have some unknown, unidentified, radar system which says they saw 3 submarines surface and submerge. We don't know who was running the radars or how they knew they were submerging submarines or if they've ever seen a sub submerge on radar before. We know it can't be a military radar because, after all, they shot down the plane to begin with and would hardly be expected to provide the damning evidence themselves. What other radar is out there? No government agency routinely scans the coast with a surface search radar, about the only non-military government radars I'm aware of are for things like Air Traffic Control and weather tracking. And it can't be Air Traffic Control because that would hardly be expected to pick up surface contacts. So given all this any reasonably intelligent individual would begin to wonder just what radar they could be talking about. And raising that quesition easily raises others. Unless, of course, one is merely interested in supporting their own agenda.
It means that it is an area where the government can conduct training hazardous to the flight of aircraft. I would think that would be obvious. Thre are literally hunderds of them all over the country and on both coasts. When the government activates any area like this they are required to give advanced warning, which was done. If memory serves there was a P-3 from VP-26 out of Brunswick conduction training in the area. The area was activated because the aircraft would be conducting low-level operations. The area is question is frequently used by Brunswick ASW squadrons because it is close to the sub base in New London.
So what does it mean to you?
According to ml/nj there are tapes of subs submerging. Those are what I'm curious about.
Wrong plane. Nothing to brag about.
OK, what's a "dubs" and what's a "SOSUS"?
TWA Probe: Submarines Off LIOf course, it's all okay since Jim Kallstrom assures everyone that they counted the missiles and nothing is missing or unaccounted for, which sort of begs the question doesn't it. But Honest Jim previously told folks that there were no military assets in the area, so he lied.Sources: But no link to crash of jetliner
By Robert E. Kessler
Staff WriterTHE NAVY HAD three nuclear submarines cruising near Long Island the night TWA Flight 800 exploded, but none of them fired a missile or carried any weapons capable of shooting down the jetliner, high-ranking Navy and law enforcement officials disclosed yesterday for the first time.
The officials, who did not wish to be identified, spoke out of concern that if knowledge of the previously unpublicized presence of the submarines leaked out slowly, it would further fuel suspicions that Navy missiles were involved in the crash of the TWA jetliner.
"The Navy and the FBI have independently interviewed the crews of the submarines and accounted for all the weaponry and missiles on board -- nothing is missing, nothing is unaccounted for," said one Navy official. "There is no way you can launch a missile from a submarine without the entire crew knowing."
The idea that a Navy missile accidentally shot down the jet has been widely publicized on the Internet and by people such as former ABC newsman and presidential aide Pierre Salinger, who believe the cause of the plane's destruction has been covered up by an embarrassed government.
"We know every military asset in the area," FBI chief investigator James Kallstrom said when asked to comment yesterday on the submarine activity. "None of the surface ships or submarines had the capability of shooting down an airplane. It just didn't happen."
The three nuclear submarines, all of which were engaged in independent training exercises 70 to 200 miles from the TWA crash site, were the nuclear attack submarines Albuquerque and Trepang, operating out of the naval base at Groton, Conn., and the Wyoming, a giant ballistic missile submarine, operating out of the naval base at Kings Bay, Ga., according to the sources.
It is not unusual for submarines to patrol or engage in maneuvers off Long Island, given the area's proximity to the base at Groton, northwest of Montauk Point, the sources said.
On July 17, the night of the TWA crash, Albuquerque and Trepang each had only two Harpoon surface-to-surface missiles on board, and these have been accounted for, a Navy official said. The Wyoming was carrying only nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles. But neither the Harpoons nor the ballistic missiles could damage a plane, "unless the plane happened to bump into one," the official said.
One of the attack submarines was engaging in war games in which an unarmed Orion P-3 Navy plane flying out of Maine was trying to locate it, according to the Navy sources. The P-3, which has also figured prominently in theories about a government coverup of the crash, broke off from the war game after the crash and was one of the first planes over the wreckage.
