[Rockinfreakapotamus]

This confirms an eyewitness interview I saw on TV that day - The guy was out on a boat, heard a 'pop', looked up and saw the plane flying level and intact but with flames on the right side - then said that part of the wing tore off, swung back and slapped the tail. The plane was flying level until this time. Said it wasn't until the tail was KNOCKED OFF BY THE WING that the jet banked and went into a steep nosedive.

You know, I lived in central Jersey when the TWA 800 happened. Same thing happened with day-of-incident eyewitness accounts on local newsbroadcasts describing sitings of missile trails. Then, after the incident day, we never saw or heard another word from the mainstream media about these reports.

[jlogajan]

Said it wasn't until the tail was KNOCKED OFF BY THE WING

There is no such "slap" damage to the tail. Therefore this person was mistaken -- which is common in eyewitness accounts of such mishaps.

[John H K]

Everyone has seen the Vertical Stabilizer being lifted from Jamaica Bay.

Unless one accepts the comical premise that the NTSB conpsiracy machine is SO EFFICIENT AND FAST they were able to cut the vertical stab off another A300, drop it in Jamaica Bay in broad daylight without being seen (or, heck, PRE-POSITION it in Jamaica Bay the night before the crash) and HIDE the REAL vertical stab that was knocked off the airplane...

It is blatantly obvious that NOTHING hit that vertical stab. And that eyewitness is completely wrong.

One problem with people pointing out that eyewitness testimony isn't very reliable is that people who worship (selected) eyewitness testimony make it sound like if you question witnesses you are saying those witnesses are liars or insane.

This is not the case. It is entirely possible for educated, responsible, sane, reliable people to witness something and have their description of the event, and memory of the event, be completely WRONG, despite their claims that they are 100% certain of what they saw. They'll even easily pass lie-detector tests...because they aren't lying. They are totally confident that their completely incorrect memory of the event is correct.

Again, if you haven't seen one of the standard college psych class demonstrations where a short film of a car accident is shown, and then the students are asked about the accident afterwards..you really should. The students get the number of cars involved wrong, the color of the cars wrong, what car hit what other car first wrong, etc.

There also was a demonstration that was shown on one of the weekly newsmagazines a couple years ago...can't remember which one...could have been Nightline. It was a law school class and someone came in, confronted the professor, stole a purse or something, and ran out (it was a setup)

Most of the students got the physical description of the thief totally wrong, what he was wearing totally wrong, what was said totally wrong, etc.