Jack Cashill: Reopen the TWA Flight 800 Case

American Thinker ^ | June 07, 2009 | Jack Cashill

[neverdem]

Nearly thirteen years after the destruction of TWA Flight 800 off the coast of Long Island, I had begun to think that the case was a dead issue, but then two unexpected and unrelated events caused me to think otherwise.

The first was a phone call from one of the three most important eyewitnesses to the case.  The second, two weeks later, was the still-mysterious crash of Air France Flight 447 off the coast of Brazil. 

This eyewitness put a further dent in the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) claim that a fuel tank explosion brought down TWA Flight 800.  The crash of Flight 447 has put TWA 800 back in the news again.   If the media are going to look to 800 as a template for 447, they need to know what the eyewitnesses to the 800 crash actually saw.

The eyewitness in question may be prepared to tell his story publicly.  After giving his testimony to the FBI in July 1996, for personal reasons, he had chosen to remain silent.  He is still sufficiently wary that I will shade his testimony and refer to him only as "Surfer."  What I will share, however, is his one, entirely damning, new revelation.

The other two critical eyewitnesses I will identify by name and FBI number.  The first is Mike Wire, #571. I have become good friends with Mike and his wife Joan since meeting them while doing research on the book, First Strike, that I co-authored with James Sanders in 2003.  (The documentary that Sanders and I produced in Spring 2001 is available online.  Part 1 sets the scene) 

The second key eyewitness, Joseph Delgado by name, 649 by number, was at the time the principal of Westhampton Beach High School.  He was not thrilled that Sanders and I had identified him in First Strike, but he acknowledged that our facts were accurate.  No one provided the FBI a more precise description of the event than Delgado.  His illustration of the same is stunning.

The surfer saw the events just about as clearly as Delgado.  What he also saw, in addition to the apparent missile, was the break-up sequence of the aircraft.  He described it accurately to the FBI long before the NTSB came to the same conclusion based on radar and the debris field. 

These are just three of the 270 eyewitnesses by the FBI's own count that saw a flaming, smoke-trailing, zigzagging object appear to destroy TWA Flight 800.   All three followed the object off the horizon.  Delgado and the surfer tracked TWA 800 separately from the object and witnessed the moment of impact.  Wire and the surfer saw the object "arch over" before the strike. The New York Times interviewed none of these three, none of the 270 for that matter.

A no-nonsense, 6'-7" millwright and U.S. Army vet, Mike Wire watched events unfold from the Beach Lane Bridge in Westhampton on Long Island.  He came to play a key role because the CIA based its notorious video animation on Wire's perspective.  Why the CIA was involved in a domestic airplane "accident" is anyone's guess.  The media never bothered to ask.

The FBI showed the CIA video just once.  That was in November 1997 when it officially bowed out of the case.  The FBI needed it to negate the stubborn testimony of the eyewitnesses.

A key animation sequence in the CIA video showed not a missile but an internal fuel tank explosion blowing the nose off the aircraft. According to the video's narration, TWA 800 then "pitched up abruptly and climbed several thousand feet from its last recorded altitude of about 13,800 feet to a maximum altitude of about 17,000 feet."  This rocketing aircraft was alleged to look like a missile and to have confused the eyewitnesses.  (The animation begins at the 8:30 mark of Part 2 of "Silenced"). 

This animation was essential to close the investigation. Without it, there was no way to explain what these hundreds of official FBI eyewitnesses, many of them highly credible, had actually seen.

According to the official record, the three key eyewitnesses were re-interviewed by the FBI in 1997.  The authorities paid most attention to Delgado.  On May 8, 1997, agents from the FBI and the Naval Air Warfare Center in China Lake, California, interviewed Delgado at his Long island school.  According to FBI notes, the China Lake rep was introduced to Delgado simply as "a member of the Department of Defense."

Delgado told the authorities once again that he had seen an object like "a firework," ascend "fairly quick," then "slow" and "wiggle" then "speed up" and get "lost."  Then he saw a second object that "glimmered" in the sky, higher than the first, then a red dot move up to that object, then a puff of smoke, then another puff, then a "firebox."  The agents seem to have taken him seriously.

In Mike Wire's first interview on July 29, 1996, at his Pennsylvania home, he told an FBI agent exactly what he had seen, and it tracks closely with Delgado's account.  Here is how the agent recorded the conversation on his "302:"

Wire saw a white light that was traveling skyward from the ground at approximately a 40 degree angle.  Wire described the white light as a light that sparkled and thought it was some type of fireworks. Wire stated that the white light 'zig zagged' (sic) as it traveled upwards, and at the apex of its travel the white light "arched over" and disappeared from Wire's view. . . . Wire stated the white light traveled outwards from the beach in a south-southeasterly direction.