Navy and FBI investigators said previously that the only surface ship in the area, the Normandie, a missile cruiser, could not have shot down the TWA plane. The missiles on board the Normandie, located in the Chesapeake Bay, more than 200 miles from the crash site, did not have the range to reach the TWA plane, nor was the ship ready to launch missiles that evening. The eight surface-to-air missiles the cruiser carried that night have also been accounted for, sources said.
Meanwhile, the military's DNA laboratory in Rockville, Md., this week received about 200 bits of human remains recovered from the crash but not yet identified. The lab will conduct DNA testing on the samples, which National Transportation Safety Board spokesman Peter Goelz described as bone fragments, then provide the results to the Suffolk Medical Examiner's office, which will try to make identifications.
Matthew Cox contributed to this story.
Note that this story says the Trepang was "70 to 200 miles from the TWA crash site." Harmless little thing that submarine.
Now look at an interview that Reed Irvine did with someone who was on the Trepang. I'll just post part of it here. You can read Reed's entire report, published on February 25, 2002, which contains the more of the transcript plus important background, at http://www.aim.org/publications/aim_report/2002/03.html In what I quote below Irvine is "I" and the guy from the Trepang is "B"
B: I told everything, you know, when the Navy came on board with everybody else on my submarine.You need this bit of background at the link to know that someone claims the Trapang was directly underneath TWA 800 when it broke up: ("H" is a different guy.)
I: What was the name of the sub.
B: Trepang. (spells it)
I: You were off the coast of Long Island that night.
B: Uh huh.
I: And you said the Navy-- Go ahead. Tell me.
B: You know, I don’t want anything to mess up my retirement.
I. Yes. Well, I don’t see how telling the truth can mess up your retirement, Randy. That would be the scandal of the day if they were to- -
B: I told them all the truth, you know, when they came, Reed.
I: Yeh. And what did you tell them.
B: You know, that me and Mr. Leitner were on the bridge. Mr. Leitner was the officer of the deck. (Discuss spelling of Leitner, pronounced Late-ner.)
I: Go ahead.
B: So me and Mike Leitner were on the bridge and he was, you know, he would control the submarine. And the only reason I was up there was ’cause I was the second senior enlisted guy on the boat. I was ship’s corpsman and I went up there just ’cause, well first off ’cause it was a nice evening. ’Cause I never went out in the rain, you know, and I had a couple of Diet Pepsis, so me and Mike Leitner shared a couple of Pepsis and hanging out and one thing leads to another and it looks like somethin’ went up and somethin’ come down.
I: You saw it go up and you saw it come down.
B: Well, I seen something come up. I don’t know, you know, I don’t know what the hell it was, but that’s what it looked, you know, somethin’ went up.
I: How far away from the sub was it?
B: It was about a mile.
I: Which way? Out to sea or toward the shore?
B: I don’t have the navigation charts in front of me, and I can’t remember exactly. I mean, you know, but I know we was-
I. How far from the shore were you?
B: A few miles, not far.
I: Only a few miles.
B: Yeah, not far at all.
I: Were there a couple of other subs nearby?
B: We were operating with some, yeah.
I: The reason I say that is because the radar picked up three targets on the surface that had very short tracks. They all disappeared when the plane went down.
B: Yeah, that’s what we did.
H: He was a master chief on the Tripanga, on the surface, underneath TWA 800, when he saw a missile hit it, and the 747 exploded overhead, and they did an emergency dive, crash dive, to avoid being hit by the debris. They were interviewed by the FBI. They had two- or three-star admirals meet them at the dock when they were recalled to port 20 hours later after filing their reports.So if these guys are credible, and Reed wouldn't have brought them forward if he didn't think they were, then the Trepang wasn't anywhere near 70+ miles away. It was right there. And there was another vessel a mile away. (Maybe that's why W-105 was "active," huh?) And this guy who saw "somethin' come up" from that ship seems to be worried about "messing up his retirement."
I: What was their position? Were they off Long Island?
H: They were on the surface, underneath TWA 800.
I: Right underneath?
H: Yup. And they have the debris falling around them on film from the periscope. Because they started the video camera to record what was going on. Did you ever hear any of that?
Reed seems to know about the radar images you pretend do not, or could not exist. The guy he interviews seems to corroborate what Reed says he inferred from the images.
