Posted on 05/17/2003 7:23:43 AM PDT by joesnuffy
Hundreds on witnesses on LI saw a missile rise from the horizon to strike the plane. Triangulation of their reports consistently leads to a spot or two a few miles south of Long Island. These reports are totally inconsistent with a meteor strike.
ML/NJ
That was actually one of the theories the investigators looked at. The problem with it was that the breakup sequence and damage clearly shows the breakup started in the CWFT. But there is absolutely no path that a meteorite could have followed to penetrate the tank. To clarify: Imagine the tank as a box, inside a larger box that is the skin of the plane. Both boxes are in pieces, but investigators put them together. When they do, there is no straight path for a projectile such as a meteorite to follow into the tank. Anti-aircraft missiles kill by fragmentation, so if the tank blew up it must have been compromised from outside, if a missile OR a meteorite did it. But it didn't (it's trivial to tell whether a piece of metal was damaged by a projectile going in or a fuel/air blast going out). You can't get here from there. I guarantee Cashill doesn't mention that little fact in his book -- none of the conspiracy nutballs do. When confronted with physical evidence, which is still in existence, that renders their theory impossible, they start raving that the evidence was faked, or that the guy pointing out the evidence is an agent of ZOG, or something.
An SA-7 or Chinese HN-5 could not have overtaken the plane from the ground, and has to be locked on and fired from the rear aspect. The more sensitive stinger can be fired from ahead, but would still be at the very limit of its range (or beyond). FYI the Afghan mujahideen always trained to fire stingers in volleys, because one isn't that reliable. As another poster pointed out, it's a means for infantry to defend against low-flying ground attack aircraft. Missiles that hit planes at 13,000 feet are BIG.
45 Psi differential would be all it would take for the tank to fail, and a spark and residual Jet A fumes would do that. There have been two other Boeings go bang (one before 800, one after) on the ground. If the tank failed, it would fail up into the cabin, rather than down (the skin below is stronger than the floor above, to oversimplify).
Like all these guys, Cashill starts with a conclusion and then marshals only the "evidence" that supports it. If you are going to read his book, also read the official NTSB file and see how selective he has been in picking stuff that supports his idea and discarding facts that don't fit. "If the results don't match you theory, the scientist changes the theory. The hack changes the results".
I've read all this stuff, which you can also get on a CD-ROM: it's a mountain of .pdf files. It includes, for instance, the witness reports, and a lot of investigation into the missile possibility. Conclusion: it can't be possible. Missile fragments don't hyperspace through a/c structure without leaving evidence. Bombs don't go off without evidence, either.
By the way, NTSB does review its work, recently they changed the probable cause of a Colorado Springs 737 accident as they discovered a flaw in 737 rudder actuators that was very, very rare. See, we have designed out most of the things that cause planes to crash... so when a crash is caused by something mechanical these days, it's naturally a rare event caused by a bizarre chain of coincidences. (AA 587 is looking even weirder than TWA 800).
Finally, who would benefit from downing TWA 800, how, and how does this fit their usual MO? And, if it was the "Navy Mistake" that the gummint-haters on the extremist right and military-haters on the extremist left imagine it to be, how does a whole ship, or task force, maintain a cover-up? Also... the Navy has laid some pretty big eggs in the past (sinking the Japanese ship... shooting down the Iranian Airbus...) and what happened in those cases? The Navy came clean, and hammered the individuals responsible.
As you can see, I'm very skeptical of Cashill and the other agenda-driven conspiracy merchants. He has a handful of "my cousin's neighbor's a pilot and says you rule, dood" testimonials but the credentials of the people who participated in the investigation -- including the engineers that designed and built the plane and its motors and equipment -- are unimpeachable. To believe that they are participating in a coverup (a metallurgist? Who doesn't even know what the significance of his report to the overall investigation is? Come on!) requires a zealot's commitment to believe an a priori conclusion.
Oh, yeah, if it's a big conspiracy all those people in theinvestigation (most of the folks involved are not NTSB or government employees, too) are in on it, too.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
TWA-800 was climbing through 13,800 feet when the initiating event occurred. Whether it was a missile, bomb or Center Wing Tank, the plane fell ballistically from that altitude and impacted the Atlantic Ocean 38 seconds later.
The disinformation artistes are out again. Where are your buddies, Asmodeus, Rocke, and _Jim?
YOU ignore the same things the NTSB also chose to ignore in their report as well... the THIRD debris field on a vector ~100 degrees from the aircraft's vector, the Mach 2 radar track on the same vector, the numerous eyewitness accounts of a "firework," "smoke trail," "contrail," or "missile," the "red residue" that was anazlyzed by a California Laboratory to be consistent with solid rocket propellant, the impossibility of the CIA/NTSB noseless 747 "Zoom Climb" scenario to explain away all those witness reports, AND the reports from invoestigators of deliberate re-positioning, removal and alteration of any evidence pointing away from the "official" line you spout.
