Posted on 03/29/2007 11:25:45 AM PDT by Hal1950
What prompts this column is an e-mail I received last week from a retired USNR commander and former TWA pilot, with whom I had had no prior contact.
He recounted a conversation that he had shortly after the mid-air destruction of TWA Flight 800 on July 17, 1996, off the coast of Long Island. He had a particular interest in the plane's demise for two reasons. One is that he was a qualified accident investigator. The second is that he had flown that very same flight a week earlier.
"It had to be a bloody missile, probably an un-armed Tomahawk, going for center-of-mass," he said to a senior flight manager of his acquaintance. "They were most likely going for a target drone and testing their capability to go-through normal aircraft traffic to get at the target."
The flight manager agreed and recounted what he had been told by a maintenance foreman at the investigation hangar on Long Island.
"They had this curtained area over in the corner with Marine armed guards in front," the foreman had told him. "But, I did see one of the right mainmounts that had a crease out of it, as if something round had passed through it. And, to me, it sure looked like an 'entry' and 'exit' hole in the fuselage."
I cite this e-mail for two reasons. One is that the accepted wisdom among many TWA pilots immediately after the crash matches closely the detailed account of what transpired, at least as reported in an extraordinarily comprehensive anonymous review that I and investigator Ray Lahr received a few months ago.
The second reason is that all of the best eyewitness accounts that I have received that might verify this scenario are second-hand. In fact, no one that I know has talked to anyone who witnessed the firing of the fatal missiles.
My partner in this investigation, James Sanders, had developed any number of discreet first-hand sources in 1996-1997, but all of these sources "went away after we were indicted." The "we" refers to James and his wife, Elizabeth, at the time a TWA trainer, both of whom eventually were convicted of the bogus charge of conspiracy to steal airplane parts.
If an eyewitness were to come forward, now would be a good time, a safer time as well. The true story might derail the ambitions of a candidate or two – Al Gore for sure, Hillary probably – but the major media would be more willing to listen before either became the party's nominee. If either is elected president, the story dies.
I can be contacted through my website, cashill.com, and Ray Lahr through his, raylahr.com.
I have sent "The Review" to perhaps 100 people with more technical expertise than I, and it has impressed everyone that I have heard from. Unlike the subjunctive dithering of the NTSB report, The Review is declarative and confident and tells its tale with the dense technical poetry of a Patrick O'Brian novel.
According to The Review's author, the first missile, the one that destroyed the plane, was large and, if not un-armed, at least failed to explode. The missile shot above TWA Flight 800, found its mark and descended on it from the rear.
"The missile's momentum was high enough to pitch the nose of the aircraft sharply upward when it landed on the top of the stabilizer," claims the author, "and alter its heading to the right when it hit the body. The missile's supersonic speed caused these changes to occur nearly simultaneously."
The stabilizer is the horizontal part of the tail. The elevator is the movable control on the stabilizer. A hydraulically driven device called the "jackscrew," located in front of the tail, changes the stabilizer's pitch angle, which causes the plane to pitch up or down.
So much information is loaded into the recovered jackscrew that author and Air Force vet Tom Kovach calls it the "Rosetta Stone" of the disaster, "the one piece of the aircraft that proves the high-speed action events that brought down Flight 800."
Apparently, the missile smashed into the stabilizer with more force than the jackscrew could handle, so much force in fact that it ripped the forearm-thick steel of the jackscrew in half. This same force pushed the tail violently down and the nose up and wrenched the plane into an aerodynamic stall. Unable to take the extra stress from the aircraft's sudden up-pitch, the wing tips fractured simultaneously.
The violent upward pitch of the plane whipsawed the fuselage and snapped the rigid keel beam, which runs under the length of the fuselage. The missile meanwhile skipped off the stabilizer and into the right side of the fuselage, which had flipped up nearly vertically and to the right.
The savage force of this combined action ripped the cockpit off of the plane, which, along with the front of the keel beam and the air conditioning units, plunged into the sea before the rest of the plane did the same.
The Review author deduced this in large part from the debris field and physical evidence, like the fractured jackscrew, but there is more evidence, of course, namely the testimony of the eyewitnesses.
From her Fire Island deck, FBI witness No. 150 watched a shiny, cylindrical wingless object move at high speed from north to south. She then noticed the object head toward "a large commercial airliner" traveling east at the same altitude. The airliner "simply 'stopped' at that moment," she told the FBI.
