TWA 800: Pilots speak out

© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com ^ | May 17, 2003 | Jack Cashill

[joesnuffy]

TWA 800: Pilots speak out

Posted: May 17, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern

© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com

After my most recent trip to Washington last weekend, I have come to one sorry conclusion: The only people who believe that a fuel-tank problem destroyed TWA Flight 800 sit in America's major media newsrooms.

They certainly don't sit in the cockpits of America's airliners. After some 200 radio and TV interviews and a score of live appearances, I have talked to at least 100 airline pilots. Of those, exactly one supported the government thesis.

What follows are some of the unsolicited e-mails I have recently received from pilots and my comments on the same. I have edited them only for length and for spelling. Not all of the pilots agree with James Sanders and me on every point in our book, "First Strike: TWA Flight 800 and the Attack on America," but they uniformly reject the government thesis.

Each of these individuals identified themselves to me. I have chosen, however, to shield their identities lest there be repercussions.

Ex-Air Force combat pilot

I loved the book. I am an ex-Air Force combat pilot, functional check flight pilot and standardization and evaluation pilot. I flew 145 combat missions. From the first announcement of TWA 800 I believed the plane was brought down by a missile. To me the strongest evidence of the government cover-up is the lack of satellite photo releases to back up the claim that there was no missile. No part of the earth is probably more under satellite surveillance than the mid-Atlantic from New York City to Washington, D.C. If the satellite photos backed up the "no missile" theory, the photos would be everywhere.

There are other interesting questions: Why, if it was mechanical failure, was the entire 747 fleet not grounded? While there were corrective mechanical changes, anything this catastrophic would have deserved far more severe reaction. Why has Boeing never protested this conclusion? Anyway, great book.

Retired airline pilot

As a pilot for 33 years, I have flown many of the different Boeing A/C, all with a center tank, many times empty, with the pumps running, and guess what? Nothing happened. Even after the TWA incident when the FAA required checks of the wiring in all Boeing A/C, even when insulation was found missing from wires, even with empty tanks … nothing happened.

None of the pilots or maintenance persons I ever talked with believed that tank explosion was caused by faulty wiring shorting out because the pumps were on with an empty tank.

Retired TWA Pilot and Accident Investigator

The item "Probe's conclusion built on faked interview" is flawed, as is the NTSB conclusions it tries to refute.

First of all, there were not 736 witnesses who saw the missile. There were 736 witness's to the explosion, but only a small fraction, something like 80 or so, saw a streak of some sort. The majority saw no such streak.

Of those who saw the streak, some said it went straight up, a few said it went down from the aircraft, others saw more than one streak, streaks were from several directions. Wire's missile was climbing at a 40 degree angle, etc.

Assuming this "missile" was a heat seeker such as the Stinger which we gave to bin Laden, it would have homed in on the hottest part of the target, the nearest tailpipe, not the fuselage. The aircraft was under climb thrust and putting out a lot of heat.

I don't know what to make of the 3,000 degree climb of the wreckage. The "video" shown alongside this article shows all four engines leaving contrails. At 13,000 degree? Ridiculous.

I don't believe the NTSB conclusions. Of 1,108 B-747s built, only one experienced this problem? Hardly. I think it was a bomb.

When the wreckage of TWA 800 was raised from the bottom and placed on a barge, I noticed the nose section was blown cleanly off. I went around and searched for the wreckage of PAA 103 at Lockerbie. The nose was blown off at the same frame!

PAA was brought down by a bomb. I think that's what happened to TWA 800. BTW, the aircraft was the same one I flew for my ATP rating in September 1972. I knew many of the crew who perished.

Note: Of the 700-plus eyewitnesses that the FBI interviewed, some 270 (FBI's figure) saw streaks of lights ascending or arcing over before the crash. Roughly one-third of those followed the streaks from the horizon. There were many more eyewitnesses who did not share their accounts with the FBI. We too believe it was a bomb, a flying bomb that was exploded somewhere under the plane.

Retired TWA pilot, senior Air Line Pilots Association investigator

Sometime in the late '80s, I was on a flight between JFK and Tel Aviv (TLV). The airplane was a 747-200. During the initial climb out from JFK, a strange rattling and metal-to-metal noise began to emanate from the throttle quadrant.

We ignored the noises as a nuisance and since everything else was normal continued on our way. At about 23,000 feet airplane altitude, the FE announced that he cannot control the cabin.