After the light disappeared, the 302 continues, Wire "saw an orange light that appeared to be a fireball."  Although the CIA chose to build its animation squarely on Mike Wire's perspective, the story the CIA video told bore almost no relation to the one Wire had told the FBI. 

The NTSB transcribed its 1999 conversations with the CIA analysts responsible for the video.  (NTSB Witness document, Appendix FF, Docket No. SA-516, April 30, 1999).  In this document, the CIA analysts concede the problems that Mike Wire's original 302 presented. 

Said one, "We realized that if he [Wire] was only seeing the airplane, that he would not see a light appear from behind the rooftop of that house."  In other words, the CIA could not square its account of a self-imploding airline turning into a rocket with Wires' account since TWA 800 was at least 20 degrees above the horizon, well above the rooftop. So, claimed the CIA analyst, "We asked the FBI to talk to [Wire] again, and they did."

It was during this follow-up interview with the FBI, some time in 1997, that Wire was reported to have changed his mind, now admitting that he had first seen the ascending light high above the rooftop. How high?  Said the CIA analyst,  "[Wire] said it was as if - if you imagine a flag pole on top of the house it would be as if it were on the top or the tip of the flag pole."

The CIA analysts based their video on this second interview with Mike Wire.  "FBI investigators determined precisely where the eyewitness was standing," says the narrator while the video shows the explosion from Wire's perspective on Beach Lane Bridge. "The white light the eyewitness saw was very likely the aircraft very briefly ascending and arching over after it exploded rather than a missile attacking the aircraft."

The CIA animation converts Wire's "40 degree" climb to one of roughly 70 or 80 degrees. It reduces the movement of an obvious smoke trail from three dimensions, south and east "outward from the beach," to a small, two-dimensional blip far off shore.  It places the explosion noticeably to the West of where Wire clearly remembers it.  Most problematically, it fully ignores Wire's claim that the streak of light ascended "skyward from the ground" and places his first sighting 20 degrees above the horizon, exactly where Flight 800 would have been.

In fact, Wire never told the FBI anything about a flagpole.  He could not have.  He never talked to the FBI, the NTSB or the CIA after July of 1996. The CIA and/or the FBI fabricated the entire interview and added the flagpole detail to make the interview seem real.  The 302 from this alleged second interview is not in the official NTSB record.

The surfer added confirming detail to Wire's account.  After thirteen years, he finally read the 302s the FBI had prepared.  The first one from 1996 was entirely accurate.  The second one from 1997 added very specific new details about the surfer that served to discredit his testimony.  Not only were the details untrue, the surfer told me, but, as in Wire's case, there was no second interview.

Delgado presented more of a challenge.  The serious nature of his second interview suggests that there was still a force within the bureaucracy struggling to get at the truth.  By the time of the NTSB's final hearing in August 2000, that force had obviously been suppressed. 

At the hearing the task of discrediting Delgado fell to one Dr. David Mayer, who headed up the NTSB's Orwellian-titled "Human Performance Division."  He too solved his problem with a flagpole.  As Mayer described events, everything Delgado saw occurred "between these two flagpoles."  Mayer then used an illustration to show where those flagpoles were located and vectored Delgado's line of sight from between those flagpoles out to sea.

"So again," said Mayer, "it doesn't appear that this witness was looking in the right location to see where flight 800 would have been when it would have been struck by a hypothetical missile."  If he were looking in the wrong direction, Mayer implied, none of his testimony could possibly matter.

One major objection here. In none of the FBI notes does Delgado ever mention a flagpole, let alone two flagpoles. With good reason. There weren't any at his location in Westhampton. Like the CIA analysts, Mayer created flagpoles that did not exist and entered them into the official record.

Mayer knew better.  In researching this article I discovered a detail I had missed before.  On July 20, 1996, three days after the crash, the Suffolk County Police went to the high school parking lot where Delgado had been standing and did a GPS reading of his angle of vision.  Mayer had total access to this information.  He suppressed it.  And he was not the only one to suppress information.  There is powerful evidence to suggest that the authorities consciously corrupted the testimony of the three most critical eyewitness to the crash.

The NTSB has since fully abandoned the CIA "zoom-climb" explanation, but it worked to distract an administration-friendly media.  For a new administration so keen on transparency, and a media so keen on exposing the past abuses of our intelligence agencies, and for the families of air crash victims looking for closure, TWA Flight 800 would seem like a very good place to start clearing the air. 

It is time to reopen the case.

[neverdem]

IIRC, the official explanation of the internal explosion of the fuel tank by static electricity never occured before that in any airplane. Calling Occam's razor.

