Posted on 11/09/2006 9:04:16 AM PST by Hal1950
I guess I'm really surprised you say this. If the light is above the horizon, he's above you; and if it's below he's below you. Right on the horizon, Watch out! You certainly know this. Reading the McClaine transcript, it seems to me that his estimates were pretty good. (Of course, they could have been helped by talk on the frequency he was monitoring.)
Think about that for a second. If he could see TWA 800, he could also see anything described as a "streak of light" that hit it. He was 20 miles away and just over 1000 feet above TWA 800. At 20 miles, he could easily see all the way down to the water below TWA 800.
I guess you didn't read the transcript.
And I didn't see any previous explosion. I'm not -- I don't rule that out. Because of the angle he was down below me, the fuselage and the wing could have blocked that out ... (p.17)But thanks for providing the link to the transcript. It's interesting to me that it was pretty much like the conversation I had with McClaine, except that I never asked the same question more than two times! It's also interesting that they did press him about whether anything went upward at any time after he began to see combustion, but the part of the transcript the NTSB thought was important to include in their report was that it took him ten seconds or so to report the explosion after he first saw it. Doesn't this bother you?
You can answer, but this is getting old for me. I'll let you have the last word. As for Meyers, I found this Qctober 1997 report:
Meyer said he cannot say the object that struck the Boeing 747 was a missile, but is convinced he saw an "ordnance explosion" burst near the plane just before it blossomed into a deadly fireball.This really isn't very different from what he said in the NTSB transcript. I thought the reason he had difficulty saying for sure that it was a missile was that it didn't look like any of the missiles he was familiar with from 20 or more years ago. I'm not sure what your problem is with him.
ML/NJ
I am quite prepared to believe this was a shootdown, as George Snuffleupagous called it during a gab-show after 9/11. But why so much effort (three missiles and maybe a chase plane as well) to destroy this particular plane...and while I would not be surprised to learn it was an arkancide, what if it was someone else?
Trying to determine accurate information with respect to altitude or range from a single source of light is one of the top killers of pilots flying at night. There was about 2000 feet of altitude difference between McClaine's aircraft and TWA800. At the distance they were apart that is a difference of less than 1.5 degrees. McClaine's airplane was both descending and turning when TWA800 exploded. The motion of his aircraft only compounds the difficulty in accurately assessing anything but the bearing of the light in his windscreen. I spent a majority of my years in the F-16 training to fly night attack missions. I was a night vision goggle instructor pilot and flew most of my combat missions at night. Now I fly for FedEx...mostly at night. I would never bet my life on what my eyeballs were telling me at night.
"I guess you didn't read the transcript."
I did. McClaine specifically says he never saw any part of TWA800 but its landing light. See my explaination above for how far down he was actually looking at TWA 800. At his range, if he could see TWA 800, he could see anything approaching it from below.
"Doesn't this bother you?"
They published the whole transcript of his interview. What exactly do you think they are attempting to hide?
"I'm not sure what your problem is with him."
He's changed his story over time. He now states TWA800 was shot down by a missile. Yet, as an actual eyewitness to its destruction, he is on record as saying he saw nothing that indicated a missile caused the explosion. And I would be willing to bet if you played video of various types of explosions, Meyers couldn't identify a "pyro" explosion from any other type of explosion at the ranges he was at from TWA800. Furthermore, if he did witness a missile explosion, than the "missile" exploded outside TWA800. By design, an exploding missile warhead would shower TWA800 with thousands of pieces of shrapnel. Yet, despite experts from Boeing, TWA, ALPA, the FBI and the NTSB specifically looking for any evidence of an external explosion happening anywhere near TWA800, they all concluded no evidence could be found.
Jack Cashill mow indicates he is emailing Part II of the Review to those who request it at jcashill.aol.com.
I don’t loathe the military at all. I loathe Clinton. There is nothing they won’t do for power. Nothing. See Stalin.
But it's the military who you claim shot down the aircraft and covered it up.
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