[Later] the FE announces, "I have a Differential Fault" on generator number 3. ... Not more than 30 seconds elapsed from the GenDiff announcement by the FE when he announces that he now has a GenDiff on generator number 4! We not only have the Virgin Mary in first class but Jesus Christ and the 12 Apostles just showed up.

That did it; we declared an emergency, made a 180 degree turn and headed back to JFK. We were just past Nantucket Island heading for Yarmouth in the Canadian Maritimes when we made the turn and dumped about 160,000 pounds of fuel (the natives of Nantucket can thank our crew for having never sighted a mosquito since that day).

... So we had two 85KVA capable generators, running at about half load, dead short against the wing spar. 170KA is equivalent to 1,700 100-watt bulbs; with four generators online, each was running at about one-half load when the first GenDiff occurred and three-quarters when the second went off. The spar also serves as the front portion of the wing fuel tanks which had much fuel and air.

So after F800, I always asked the question – if a dead short electrical arc of considerable power on a fuel tank did not cause us to blow up, how did static electricity cause the [center wing tank] to go off in F800?

All of the above can be quantified with crew names, airplane number and log book write-ups if necessary. I truly don't know the consequence of a dead short on an airframe. All I know is that I have five crew members who witnessed it.

PS: After the shoddy investigation by the NTSB on TWA F840 in 1979, I never had much respect for the outfit.

PPS: I just finished the book – great job. Thanks on behalf of those friends I lost.

Note: This has been shortened considerably. The pilot's point, however, is clear.

TWA pilot scheduled to fly Flight 800 on July 17

I commend you for the excellent series of articles . … I do hope the prosecutions proceed. There is nothing worse than corruption in our government.

My interest in this is that I should have been the captain of 800 that day. Management used its prerogatives and took the flight for training purposes. I lost many friends and associates on that flight. I had flown that aircraft No. 119 only several days prior to the shoot down. Justice over due. Let the trials begin!

Retired airline pilot

I am totally convinced that an outside source blew up TWA 800. In fact I went live on Fox TV on their 10 p.m. newscast that night and stated that fact. (I am their in-house spokesperson for aviation matters.) We can muster up a number of pilots with thousands of hours and years and years of experience to augment and support your theory. Please contact me if you are interested in us pursuing this any further.

Note: Yes, we are. Our best bet for genuine exposure at this time is for America's pilots to force the issue. If some pilot or pilot's organization is willing to take the lead, we are more than willing to help.

Related offers:

Price slashed on "First Strike: TWA Flight 800 and the Attack on America"! New book by Jack Cashill and James Sanders says government lies upped drama ante for terrorists. From WND Books, available in ShopNetDaily.

Purchase Jack Cashill's stunning documentary video, "Silenced: Flight 800 and the Subversion of Justice" from WorldNetDaily's online store.

"Altered Evidence" from Flight 800 How the Justice Department framed a journalist and his wife. Also available from WorldNetDaily's online store!

[Non-Sequitur]

I would think that something like a jumbo jet would need to be a Standard SM-2 or SM-3 missile from a US Navy ship.

Not necessarily. Dodn't they say that that Pan Am 747 was taken out with a couple of pounds of plastic explosive hidden in a radio?

[NYDave]

Thanks for the post. I guess I was being thickheaded. As I said, Bush is a breath of fresh air compared to WJC but my innate distrust of all government makes me quite the cynic. By the way, just as a correction, I had mentioned Bush's failure to release information on what the intelligence community might have known or not known prior to 9/11. I was basing my assumptions upon comments made by Senator Graham on Meet the Press regarding information he gained while serving on the Sentate Intelligence Committee. I should have known better than to base an allegation upon a single source. Since the press reported Graham's comments, other members of the same committee have come forth stating that they are unaware of the intell. to which Graham refers. Graham is, apparently, running for the Presidency. It's unfortunate that he has to resort to these kinds of campaign tactics if that is, in fact, the case.

[Criminal Number 18F]

why do you ruin your case by insulting other sides that disagree with you?

Let's recap here. You said you hadn't read the material, but had made up your mind. I might have used a sarcastic way to point out the illogic in that, but you kinda had it coming.

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

[timestax]

ping

[Criminal Number 18F]

Your post missed the crucial technical details.

Well, I didn't see the point in copying stuff verbatim from the Cal Tech report. Go there and all your questions from this post will be answered.

No center tank could be detonated under the same conditions that a 747 flying at 13,800 at 250+ knots would experience. It is damned cold at that altitude. Cold enough that the fuel even puts out a match.

