Posted on 11/12/2001 9:06:00 AM PST by t-shirt
Jet 'exploded into pieces'
Monday, 12 November, 2001
BBC Residents watched as firefighters battled the blaze
Eyewitnesses have spoken of their horror at seeing an Airbus A300 crash into a residential area of New York. Witnesses reported seeing a fire or explosion on one side of the aircraft as an engine fell off.
The plane then crashed into the Rockaway area of Queens.
I saw the flames and the smoke and I just thought, 'Oh no, not again'
Milena Owens, who lives yards from the crash site, said she was putting up Thanksgiving decorations on her window when she saw the plane fly far too low.
"I heard the explosion and I looked out the window and saw the flames and the smoke and I just thought, 'Oh no, not again'."
"The whole house shook," said Gus Cholakis, who lives 100 yards from the spot where some of the wreckage came to rest.
Resident's prayers
"I looked out the window, the first thing I saw was a huge fireball right outside."
Mr Cholakis, 38, said he had known 13 of those lost when the World Trade Center collapsed.
This neighbourhood has been through enough
Gus Cholakis
He admitted he was praying he had not lost more friends, adding: "This neighbourhood has been through enough."
John Maroney, 47, said the engine plummeted onto a Texaco petrol station near his house, and pieces of plane were only a few hundred yards away.
"That's probably what shook us up from our beds. The whole house jumped.
'Climbing position'
"We were all out there with fire extinguishers and hoses, but we couldn't do much."
Ethan Moses said he had seen the plane climbing in the sky after take-off.
It was travelling to the left slightly and then it just nose dived straight down
Ethan Moses , "It was in a climbing position and when I looked up I saw fire on the left side of the engine," he told CNN.
The wing appeared to separate from the rest of the plane, which veered to the left and then plunged into a nose dive, he said.
"It was travelling to the left slightly and then it just nose dived straight down," Mr Moses said, adding that fire spread on the ground, moving from house to house within seconds.
Phyllis Paul said she heard the plane's engine drone louder as it descended.
Falling metal
"It was very, very loud. Because of what happened on 11 September, it gave me a chill," she told CNN.
"It was getting louder and louder and I looked out the window. I saw a piece of metal falling from the sky."
The wings were going backwards and forwards like it was trying to balance itself
Phyllis Paul
Beverly Browne, from Brooklyn, said she saw white smoke coming from the plane before it crashed.
"The wings were going backwards and forwards like it was trying to balance itself. There was white smoke coming out of it.
"It just couldn't seem to stabilise itself. The next thing I knew it had crashed."
? David Solero was driving over a bridge by Rockaway when he saw fire on the left hand side of the plane.
He told CNN: "We looked up and saw the fire coming from the left hand side - it could have been an explosion."
Plane 'veered'
Other witnesses told reporters that the fire or explosion was on the right hand side of the plane.
Mr Solero added: "It could have been the engine was on fire.
I was scared it was going to veer towards us and hit us - we stopped dead in our tracks
David Solero, "It flew right over us, started to veer to the left then it veered back right.
"I was scared it was going to veer towards us and hit us - we stopped dead in our tracks.
"We saw something fly off the plane."
One woman fled her home, fearing she could be killed.
Concorde-like sound
She told CNN: "It was a huge, loud sound. It seemed so loud that I was like ducking almost.
"I just heard - it sounded like Concorde flying too low and then it just hit.
Eyewitness
-- "It blew up into a huge fireball and I jumped out the second floor of my house." "It hit the house behind me and I think it exploded into pieces."
"I went over the deck in the front of my house because the back was so hot."
"We were just in shock and we had to evacuate two streets away. It was so horrible." "There is a lot of terror here. Everybody is in shock."
"I was very, very lucky."
------------------------------------------------
90 posted on 11/12/01 12:20 PM Pacific by Junior
Do you use your tin foil, that you have this weird fascinationation for, to make blind-folds to cover your eyes and and plugs to block your ears to avoiding seeing or hearing the truth???
Sounds like a good way for people like you to delude yourself into believing all is well in your La-La fantasy Land where terrorism can't possibly occur! LOL!
When you decide to unplug your ears and uncover your eyes with your tin-foil maybe you can listen to the eyewitnesses. LOL
You look kind of funny there anyway like that--sorta' like an Ostrict with his head in the sand hoping the tiger won't get him since he can't see him. LOL!
I can't get the voice of the dying postal worker on the line with the 911 operator saying "I don't trust them..."
It is difficult to know what to believe until M. Rivero tells us what to believe. Uhm!!!!
100 posted on 11/12/01 12:46 PM Pacific by verity
You call that a reply? When making stupid statement, can you atleast say something original?
Verity, Duh, why not listen to the eyewitnesses?
Instead of deluding yourself, that there was no explosion or fire "cause the government says so!".
And in case you didn't notice the two stories I posted on this thread are from the BBC and CNN so go back to your little LA-La Land! Where terror can't happen !LOL!
Yes. Nothing has changed regarding maintenance scheduling post 9/11. Aircraft are still undergoing normal A and C checks, and unscheduled maintenance is still performed as required.
If it would have been checked, repaired, or inspected prior to 9/11, it is being checked, repaired, and inspected now.
If there are fewer mechanics and inspectors performing those jobs now, it is because there are fewer scheduled flights in the wake of the terrorist attacks.
Basically the HMO, government, his doctor and the USPS killed him by not telling him the truth, and withholding facts and lying to him.