[JerseyJohn61]

bump

[chuck_the_tv_out]

“never occured before that in any airplane”

And if that was the 1st time ever, what are the odds it happens off Long Island?

[usconservative]

I still remember the day, and I still remember seeing eyewitness after eyewitness on CNN and Fox News that day describing a "light" going from the surface to the plane before the explosion.

Those who described seeing TWA-800 explode that day did so in the context of a surface to air missile bringing it down.

Not that I'm a conspiracy theorist (I'm not..) but I've never believed the Gubbermint's account of TWA-800.

[Lancey Howard]

Jack Cashill BUMP!

[DB]

If Flight 447 was flying at approximately 50,000 feet there aren’t very many missiles of the normal kind that could have taken it out from what I understand.

[True Republican Patriot]

There has to be other Eye Witnesses and those involved in the “Interviews” that wull come forward now for the Security and Future Health of Our Dear AMERICA to bring the Truth about the Destruction of TWA 800 to the Light of Day.
One thing We can be sure of is that Mr. Obama’s Administration will continue to hide the Truth because it wonte reflect well on the MUSLIM TERRORISTS who Obama denies even Exists! Dr. Cashill has done extensive Investigations on TWA 800 and deserves all the help and assistance possible in bringing out what really happened to TWA 800 for the Families Who Lost their Loved Ones, for AMERICA and for AMERICA’S Citizens, US! who deserve No Less Than the TRUTH! Also, LETS DEMAND that the documentary “PATH TO 9-11” be released by DISNEY/ABC and the CLINTOON CENSORS for the Judgment of the AMERICAN PUBLIC! As of yet, We do NOT LIVE in Venezuala, Cuba or KENYA wher We would expect to be denied OUR FREEDOMS.

[DB]

And I’ll add if they had such a missile, why go after an Air France plane verses one of ours?

[marron]

The feds announced the cause of the crash before the investigation began. Thats my memory; they announced what the investigation would find the day they announced that the investigation was starting.

My reaction at the time was, what?

The government’s position from the beginning has always been, “who are you going to believe, us or your lying eyes?”

[microgood]

If Flight 447 was flying at approximately 50,000 feet there aren’t very many missiles of the normal kind that could have taken it out from what I understand.

The plane just got approval to increase their elevation to 15,000 feet when contact was lost.

[backhoe]

Keep hitting F5 until it loads:

TWA 800- who speaks for the dead?
Published: 07-14-01

[killjoy]

I really wish the US Government was competent enough to pull off a massive cover up like this. I really do. Sadly, the US Government isn’t near as competent, or coordinated enough, to make this a reality. People claim the US Government can fake 9/11, coverup TWA 800, hide UFOs, and all sorts of other garbage, but then can’t even have the foresight to plant WMD in Iraq. Way funny.

[Star Traveler]

TWA Flight 800 is another one of those terrorist attacks, which the government does not (and did not) want anyone to know about.

Oklahoma City is another such incident...

We’ve been attacked a few more times by terrorists than the government wants to really let us know about...

[Star Traveler]

You said — People claim the US Government can fake 9/11, coverup TWA 800, hide UFOs, and all sorts of other garbage, but then can’t even have the foresight to plant WMD in Iraq. Way funny.

—

Those items are all over the ball park. They are not related and don’t show the government necessarily doing something in one item that carries over to the other item.

For one thing, hiding UFOs and putting that into the same sentence as 9/11 or TWA Flight 800 is ridiculous.

On top of that, putting the “truther” idea of 9/11 into the same sentence at TWA Flight 800 is double ridiculous.

I don’t buy into the “truther” story about 9/11, and neither do I about the UFOs being hidden by the government (although I do think that people are seeing something, but the government is just as ignorant about it as the people in general are...).

As far as the WMD in Iraq, to me it’s really obvious that our government did know that the WMD was carted off to Syria. But, for some reason, they did not (and don’t) want to admit or clarify what they do know about it all. For some reason they are keeping this information quiet. And keeping it quiet and keeping that information secret does not mean that they didn’t have the “foresight to plant WMD in Iraq”...

None of those things relate to the issue of TWA Flight 800. And it’s entirely possible for the government to keep secret the real cause of the downing of TWA Flight 800. That’s not hard to do, as we can see plainly, by simply not even bothering to interview witnesses who saw something different than the “story-line” that the government wanted to pursue “officially”...

I’m sure that the government knows that this was a terrorist attack and for some reason they decided that it would be better to keep the whole thing secret and under wraps (and for some misguided reason, I think...).