That's what was thought, but test flights in an instrumented 74 showed that the temp was from 38 to 60 degrees C (that's up to 140F) inside the tank. This was news to just about everybody. More details in the Cal Tech report. They even have video of a 1/4 scale CWT blowing up in the lab -- under just those conditions. This is the test that Cashill says nobody did, which indicates how reckless his research is overall.

Also, flt 800 experienced the same flight conditions that thousands of other 747s have experienced. It even experienced the same flight conditions day after day. No explosions. None.

Right. But to make the tank go bang, you need two things: a flammable mixture, and a source of ignition. The flammable mixture with Jet A requires a nearly empty tank with not too much fuel in the ullage. Designers go to extremes to keep sources of ignition out of fuel tanks, but it's starting to look like the Boeing design of using the tank as a heat-sink for the air conditioners isn't as elegant as we thought it was for the last forty years. Spend some time on the Cal Tech explosives lab site, it's an eye-opener.

Another discovery that came from the research occasioned by TWA 800 is logical enough, but never really studied in depth -- at different temperatures, the hydrocarbons from the fuel will evaporate differently, and they don't evaporate uniformly. (Perhaps some of you know that common fuels, including auto gasoline and Jet A, are not uniform, but are a mixture of a variety of hydrocarbons. The lighter ones evaporate more quickly than the heavier ones, so the chemical & physical properties of the fuel can change as teh mixture changes. The potentially dangerous mixture is what's in the "ullage," or the part of the tank that doesn't have liquid fuel in it).

The FAA has taken action based on this research and other results of TWA 800 -- indeed, over 40 Airworthiness Directives resulted from this accident alone. An AD is kind of like a car recall, except the owner, not the manufacturer, has to pay for repairs. I guarantee you no aircraft manufacturer (nor fleet owner) sits still for an AD unless it's justified. (Sometimes manufacturers, including Raytheon (Beech) and Bell Helicopter, have used ADs to force old aircraft out of service and cut their liability trail, but that's another issue entirely. Airliners are normally retired long before they're as old as the planes Beech and Bell want to ground).

Keep digging. Read the stuff, though... Here's the Cal Tech link again. And here's a link to an article [PDF] that the Cal Tech guys published in a peer-reviewed journal in 1998. It answers some of the questions, even though Cal Tech still researched 800 for almost three more years after the cut-off of information for that article -- the website is more up-to-date.

The Engineering and Applied Science article also shows a graphic which answers Swordmaker's points in his "physics" post (sorry for not replying directly to your post, Sword! I have limited time). The nose section fell ballistically, the remainder continued for a bit, crippled and not as aerodynamic as it was, but still responding to the laws of aerodynamics. There were four forces working on it, lift, weight, thrust and drag. The break-up and shedding of the nose caused a huge increase in drag, but the wings were still providing lift even as airspeed tapered off. Your ballistic calculation assumes a non-aerodynamic object (like Galileo's cannonball). Bear in mind there were also winds aloft (without looking it up, the number 115kt at 30k sticks in my mind, so we're probably looking at 50-60 kt or so at 13.8) so heavier weight stuff will be closer to the pre-disaster flightpath and lighter stuff will be progressively further downwind. It's possible for stuff to be upwind if the machine changed course during the breakup sequence.

Take a look at what PA 103 did in its very different breakup sequence.

I have an in-depth study of inflight breakups half-written on my other laptop... the most unsurvivable type of accident there is (more people survive midairs). These guys at the air accident boards have plotting broken-up craft pretty much down to a science. When they get stuck, they go to colleagues in academia (as they did on the 800 fuel explosion).

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

[Yasotay]

Even your quote on your "recap" is misstated...you are guilty of what you charge the other side with .... you really should quit being selective with your evidence ...especially what you misquote your own evidence!

[Criminal Number 18F]

The closed source being th FBI, which denied access to others, others whose job it normally is to investigate such incidents.

Actually, it is the FBI's job to investigate such an incident, if it is thought that a crime may be involved. Since airplanes just blowing up is pretty rare (there have been about 15 instances of fuel explosions from all causes in all the years of jet flight) and airplanes blowing up because somebody blew them up is unfortunately more common, the FBI took the lead at first. There was a lot of tension as the NTSB guys, who are experienced in wreckage examination, began to see that there was no evidence of a bomb or missile. FBI guys, looking at the wreck, had the same reaction a lot of people do: "It must have been a bomb. Nothing else could be so devastating." But the jurisdictional issue was ultimately sorted out. In earlier cases the NTSB has sometimes handed off to FBI when an accident turned out to be less accidental, and sometimes they've worked together.

