It's a safety investigation. They don't ever publish the names of interviewees.
"As for not seeing a missile, McClaine agreed with me that the reason he might not have seen a missile was that if it was there, it would have been launched from below him."
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. And no matter how hard you stare at a point of light 20 miles off your nose, you cannot fail to pick up other moving lights in your peripheral vision. Especially any lights resembling a burning rocket motor.
"I notice you avoided all of my questions concerning McClain's ability and position to judge whether any burning part of TWA800 climbed after the plane was stricken."
Whether or not TWA 800 climbed after the initial event of its destruction is entirely irrelevant. It had no bearing on the outcome of the NTSB investigation. And in my experience, it is nearly impossible to tell at 20 miles out, whether an aircraft is +/- 2000 feet of your altitude, or in the middle of climbing through your altitude. Especially when all you see of that aircraft is its landing light.
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