Posted on 07/16/2002 2:35:52 PM PDT by goody2shooz
A group of eyewitnesses to the Nov. 12 crash of American Airlines Flight 587 are charging that the National Transportation Safety Board has engaged in deliberate cover-up; complaining that investigators have ignored their accounts of a fiery midair explosion and even tried to persuade some of them to change their story.
"The plane was definitely on fire. It was in the middle of the plane," said Maureen Hager, a flight attendant who watched Flt. 587 crash from her apartment window in Belle Harbor, New York.
She told the New York Daily News that crash investigators tried to get her to change her account. "They told me I didn't see it," she complained.
Hager was one of 25 who addressed a gathering of Flt. 587 witnesses at a Queens, New York restaurant located not far from the crash scene last week.
Others were equally adamant.
"I resent the fact that the NTSB and all these other people think we're making this stuff up," added Joann Catanese, a Rockaway Park resident who joined the group of 45 fellow Flt. 587 witnesses.
Still others said the NTSB simply refused to take witness statements from those whose accounts conflicted with official theories of how the crash happened.
Some who said they saw an explosion claimed the NTSB declined to conduct follow-up interviews.
Since the earliest hours after Flt. 587 crashed outside JFK International Airport, the NTSB has maintained there was no indication of an onboard fire or explosion, evidence that could show terrorists brought the plane down.
Yet most of the witnesses at the meeting said they heard an explosion, then saw the Airbus 300-600 engulfed in a fireball before it plummeted to the ground, killing all 260 aboard and five on the ground.
The crash took place on the Veteran's Day holiday, a day after the FBI had issued an air travel terrorist alert.
Five weeks later, al Qaeda terrorist Richard Reid was apprehended trying to detonate a bomb on board Miami-bound American Airlines Flight 63.
"I kind of think there's a cover-up," local diner owner Kenny Good told the Daily News.
Good, also a Flt. 587 witness, said he had to force investigators to recover jet debris he collected from the roof of his restaurant.
"I had parts [from the crash] for a full day and nobody picked them up and they could be covered with explosive residue," Good said.
The NTSB was invited to attend the Flt. 587 witness meeting but declined to send a representative.
Also, any debris from an explosion would land before the tail came down, not in Jamaica Bay, or at least not in the same part of the bay, so if there is a smoking gun in the form of another debris field, it isn't in the same place as the tail.
There is a pretty good cache of that website on Google. This can be done for many defunct web sites.
Whadya mean, 'it disappeared'?
Please explain.
So you were saying... why should I trust commercial aviation security to be able to stop the next attack?
OK lets do what investigators do. Take each possibility and rip it to pieces. Does anyone remember the seat number of Richard Reid ?
Are there any Freepers out there with the names and seat numbers of passengers of this flight. Could there have been a foriegner or middle east man sitting in the same seat number, was he on any watch list etc.
What did your ISP have to say about your site? Did 'someone' lean on them to take it down? Since you own the domain, why not just put it up on some foreign ISP, beyond 'someone's reach?
For the site as of last January, click here.
BTW, did the Somerset County assessor notice any effect on property values resulting from the crash?
Pardon me, but I find this rather hard to believe.
You're saying that the plane "bounced" after hitting the ground and THEN the witnessess saw the middle of the fuselage on fire?????
In all the films/videos of air crashes (at air shows, etc) I've NEVER seen a plane "bounce" intact enough where an eyewitness would REMOTELY think they were witnessing an event PRIOR to a crash. Sheesh.
You were right the first time: The Bounce Factor is BM.
Wasn't the operative theory that the shoe bomb would have caused a secondary explosion in the fully loaded center fuel tank?
IIRC, that's where Richard Reid was sitting, right over the tank.
That said, I don't know why #587 came down... but neither does anyone else. If the stories of the witnesses in this article are genuine (as far as their dealings with the NTSB), it's not going to help put the matter to rest whenever the official findings are released.
A full tank wouldn't produce an explosion--an EMPTY tank would.
Have the passenger lists been released in full?
http://www.twa800.com/index.htm
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