To believe the CWT exploded spontaneously requires one to believe too many impossible things.
And, that is the case of Mike Wire. Mike Wire is the union millwright from Philadelphia. He's a mechanic who was working on the Beach Lane Bridge in Westhampton, New York. He was taking a break from his duties – stepped outside his little booth and standing at the bridge observing when he sees come off the beach and from behind a house what he takes to be a firework.
Q: From behind the house. That is a significant point!
A: It is a significant point. It comes up from a house just above the beach and he watches it ascend from behind the house – ascend not only up, but out. And this is a critical thing. Everyone sees this object in three dimensions – it's not just moving across the horizon, it's moving south and east. It was moving out and away and it was leaving a contrail that is looped and zigzagging, as he describes it. He watched it go up, and then it disappears – another critical observation. Then, a few seconds later, he saw this huge, orange fireball in the sky and he watched the plane, fully consumed, drop out of the sky.
Q: So explain, please, why the Wire story is so crucial?
A: What is interesting about this, about Mike Wire's story – I mean, there are at least 95 people who saw the same object come off the horizon, it's not unique in that – what is unique about Mike Wire's story is, for some reason, the CIA chose to base its animation around his 302 [FBI witness statement] and directly from his perspective. So when you watch the CIA animation you're seeing it from where Mike Wire stood.
Q: However, you are not seeing what Mike Wire actually described he saw?
A: No. You're not seeing what he described, but you are seeing it from his perspective as though he described it.
Q: Explain the distinction and differences.
A: Here's what they did – and this is the most amazing part of the whole story, the most obvious part of the whole story, that any major media person who listens to or reads this right now to get on the phone, right now, and call Mike Wire. He's in the phone book – and he's happy to talk to you. What Mike Wire told the FBI when they called him immediately afterwards – in fact his buddies told the FBI. He didn't call in himself. He's not a glory hound. He went back to Philadelphia. The FBI called him there and he told them what he saw. And they recorded it in a 302.
He said, I saw this thing come off the beach – streaked out, zigzagged, white trail and so forth. And then, just a few days later, the FBI in Philadelphia comes to him at his home and interviews him. The FBI in Philadelphia was obviously not in on the game plan because they gave him a serious 90-minute interview – and this is all documented. Mike Wire told them the same story: It came up from behind the house, zigzagged out in three dimensions, disappears, orange fireball.
Q: So how could the CIA animators get it so wrong?
A: When the CIA goes to create the animation, they look at Mike Wire's documents and they acknowledge – and this is in their own supporting documentation – that in his original FBI interview, he said the object came off the beach. But, they said, that couldn't have been right so the CIA – in their own documents say – we commissioned the FBI to go back and re-interview Mike Wire.
In this later interview, several months later, the FBI goes back to interview him and Mike Wire says, "You're right! I didn't see it come off the beach. I saw it about 20-degrees above the beach. That's where I first saw this." And that's the way it is narrated in the CIA animation – this critical CIA animation that dispels all the witness tales – from Mike Wire's perspective, with Mike Wire's altered testimony, upon his having a clearer head. Q: What's the catch? A: Here's the catch! And this is the critical catch – and a stunning catch. The FBI never went back to talk to Mike Wire. They made this whole story up! I don't know whether the FBI made it up or the CIA made it up – but one of them fully concocted a brand-new story for Mike Wire and built the CIA animation around it.
Q: ... the amazing thing is, they actually did it with a straight face.
A: They did it with a straight face and the really disturbing thing is the American media rolled over. Never asked any questions. I have yet to meet the pilot or aviation expert who thought that the scenario that they created was conceivable. What they said was that the witnesses, the 736 official eyewitnesses, didn't see a missile – or two missiles – what they saw was a "plane in crippled flight."
What they argued happened is that the nose of the plane just sort of spontaneously blew off and then the plane tilted back, turned into a rocket and ascended about 3,500 more feet from its original altitude of about 13,800 up to about 17,200. And that brief ascension confused all the eyewitnesses along the Long Island shore – many of whom were seasoned ...
I have not read all the reports .... but it is pretty clear that it was a missile .... the only real questions are where did it come from, who fired it, and what type of missile was it? .... The vast majority of missiles that I fired and seen fired in the Army were "Blue Spears" (no warhead). I have personally seen a TOW go 120 degrees off course. The missile range off of Long Island is said to have been "hot". You do not need a ship .... an F-14 (made on Long Island with only a 2 man crew) test firing a new missile (new generation Phoenix ... range 150+ miles). IMHO an F-14 had a new missile, with an inert warhead go haywire .... locked on to TWA 800 and hit center of mass.
Yep ;-)
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