"As the plane came apart, its nose turned up and to the right," her FBI 302 continues. "She could see windows on the top right side of front of the plane, even though she had previously been able to see only along its spine."
"The front was carried forward and arced down with its momentum," the 302 adds. "The right wing seemed to stay with the plane."
Six days after the crash, weeks before any of this information became public, witness No. 150 described the break-up sequence of TWA Flight 800 almost perfectly. She was one of more than 750 eyewitnesses that the FBI interviewed.
Another such witness, No. 551, tracked TWA Flight from his window seat on US Air 217 overhead. He watched the 747 for 30-40 seconds as it flew eastward, its cabin lights still on. Then he saw the front of the plane explode. "The plane seemed to stop in mid air like a bus running into a stone wall – no forward motion," he told the FBI.
The Review author believes that No. 551 was describing the same dramatic stall, a result of the missile impact that No. 150 described, likely the first blow of three. The author does not try to guess the missile's provenance, but he rules out a Stinger or similar shoulder-fired missile. One can infer from what he writes that the lethal missile was likely a product of the U.S. Navy or a NATO ally.
Dwight Brumley, a retired 25-year United States Navy master chief, also watched the incident from US Air 217. He is among those Navy people who believes that if this missile had come off of a sub or a cruiser, "Somebody would talk to somebody about what they knew (or at least suspected)."
Brumley thinks it possible that there was a test of a defensive missile system by a black ops team that went awry. More likely, he speculates, "We were completely caught with our pants down and TWA 800 was just flat out shot down by an unknown missile."
"I just know," Brumley tells me, "that I saw something streaking up toward TWA 800 and that after the initial explosion she never climbed anymore. No 'zoom climb.'"
If someone knows more or different, we would certainly like to hear from him.
Reports vary but most portable SAMs don't have that kind of altitude. Besides, they're heat seekers so by rights they should have homed in on the hottest part of the plane, one of the 4 engines. Everything I've ever read about a missile strike claims the plane was hit in the fuselage.
My point is that they burn out before they reach max range/altitude. You would not be able to see one after burn out.
Just trying to throw your entire irrelevant argument a life line. If nothing else, at least I can provide a little education on a system you apparently don't know much about.
"I've never flown a TCAS equipped airplane. I've relied solely on my eyeballs hundreds of times to determine another aircraft's altitude."
Good for you. Obviously others haven't been as fortunate. As in the example I provided for you, misinterpreting an aircraft's altitude is a relatively common, and sometimes fatal problem.
"As for the relevancy of TCAS to McClaine or anyone else near TWA 800, it is apparently zero as not one pilot on any of the frequencies that I know of reported any information from his TCAS."
OF COURSE IT ISN'T RELEVENT. Your entire argument that led to TCAS becoming a topic has been irrelevant, which is exactly what I've been telling you since you started it. It all started with your obsession with the CIA video, and it has been a slippery slope of uselessness from there. And every single step of the way has been a direct result of one of your questions. TCAS is just the latest example. To refresh your memory YOU asked the following, (and as always, I quote)...
"I'm wondering if there is some new equipment I should know about. (What else is there besides ATC reports, which one normally wouldn't hear when flying VFR, and eyeballs?)"
So once again, I DIRECTLY answered one of your irrelevant questions, and once again you accuse me of blowing smoke. If you want to avoid the appearance of suffering from a severe case of Alzheimer's, the next time you are tempted to ask why information has been introduced to this discussion, take a look at your own silly questions.
This is your version of an April Fools joke right? Maybe you do have Alzheimer's. You and I have been bantering on these conspiracy threads for years. If you doubt that, click on my FreeRepublic homepage and check my links. I've got threads on there even earlier than the one you linked. Participating in these conspiracy threads is a form of recreation for me. I use facts and reality to shoot down theories and fantasy. Kind of like plinking rats in a land fill. It's easy fun with very little changing except the fuzzy little heads that poke up out of the holes. I've been around since the days of Micheal Rivero. And I've witnessed him and so many of his ilk get the boot from this site. You are a rare exception for having such longevity. I think you can attribute that to the fact that most people can't figure out what you are actually trying to say. But eventually, all the conspiracy kooks slip and reveal a level of irrationality that becomes too embarrassing to accommodate on FreeRepublic. Speaking to a "Peanut Gallery" is an early sign. But don't sweat it, like your fallen brethren before you, your day too, will eventually come.
