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
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.
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?
THAT is a DAMN good question. Especially since the disinformation is being spread almost exclusively by the same whackjobs who make a living from exploiting this nonsense. The fact that you just posted the Reed Irvine transcript you posted as some kind of proof of a government cover up is just classic. THE SOURCE IN THAT INTERVIEW WAS A LIAR. But don't believe me. Believe Reed Irvine. Here's a link to his follow up article regarding his "unimpeachable" source....
Lies About TWA 800: Which Are The Worst?
Allow me to quote Reed himself from the article..."He (his unimpeachable source) lied to me, and I regret having been deceived by him."
It is crap like this that the whole TWA800 conspiracy nonsense is based on. Half-truths, untruths, lies and misinformation all thrown out there by people making money from a tragedy. Then those lies and half-truths are repeated by more people who know even less about what they are talking about than the shysters who created the nonsense in the first place. All of whom insist the government (including the military) is lying because its investigation doesn't answer questions raised in the fantasy world created by the conspiracy nuts. It is an ugly cycle all designed to line the pockets of people who make a living creating bogus conspiracies. And it is sickening.