So first there were no assets at all. Then they were 70+ miles away. Now maybe they were right there?
Why is there so much disinformation here? I'll tell you why: it is to obscure the truth. The only explanation for TWA 800 that I have seen that is consistent with all the facts is an accidental shoot-down by our own military.
ML/NJ
there are more than what I had said. All the more reason to fear the dems taking power like this, because they believe we as Americans are evil and somehow have this coming to us.
TWA800 was a terrorist attack. toons' administration did another cover-up as in OKCB.
One thing I remember about twa 800, was that fact that John Cardinal O'Connor was on hand to comfort those who had lost loved ones, when Clinton said he was going to come and visit, the Cardinal said that if Clinton showed up, he would leave.
The only way that SOB got into St Patricks was after the death of Cardinal O Connor.
Why would they be using a periscope on the surface? Would a sub commander really be dumb enough to put his boat and crew in danger by surfacing with 'debris falling around them'? I highly doubt it.
Good question! Could that be where the camera is? I don't know. I'm asking.
Regarding "surfacing" I think he said they were on the surface and dove.
ML/NJ
Not to mention that the Navy did shoot down an airliner once, and made no effort to hide the fact. Of course that airliner was bearing an F-14's IFF likely scrounged from one of the ex-Shah of Iran's old planes and was flying where it wasn't supposed to be.
The leftwing is using the Navy/Flt 800 tale to damage the military and the US- the usual suspect pushing the theory is, after all, associated with the site Antiwar.com - speaking of which, how is that other columnist of theirs doing in jail these days for working with the Iraqi-American al Timimi's collection of jihadists- VA Jihad?
See: TWA 800 "It wasn't terrorists. It couldn't have been."
ML/NJ
OK, you want to question it then let's question it. What missiles were there? Well, you have the 24 Tridents on the Wyoming, of course. They're ICBMs, about 45 feet long and about 7 feet wide and weigh about 30 tons. Even if the Wyoming let one off by accident, and assuming that brought down the 747, it would be kind of hard to miss. It would leave a plume of water about 75 feet high as it left the water and ignited and would look a lot like a telephone pole leaving a stream of fire about 300 feet behind. It's a three stage missile, but at the 15,000 foot altitude the plane was at all three stages would still be connected. Given all that I think we can agree that the missile that brought down the 747 could not be from the Wyoming?
So that leaves the harpoons on the Trepang and the Albequerque. A much smaller missile, the Harpoon is 15 feet long, 13 inches wide, powered by a turbojet engine aided by a solid rocket booster at launch. The Harpoon is smaller, wouldn't leave much of a smoke trail, so it might look a little like the missiles you've described. But there are two problems with the Harpoon. The first is the range, which for the submarine launched version is about 75 or 80 nautical miles. According to your newspaper story the closest sub was 70 miles away so that would put it at the outer edge of the range, assuming that it wasn't the Wyoming. The second problem is the missile itself. The Harpoon is used against surface targets. It's a sea-skimer, cruising only about 50 feet off the surface. The reason for that is obvious - lower down, harder to detect, hard to hit - and would put the missile thousands of feet below TWA 747 when it exploded. New bear in mind that I haven't even gotten into the steps it would take to load a missile into a tube and fire it. So I don't see how it could be a Harpoon either.
OK I give up. Three subs? No way to shoot down the airplane? Now what?
The reason I say that is because the radar picked up three targets on the surface that had very short tracks. They all disappeared when the plane went down.
Here we go again. What radar?
And there was another vessel a mile away. (Maybe that's why W-105 was "active," huh?)
No. Didn't you read the newspaper story? "One of the attack submarines was engaging in war games in which an unarmed Orion P-3 Navy plane flying out of Maine was trying to locate it, according to the Navy sources." That's why W 105 was active. The P-3 would be maneuvering at low altitudes as it tried to track the submarine. The warning is for aircraft, you even said so yourself. A warning wouldn't be issued just because a ship was in it.
Why is there so much disinformation here? I'll tell you why: it is to obscure the truth. The only explanation for TWA 800 that I have seen that is consistent with all the facts is an accidental shoot-down by our own military.
OK, which ship did it?
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