"Lone Left Wing Nut!!!!" They have them too? I thought only the Right Wing had nuts? Someone post the picture of a Lone Left Wing Nut please!
Ahhh, now I understand. You know that mylar works just as well as aluminum foil, and is far lighter and more comfortable.90 posted on 11/12/01 12:20 PM Pacific by Junior
Do you use your tin foil, that you have this weird fascinationation [sic] for, to make blind-folds to cover your eyes and and plugs to block your ears to avoiding seeing or hearing the truth???
A properly folded Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie does not cover the eyes or ears but still protects against the government's mind control rays.
Sounds like a good way for people like you to delude yourself into believing all is well in your La-La fantasy Land where terrorism can't possibly occur! LOL!
Terrorism occurs all the time. But then again, so do accidents and coincidences.
When you decide to unplug your ears and uncover your eyes with your tin-foil maybe you can listen to the eyewitnesses. LOL
I listen to the eyewitnesses, and as I said, they can be mistaken. I'm waiting for the official report. Unlike you, I don't believe the government would lie if it does turn out to be terrorism -- there is too much propaganda value in such an incident for the government to even desire to hush it up.
You look kind of funny there anyway like that--sorta' like an Ostrict with his head in the sand hoping the tiger won't get him since he can't see him. LOL!
I'm assuming you mean "ostrich." And, since ostriches are African birds and tigers are Asian cats the ostrich can be pretty sure the tiger does not see him.
Washington - As investigators have sifted dozens of eyewitness accounts of the destruction of TWA Flight 800, they have had to keep in mind a growing scientific literature on the fallibility of first-hand descriptions.
In the immediate aftermath of the July 17 disaster, FBI agents interviewed several hundred people who had claimed to see the breakup of the airliner.
Some of them also described streaks of light, suggesting the possibility of a missile attack on the doomed plane.
But specialists say eyewitness accounts - no matter how credible those giving them - can be distressingly unreliable, particularly those gathered days after the fact.
"In general, memory researchers recommend that the most fruitful interview is the first interview,'' said Stephen Ceci, a Cornell University psychologist.
"And that's if the person hasn't been tainted or biased in some way by being given a theory or expectancy by the media or the interviewer or a friend.''
In highly publicized incidents such as the TWA crash, investigators must be especially wary, Ceci said, since there is so much information - and misinformation - available from media reports and word-of-mouth.
A law enforcement source familar with the TWA investigation said FBI agents use interview methods intended to assess the consistency and reliability of witness accounts. They look for any signs that the witnesses may be repeating news accounts or seeking to give interviewers what they believe they want to hear.
"There is a science to interviewing people,'' the source said.
But even witnesses who have been carefully interviewed and are reporting what they sincerely believe they saw can make mistakes, Ceci said.
"There is not a snapshot in the brain of that fireball in the sky or a streak of light prior to the explosion,'' he said.
Memories are stored in neurons distributed throughout the brain, he said, and the information stored in those brain cells "must be rounded up and put back together to tell a story . . . many things can go wrong in reconstructing it.''
Elizabeth Loftus, a psychologist who has written extensively about eyewitness testimony, said people tend to fill in gaps in their recollection with information they get from other sources.
"I don't mean to belittle the crash witnesses,'' Loftus said. But in some cases, particularly traumatic events, the perceived memories can be both vivid and incorrect. "People have claimed to see things a lot more bizarre than flashes of light,'' Loftus said.
Loftus has studied accounts of serious auto accidents. "You have cases where a witness says the blue car was traveling south and the yellow car was traveling north,'' Loftus said, and the witness will stick to that account even after it has been proved that just the opposite was the case.
There are ways to improve the reliability of accounts, Loftus said. "Some banks train tellers in anticipation of a bank robbery,'' she said. "You are to sit down, don't talk to anybody else and write out your own version of the event.'' Loftus said that professional training or expertise can affect the reliability of eyewitness accounts. She has done experiments in which she shows arson investigators a video of a fire scene, with fire officials giving orders to their personnel on how to fight the blaze. The arson investigators remember how many hose teams the chief is ordering into the building and other details that untrained viewers disregard, Loftus said.
But experts caution that trained professionals also can make mistakes. Howard Egeth, head of the psychology department at Johns Hopkins University, said studies have found that police officers often do no better than lay persons when trying to identify suspects.
And even when witness testimony is carefully couched, it can be misinterpreted by others.
Investigators in the TWA case have been interested in the accounts of National Guard air crews who were doing search-and-rescue training on the night of the disaster. One pilot reported seeing a "streak of light'' on the same trajectory as a shooting star. His remark was viewed by some as supporting the missile scenario.
But the pilot, a Vietnam veteran who has seen missiles fired in combat, dismissed that notion. He said the orange-red streak was descending across the sky and, as he followed it, eventually erupted into the large fireball described by other witnesses.
Experts also say it is understandable why some witnesses hold strongly to their accounts even as contradictory information comes to light.
As Loftus and a co-author have written, "We want to believe . . . that our minds work in an orderly, efficient way, taking in information, sorting it, filing it, and calling it back later in full and vivid detail. In a chaotic world, where so much is out of control, we need to believe that our minds, at least, are under our command.''
Methinks y'all have been immersed in conspiracy theories so long you are incapable of "thinking outside the box" as it were.
Don't trust your own two eyes and what you saw with them, don't even trust the actual video footage taken of a TWA being shot down with a missile, trust the media & government, government never lies.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.