Even in the Hindenberg accident, the FBI initially responded and continued to sit in on the investigation, in case sabotage turned out to be the cause (that was as controversial in its day as 800, 59 years and two months later). The FBI never thought it was sabotage, but they put agents on the case to liaise with the Commerce Department's aviation experts. The forerunner of today's NTSB determined that the accident was caused by a hydrogen leak ignited by an unknown source of ignition. You can find the civil report at ERAU and the FBI files in the FBI FOIA website.

The presence of the FBI & the military did provide great resources, and made it possible for this to be the most thorough investigation of an air loss ever. 95% of the plane was recovered, 230 victims were plucked out of the anonymity of a watery grave, tens of thousands of parts and fragments were pored over by metallurgists and explosives experts.

You should see an investigation of a Cessna prang with one killed. Usually the NTSB doesn't even send anybody, but has the FAA look into it, and bases its finding on the FAA report, unless it's odd. (I think most of us would agree that there is a national interest in finding the facts in a major airline crash that is greater than in studying why I did it if I stuff a 172 in the ocean).

Anyway, one of the things to come of this is better coordination between FBI and NTSB. I think the FBI Special Agents have a lot more respect for accident investigators now.

Now you also say: [FBI says] "we won't let you investigate the wreckage."

The wreckage remains sealed because of ongoing litigation, but pray tell why should FBI let unqualified people, pushing an agenda, in to see it? Their experience with Sanders was not exactly positive. We don't have the right to take Lee Harvey Oswald's gun to try out our JFK theories, either. We don't have the right to do our own autopsies on crime or accident victims. There are some things that have to be reserved to the people whose duty it is to do them.

FBI let NTSB, and its consultants, and the parties to the investigation -- the line, the unions, the manufacturers -- inspect the wreckage -- in all thousands of people. Not to mention the thousands who assisted in the recovery of wreckage and remains. If you are running a conspiracy that big, you might as well just hold a press conference and invite everybody.

And: "here is a video by the CIA that proves it was the center fuel tank."

The video purports to "prove" no such thing, it merely provides a visualization of the breakup sequence. There is a massive body opf evidence pointing at the centre fuel tank. The focus on the video by missile and bomb fans is hard to explain, unless they are (1) fixated on the CIA as a nexus of conspiracies, like Rivero and Ruppert, or (2) unable to confront evidence that doesn't come in Nintendo format.

Incidentally, the agency video shop has been used in other NTSB investigations, I just learnt.

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

[sandydipper]

FWIW - a good friend (LI south shore)told me he saw a missle climb up to the plane and then saw the explosion. He is a retired NYC cop and does not BS - I believe him and I don't believe Kalstrom.

[PatrioticAmerican]

"If it was looking for it, perhaps. "

All tests come with range sweeps for safety reasons, if not for security. Those sweeps always extend well past the range itself. Every ship, diver, boat, plane, train, and automobile would be accounted for.

[PatrioticAmerican]

"Pan Am 747 was taken out with a couple of pounds of plastic explosive hidden in a radio?"

Do you have any idea how much energy is contained within just one pound of C-4? That, alone, can do in a 747 at high altitude.

[PatrioticAmerican]

You CalTech report:

The Making of the Video

What they did NOT tell you

To convince the public that aircraft fuel tanks can explode spontaneously the government paid researchers at CalTech to produce a video. This "Made for TV" video was widely shown on TV news during the December 1997 NTSB Public Hearing in Baltimore. The video shows a quarter scale model of a 747 Center Wing Tank exploding. Here's what they did not tell you on TV:

 

1. Jet A type fuel is by nature not very explosive. To make the tank explode "researchers" used "simulated vapor". They put highly explosive HYDROGEN AND PROPANE gas in the tank. (Why not dynamite?)

   

   You can find the video and other NTSB images at http://www.ntsb.gov/events/twa800/gallery.htm

    

2. They also used a BIG SPARK, not simple static electricity to set it off. From NTSB Exhibit 20E page 30 at http://www.ntsb.gov/events/twa800/exhibit.htm:

   "6.8 Ignition System

   Ignition will be carried out by rapidly heating the filament of a type 1156 taillight bulb (12 VDC) with the discharge from a fireset containing a 1400 uF capacitor charged to 150 VDC. The glass bulb is deliberately broken and the base of the lamp mounted into a standard holder connected with the stiff wires through an insulation feedthrough to the firing line. The function and timing of this igniter has been determined in separate laboratory ignition tests. A backup igniter is provided in case the primary igniter fails."