More April Fools right?!?! Please tell me you aren't serious. You quoted me asking someone to describe what ships and what area. You didn't quote their response. Do you know why? THEY DIDN'T RESPOND! US Navy ships in the area is "just so much conspiracy nonsense. Like I said before. Nothing changes in this game but the fuzzy little heads that pop up out of the holes.
"I find this interesting."
I do too. That was in my early days when I didn't realize people like Michael Rivero just made things up to support their points. Perhaps you'd like to answer the question I never got answered that you quoted earlier. Specifically..."Please elaborate on that detail. What ships and what area?" And be careful. I've been around the block a few times since then and am much better at detecting B.S.. Do your best not to join the Michael Rivero memorial hall of shame.
Yeah, but even with Alzheimer's my ability to reason is still, apparently, superior to yours.
Let the Peanut Gallery know what "conspiracy" threads you are referring to. For you, I'm guessing that a conspiracy thread is one where the US Government official version of things is different from what many folks including myself believe to be the truth.
For the record, for me, these "conspiracies" include: the supposed suicide of Vincent Foster, the supposed center-fuel-tank explosion of TWA 800, the entire Waco fiasco but especially the notion that Janet Reno was responsible for anything, the notion that the Mura Building bombing was solely the responsibility of Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, and that the crash that killed Ron Brown was an accident. About JFK, I'm not sure I've made up my mind yet.
I have different degrees of certitude about these, but I'm quite sure that Vincent Foster was murdered, and that TWA 800 was destroyed by a weapons test of some sort gang agley.
So tell us all, it's obvious you believe that TWA was a center fuel take explosion without followup grounding and airworthiness directives and that all the witnesses are idiots, but how 'bout the others. Do you really think Vincent Foster committed suicide? How much Klinton Kool-aid have you swallowed?
ML/NJ
It is a little more than that. I consider a conspiracy thread to be one that focuses on a conspiracy theory. And the theory is usually presented as a fact, although it relies far more heavily on theory than fact. And the number of people who believe it doesn't matter. Chemtrails are a conspiracy theory that few people believe. Amazingly, there were people on this site (now banned) who believed in them. The conspiracy threads I find most interesting are the ones involving subjects I am most familiar with. I've served in the military since 1985. I've been a professional aviator since 1989 flying everything from single engine cessna's to MD-11's. Obviously, subjects involving the military and aviation interest me.
"So tell us all, it's obvious you believe that TWA was a center fuel take explosion without followup grounding and airworthiness directives and that all the witnesses are idiots, but how 'bout the others."
That isn't what I believe because it isn't accurate. TWA 800 was brought down by an explosion originating in its Center Wing Tank. The best engineers at Boeing confirmed that. But the rest of your statement is inaccurate or reflects ignorance ("ignorance" not implying stupidity, but an honest lack of knowledge). Aircraft types are almost never grounded as a result of a single accident. In fact, if 747's had been grounded as a result of the TWA 800 incident, it would be so unusual it would probably become grounds for another conspiracy theory. As a reference, recall that DC-10's were not grounded after the famous Sioux City crash, A300's were not grounded after AA587 went down, and 737's have never been grounded despite flying with known rudder problems for decades.
As for airworthiness directives...there have been well over a hundred related to findings from the TWA 800 investigation. The article at the following link summarizes what has been accomplished and what is yet to be accomplished since TWA 800 went down. Keep in mind that he NTSB does not issue AD's. They can only make recommendations. It is the FAA who writes and enforces regulations.
NTSB MARKS 10TH ANNIVERSARY OF CRASH OF TWA 800
Finally, nobody associated with the investigation believes the witnesses are idiots. In fact, they relied on witness statements to help reconstruct the events of the night. But when a witness 12 miles away from TWA 800 says he heard an explosion the same time he saw a large explosion, he is not observing the event that made the noise he is hearing. It is a simple matter of physics. The job of an accident investigator is to consider the whole picture, and not cut and paste the parts he likes best.
"Do you really think Vincent Foster committed suicide?"
I don't know much about that. I despise the clinton's and don't doubt they are capable of having someone killed, but I haven't looked too deeply into it.
Maybe what the witness(es) heard was a sonic boom, or some noise associated with the launch(es)? Do you really think that all these people made up the sound they heard. The soonest anyone on the ground could have heard noise associated with the fireball would have been 15 seconds after they saw it. But that's not what many of them describe, is it? So what did cause that sound?
