Posted on 05/17/2003 7:23:43 AM PDT by joesnuffy
YOU ignore the same things the NTSB also chose to ignore in their report as well...
Your catalogue of things I ignore appears to come from Sanders's book, most of which is made up. Funny that I addressed some of this stuff.
the THIRD debris field on a vector ~100 degrees from the aircraft's vector
If you are talking about the radar tracks of skin paints, they are not especially reliable. If this is something new in Cashill's book, I have to go back and read it again.
the Mach 2 radar track on the same vector,
far from a radar "track," the radar returns show kind of intermittent twinkles, which can be interpreted as a missile if you take all the ones that are going the way you want and ignore all the others. In other words, if you look at it and gerrymander it around with an a priori committment to a missile solution.
the numerous eyewitness accounts of a "firework," "smoke trail," "contrail," or "missile,"
Which describe four different things. And in so doing, illustrate why eyewitness evidence, while it is very convincing to people, is the least reliable evidence there is. The wreckage documents itself the way it blew up, and that a missile didn't do it. This occasionally makes the nutballs fall back to a bomb (the problem there, is that bombs also leave a characteristic "signature" (as you would have seen in the PA 103 link I placed here, which you apparently didn't read). Hot tip: explosives burn at 20-30,000 fps, fuel doesn't.
Unfortunately, the FBI's interview protocol, in which they don't tape interviews, does us all a disservice, whatever side of the issue we're on. I understand why the FBI does this, and I don't really approve of that either, but I can't change how FBI does business.
the "red residue" that was anazlyzed by a California Laboratory to be consistent with solid rocket propellant,
Yes, on one piece of one seat... that was stolen by Sanders from the investigation, after Sanders already had his mind made up, and on which there is now no chain of evidence. He had it in his control -- his integrity is already suspect, to say the least -- and he could have done anything with it. If that had a pound of Semtex residue, a half pound of camel crap, and Osama's fingerprints it would be inadmissible as evidence. Now, we may not have to hold to courtroom rules of evidence here, but the reason it isn't kosher in court is that it has been carted off into the darkness for Sanders's purposes -- which seem to have been, fame and ego.
You guys might not get this. But people who really work on, or study (as I do) air safety, think Sanders is to air crash investigation as Jayson Blair is to reporting.
[T]he impossibility of the CIA/NTSB noseless 747 "Zoom Climb" scenario to explain away all those witness reports,
Read the analysis of the eyewitness reports in the NTSB file I posted earlier. Some of the eyewitnesses were not in position to see things they reported seeing, for instance.
As I understand it, all CIA did was make the video, by the way. Rivero and crowd love saying "CIA" because they think that proves their case, because in their circles everybody "knows" the CIA is evil. Actually it's just another Government agency with a lot of bureaucrats, who every once in a while do something dumb, and every once in a while save the country. Anyway, the video was supposed to explain the apparent contradiction -- how can a big piece fall off, and the plane go up? Well. it can't, except as far as inertia and aerodynamics carry it... 3,000 feet is possible. With a lot of weight forward of the centre of lift suddenly gone, a massive pitch-up is not just possible but certain. One thing we don't know with certainty (and might be unable to ever be sure about with the data we have) is how quickly the breakup took place. An uncommanded nose-up might have resulted from the doomed plane's aerodynamic surfaces moving, also.
AND the reports from invoestigators [sic] of deliberate re-positioning, removal and alteration of any evidence
What investigators? Sanders again? Sorry, making a decision and then trying to select evidence that supports it doesn't make you an investigator. The guy's a fraud. Or do you mean this clown, J. Greg Miller, whose paper is a farrago of speculation, stated as fact, that SEAL Team 2 was on the scene for the purpose of destroying, removing or altering evidence. One of the most laughable things is his claim that the SEALS used the bad weather of the next few days to sneak in in their SDVs and do their nefarious deeds. Hint: SDV's suck in strong currents. Also, aircraft wreckage is very dangerous stuff to be around -- sharp edges, dangerous chemicals, biohazards from rotting bodies. That's why most of the salvage was done by machines, not people. But Miller can't help insult the SEALS. (And yes, suggesting that these guys would participate in a cover-up of the murder of their countrymen is an insult). ...pointing away from the "official" line you spout.
I'll differ from the official line when it's wrong. The NTSB boots a few, like any organisation made up of human beings. Sometimes it uses a finding of probable cause to fire a shot across FAA's bow on some regulatory matter. Sometimes it hammers a pilot who did as well as the average guy would do, but just didn't get the breaks.
If Kallstrom had persisted in his search for a phantom missile, instead of letting the crash investigators figure it out, we probably would have another kB! by now. Instead several possible ignition causes have been permanently dealt with -- and the tank is not operated in conditons where it can contain a combustible fuel-air mixture. One good thing that came of this is that there is a much better understanding of volatility of Jet A (Jet A is a relatively new fuel, first used in the nineties).
If anybody wants a no-bull inside look at what goes on in an NTSB investigation, get the book on Flight 427, the 73 that dumped in Aliquippa, PA.
Here is one of the self-proclaimed "Independent Investigators" assessing his fellows in conspiracy land:
"Some of the independent researchers have concluded that three different missiles struck TWA Flight 800...some will tell you Middle Easterners fired those missiles...some will say those Middle Easterners entered the U.S. with their missiles from Canada...and that the missiles themselves are known to have come from a specific nation in the Eastern Hemisphere...some will say the Navy fired missiles...some will try to name the ship from which the missiles were fired.....some will name the specific type of missile for you...some will delineate for you what data radar tapes they have never seen contain ...some will tell you the government knows terrorists destroyed TWA Flight 800 and has chosen to protect the terrorist murderers for domestic political reasons ... but even when argued long and passionately such ideas remain speculations, not facts.I didn't say it, Richard Hirsch and Tom Shoemaker did. Yet their own sites commingle fact with speculation and fantasy.These speculations presented as facts are hurting the serious independent investigation work. The constant release of a myriad of unproven charges does more to muck up the investigation than to help it. The speculators sometimes appear to believe that their personal conviction is really all the proof they need to make their case"
I'm still waiting for one of you guys to show me how a missile goes through metal without making a hole. "Maybe if Kirk and Spock accidentally beamed down a photon torpedo..."
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
Typical.
"Sentence first, then the trial!"
-- the Red Queen
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
Fine. The telemetry package would tend to become shrapnel after hitting the damn airplane at several times the speed of sound.
There's no evidence of anything like that happening.
Here's the problem: the evidence that gets cited as being in favor a missile is mutually contradictory. The shooter was right off the coast of Long Island; no, wait, he had to be 200 miles away. There was a warhead: no, there wasn't. The warhead produced extremely fine shrapnel; no, there wasn't a warhead.
Not gallons, but 160,000 pounds of fuel. A 747 can carry about 338,000 pounds of fuel.
I still don't like that none of these guys are named even though they were apparently willing to go on the record, though.
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