    

    

   Information on the BIG SPARK can be found at independent researcher Tom Stalcup's site at http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Congress/2639/spark.html From the site:

    

   

   "The above picture depicts the means necessary to obtain the spark used in igniting the explosion of the 1/4 scale center wing tank."

   See the BIG SPARK in action. This is not simple static electricity.

   

   From the October 1998 Shoemaker Newsletter:

   "...if a quarter of a thousandth of a Joule of energy could have ignited TWA Flight 800's Jet A1 fuel, the NTSB would have demonstrated such a fact loudly, publicly, and often. Instead, it appears it went to extraordinary lengths in drastically changing multiple critical experiment parameters to make a demonstration that didn't fit TWA Flight 800's true circumstances.These experiments fit another objective chosen by the NTSB."

---

[PatrioticAmerican]

"why should FBI let unqualified people, pushing an agenda, in to see it?"

You mean the NTSB was unqualified and pushing an agenda?

Since when was the FBI even qualified to investigate a plane crash? If I remember correctly, the NTSB, from day one, was complaining that the FBI had explosives experts investigating what could have been a simple airframe disaster.

[PatrioticAmerican]

"Usually the NTSB doesn't even send anybody, but has the FAA look into it"

Physically speaking, the NTSB may have another agency invetigate, but the NTSB accounts for ALL crashes and will send someone if need be. A pilot buddy of mine had his 172 flat landed by a fellow pilot. The NTSB was there to find out why the landing gear was down.

[PatrioticAmerican]

“Actually, it is the FBI's job to investigate such an incident, if it is thought that a crime may be involved.”

“The FBI never thought it was sabotage...”

So, which is it? They took over because it may have been a crime, or that they never thought there was a crime?

Are you FBI? You seem to make to more sense than they do?

[PatrioticAmerican]

"I believe him and I don't believe Kalstrom."

Kalstrom is a politician who gets his information last hand.

Rush supported him as a friend, and that ruined a lot of credibility of Rush with me.

Kalstrom said that the FBI investigated all to Hell the missile theory. During the interview about that he contradicted himself many times. He stated things known not to be true, and he gave his word on things there was no way he knew anything about.

Since the incident and the year after, Kalstrom has been proven to have lied and stated things not in evidence and known to be otherwise. That lying sack of Famous But Incompetent has no credibility with me whatsoever.

[Poohbah]

The US Navy submarine community has consistently refused to consider any sort of SAM installation on their boats, under any circumstances. That's because the submarine's most important weapon is stealth, and shooting down an airplane compromises that stealth.

They've even refused to make boats available for non-firing tests (i.e., detection/tracking exercises with airrcaft). This goes back over thirty years.

Quite simply, you have to accept that COMSUBLANT suddenly, JUST AT THE RIGHT TIME, decided to let the boffins stick SAMs on one or more of his boats.

Again, we have a problem: the observed characteristics of the alleged missile do not tally with either any man-portable air-defense systems (MANPADS), or any US Navy systems that were within range of TWA 800.

Once again...

We have eliminated the truly impossible.

What remains, no matter how improbably (or even APPARENTLY "impossible"), is what could have happened.

[Yasotay]

My post #58 starts off with: "I have not read all the reports ...."

Your post # 143: "Let's recap here. You said you hadn't read the material, but had made up your mind. I might have used a sarcastic way to point out the illogic in that, but you kinda had it coming."

You should work for the NYTs that way you could "Print all the News that You see is fit to Print". Your arguments are valid, but they would be alot stronger if you quit insulting the other side of the argument and weren't guilty of what you charge the other side with ... selective evidence or misrepresentative quotes.

[Non-Sequitur]

Do you have any idea how much energy is contained within just one pound of C-4? That, alone, can do in a 747 at high altitude.

I'm aware of what C-4 is capable of. My post was in response to someone who suggested that a larger missile with a larger warhead would have been needed to down the 747. As you point out, it doesn't take much explosive to do the job.

[Non-Sequitur]

All tests come with range sweeps for safety reasons, if not for security. Those sweeps always extend well past the range itself. Every ship, diver, boat, plane, train, and automobile would be accounted for.

If you are correct then that would tend to discount the idea of some secret test being held off of Long Island in the middle of the busiest sea lane and the busiest air traffic corridor in North America, wouldn't it? How do you maintain secrecy under those conditions? How do you track every one of the hundreds of airplanes and ships and pleasure boats in the area?