ML/NJ
That would mean that the lowliest sailor would have direct knowledge, and it makes no sense that bu this time, nothing would be revealed.
Just speculation on my part. I have no real interest in any of this, but I don't like the conspiracy angle simply because there is some witness reports that appear to contradict the summation make by the Fed.
I think we could take any aircraft crash and speculate it to death. I have decided that it just does not make sense anymore.
0031:50 BBE507 we just saw an explosion out here stinger bee five oh seven
That's approximately 39 seconds after the initiating event at 13,800 feet at 0031:12 and raises the obvious questions of whether McClaine was so startled by the explosion that he delayed getting on his radio for that 39 SECONDS or that the huge explosion he saw took place LONG AFTER the initiating event took place at 0031:12 and FAR LOWER in the sky than 13,800 feet.
You state that you and McClaine "spoke on three occasions always face to face, and one of the three conversations lasted for over an hour". Assuming that your questioning of McClaine was competent and appropriately documented, please include a copy of those "face to face" interviews with your reply.
The sonic boom associated with something as small as a surface to air missile with its near vertical trajectory is almost never heard. However, the rocket motor of a large surface to air missile roars like a loud freight train when it is launched, while a shoulder launched surface to air missile sounds more like a loud hiss. Neither of them make noise for long however, because their rocket motors burn out just seconds after launch.
"Do you really think that all these people made up the sound they heard."
Of course not, and I don't know anyone who does. No one claims they didn't hear anything. The question is, what did they hear, and when did they hear it with respect to the TWA 800 incident. I'm not sure where your 15 second number comes from, and there is no point in talking generalities. Let's talk specifics. Which witnesses are you talking about?
In his witness statement he says "I immediately called BOS ATC and reported an inflight explosion out over the water, I stated this twice but didn’t get an immediate reply." Three years later during his interview with the NTSB he says 10 seconds. That actually corresponds pretty well with the investigation timeline for when the wings separated and created a giant fireball. He also states he saw no explosion after that one. That would indicate he only saw the final explosion which I believe happened within 10 seconds of his radio call to Boston. It certainly doesn't make sense if what he was reporting was the initial event.
" Non sibi, sed patrae"
Conversation with TWA 800 WitnessML/NJOn Tuesday evening, Dec 30 I had an opportunity to speak with TWA 800 witness, David McClaine, for about an hour. McClaine is a captain with a small airline - Eastwind - that flies in and out of Trenton, NJ's Mercer County Airport. My own, private pilot, experience with Mercer County Airport was such that I never gave a thought to its having commercial traffic. Last summer I was surprised to see an airline crew check into the hotel that I stay at in the course of my regular business near Trenton, and wondering why such a crew would be staying so far from Newark or Philadelphia, I inquired. That was the first time I had ever heard of Eastwind Airlines.
The next time I encountered the name was on Shoemaker's web page reading about witness David McClaine. Sometime later I encountered an Eastwind crewmember in the hotel lobby, and asked if he knew McClaine. Not only did he know him, but he said McClaine was part of the crew, and they were all going to be meeting a half hour later in the lobby. He said he would introduce me. McClaine was friendly and suggested that we talk another time when he didn't have to rush off to the airport. After one postponement, that time came on Tuesday evening.
On July 17, 1996, McClaine was pilot-in-command of an Eastwind flight that was IFR from Boston to Trenton. He was level at 17000, after leaving 19000, east of the accident site. He would be descending again soon and was looking for a more direct route to Trenton. ATC told him that he couldn't get that more direct routing because of traffic out of JFK. The night was clear and he could see that traffic climbing out from JFK. (I'm estimating 80 - 100 miles distant, which seems like a lot.) It had an oddly bright yellowish landing light on as it climbed. This was TWA 800. McClaine followed it up past 10000 feet when he flashed his own landing light as a signal to the other plane that they may have forgotten to turn off their landing light. Shortly afterwards, he saw the plane burst into two sections of flame, and fall to the ocean. (I asked him later whether he had spoken to any other witnesses, and he said, "only my co-pilot. But he only saw the fireball." Apparently, while McClaine's attention was focused upon the "unusual" landing light, his co-pilot's gaze was downward toward paperwork associated with landing - e.g. checklists, approach plates. From this I have inferred that whatever was unusual about that landing light, was not so unusual as to have McClaine say to his co-pilot, "Hey, look at that.") There was no significant talk on the frequency he was monitoring (Boston Center. TWA 800 was on the same frequency.) until after the explosion.