[David1]

From Wikipedia located here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWA_Flight_800

Analysis of reported witness observations

Numerous witnesses in the vicinity of the accident reported a streak of light. As the NTSB noted, “There was intense public interest in these witness reports and much speculation that the reported streak of light was a missile that eventually struck TWA flight 800, causing the airplane to explode.”[8] The NTSB Witness Group concluded that the streak of light reported by witnesses might have been the accident airplane during some stage of its flight before the fireball developed, noting that most of the 258 streak of light accounts were generally consistent with the calculated flightpath of the accident airplane after the CWT explosion.[8]

However, 38 witnesses described a streak of light that ascended vertically, or nearly so, and these accounts “seem[ed] to be inconsistent with the accident airplane’s flightpath.”[8] In addition, 18 witnesses reported seeing a streak of light that originated at the surface, or the horizon, which was “not consistent with the airplane’s flightpath.”[8] With regard to these differing accounts, the NTSB noted that in previous investigations witness data was “often inconsistent with the known facts or other witnesses’ reports of the same events.”[8] The interviews conducted by the FBI focused on the possibility of a missile attack (some suggested interview questions given to FBI agents were “Where was the sun in relation to the missile launch point?” and “How long did the missile fly?”), and as a consequence there was possible interviewer/interviewee bias.[30] The NTSB concluded that given the large number of witnesses in this case, they “did not expect all of the documented witness observations to be consistent with one another”[8], and “did not view the apparent anomalous accounts as being persuasive evidence that some witnesses might have observed a missile.”[8]

The investigation determined that if witnesses had observed a missile attack they would have seen the following: (1) a light from the burning missile motor ascending very rapidly and steeply for about 8 seconds; (2) the light disappearing for up to 7 seconds; (3) upon the missile striking the aircraft and igniting the CWT another light, moving considerably slower and more laterally than the first, for about 30 seconds; (4) this light descending while simultaneously developing into a fireball falling toward the ocean.[8] None of the witness documents provided to the NTSB described such a scenario, and the investigation concluded that “the witness observations of a streak of light were not related to a missile and that the streak of light reported by most of these witnesses was the burning fuel from the accident airplane in crippled flight during some portion of the post-explosion, pre-impact breakup sequence.”[8]

Also see:
Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w581BiSBzQA&feature=PlayList&p=9FB13C94EF3E8F7B&index=0&playnext=1

Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKjHhm1T2UU&feature=PlayList&p=9FB13C94EF3E8F7B&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=5

Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4mvOBi_Wtg&feature=PlayList&p=9FB13C94EF3E8F7B&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=6

[AlexW]

“The plane just got approval to increase their elevation to 15,000 feet when contact was lost.”

WHAT???? The plane would not have been at 15,000 in that location, much less below that.
He would have been at maybe 30,000 at that point.

[AlexW]

“If Flight 447 was flying at approximately 50,000 feet there aren’t very many missiles of the normal kind that could have taken it out from what I understand.”

You are right, and anyone thinking a missile attack obviously does not know a jet airliner from a Cessna 150.

I do accept the likelihood that TWA 800 at low altitude
was indeed shot down.

[neverdem]

And I’ll add if they had such a missile, why go after an Air France plane verses one of ours?

While we don't know the method yet, they did have motive. The French have about 5,000,000 Muslim immigrants. A good number caused riots in their suburban enclaves not long ago. They didn't like riot suppression. The French have a law against hajibs. The French are helping NATO with combat troops in Afghanistan.

[killjoy]

For one thing, hiding UFOs and putting that into the same sentence as 9/11 or TWA Flight 800 is ridiculous.

I disagree. They are related because they would all require massive inter-agency coordination and nobody talking. Impossible. Your theory about WMD being carted off to Syria isn't true for the exact same reasons. It would require too many people to keep their mouth shut when the reward would be millions of dollars for blowing the whistle on it. Again, impossible.

[Star Traveler]

You were saying about the WMD being carted off to Syria — “It would require too many people to keep their mouth shut when the reward would be millions of dollars for blowing the whistle on it. Again, impossible.”

—

Well, actually, it doesn’t require people to shut up, because people haven’t shut up, actually... LOL... There have been ample reports about that. No one is shutting them up; it’s just that most of the public doesn’t believe them (and a large part of that non-believing public doesn’t want to believe them, because they are Democrats...).

And so..., it’s just that the U.S. government goes along with the detractors of the war in Iraq and says, “You’re right, we were wrong...” — at the same time that others are “spilling the beans” on it...

So, there’s no need for a massive cover-up here, just that the U.S. Government agrees with its detractors and then it lets human nature take its course and no one believes the ones who are spilling the beans on it. It works beautifully...