McClaine's attention was focused upon that light which turned into a fireball for "a couple of minutes." THIS IS SIGNIFICANT. Remember that the Eastwind plane was level at 17000, and TWA 800's last reported altitude was 13700. The FBI/CIA cartoon has the fireball gaining approximately 4000 feet which WOULD HAVE PUT IT ABOVE THE EASTWIND PLANE. I believe that Capt. McClaine is almost certainly the person best placed to report whether TWA 800 climbed after it was on fire, so I asked him if he saw the fireball climb AT ALL. He responded with a quiet, emphatic, "Noooohw!" He reported, "It went straight down."
McClaine was interviewed the next day (or very soon after the accident) by the FBI. The FBI pressed =him= about a missile! Did he see anything rise to the plane, etc? (Except for this) He has not been pressed by anyone to remember things he did not see, nor has he been asked not to speak about what he saw. He is convinced that the light he saw was "on the plane." He did not see any vapor trails or anything else that made him suspect a missile was involved. He seems to think that structural failure or some Fuel Tank catastrophe is the most likely explanation. He expressed doubt that a missile firing accident could be covered up. But he is clearly uncomfortable with the "investigation." No one from the NTSB ever contacted him; and of course, the CIA's "animators" never consulted with him either. (Regarding the unlikelihood of a successful cover-up, I first mentioned the Gulf Of Tonkin incident with only slight effect, but when I mentioned the Liberty incident he definitely started to rethink. Apparently McClaine knows someone who was on the Liberty.)
McClaine did not see cockpit separate or fall. He says that it was sufficiently dark that the only visual contact he had with TWA 800 was with light it generated. Unlike some others, he said the visibility was excellent, and did not preclude him from seeing low, distant, opposite direction traffic, nor did it preclude him from seeing the flaming wreckage fall to the ocean. I asked him about the haze layer some others have mentioned, and he said his visibility was essentially unrestricted. As I mentioned above, he saw two separate fireballs fall and even, though he didn't see the physical wings, he assumed that these fireballs were the wings having separated from the fuselage. He flew by the wreckage just after it hit the ocean.
I had a copy of the page from the NTSB report with the final seconds' FDR data that I showed to McClaine. I was particularly interested in his opinion about the Engine Pressure Ratio asymmetry. He said that the 2.4 readings were "very high" for the engines he had experience with but that he knew nothing about 747's. He was not impressed by last iteration of NTSB data. He thinks that it is most likely evidence of the sensors going south.
McClaine said that he hasn't followed the crash aftermath very closely. He has been contacted by a few reporters, and that's it.
15 seconds comes from approximating the time it would take a sound originating at 13772 feet to reach an observer on the ground. Any witness (and there are many) who reported hearing sound coincident or nearly coincident with the appearance of the fireball was describing sound generated by a prior event. Do you not agree?
ML/NJ
Where on the ground? Some of the observers were almost 100 miles away. Again, do you have someone in particular in mind?
"Any witness (and there are many) who reported hearing sound coincident or nearly coincident with the appearance of the fireball was describing sound generated by a prior event."
I agree.
Great to hear from you again. Obviously not much has changed around here.
>> 15 seconds comes from approximating the time it would take a sound originating at 13772
Speaking to the sound thing alone, would a missile launch cause a sonic boom early in its trajectory that would give the impression the ‘bullwhip’ would be the noise generated from the impending explosion?
Actually, I am intrigued by all your questions about the sounds the witnesses heard because I think these are probably additional evidence that the government's story is BS. The fact that you "agree" that their recollections point to a prior event is somewhat surprising to me.
I'll admit that I haven't properly considered the reports from the "witnesses" about the sounds that they say they heard, and reviewing what I have reviewed in the past couple of days indicates that others haven't either. The interesting thing about sound is that there should be some correlation between the distance the observer was from the fireball and their reportage of the sequence of these sounds. If there is, then this would be additional conformation, that the witnesses are really accurately describing an event that occurred before the visible fireball. I hope to be able to review this in the week to come and report upon what I find.
ML/NJ
I don't really know. I'm also not sure what you mean by a "bullwhip." As I suggested in my reply to Rokke just preceding this reply, the important thing is that reports of sound that had to have originated before the fireball appeared are what I think is important here.
ML/NJ
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