Posted on 03/29/2007 11:25:45 AM PDT by Hal1950
What prompts this column is an e-mail I received last week from a retired USNR commander and former TWA pilot, with whom I had had no prior contact.
He recounted a conversation that he had shortly after the mid-air destruction of TWA Flight 800 on July 17, 1996, off the coast of Long Island. He had a particular interest in the plane's demise for two reasons. One is that he was a qualified accident investigator. The second is that he had flown that very same flight a week earlier.
"It had to be a bloody missile, probably an un-armed Tomahawk, going for center-of-mass," he said to a senior flight manager of his acquaintance. "They were most likely going for a target drone and testing their capability to go-through normal aircraft traffic to get at the target."
The flight manager agreed and recounted what he had been told by a maintenance foreman at the investigation hangar on Long Island.
"They had this curtained area over in the corner with Marine armed guards in front," the foreman had told him. "But, I did see one of the right mainmounts that had a crease out of it, as if something round had passed through it. And, to me, it sure looked like an 'entry' and 'exit' hole in the fuselage."
I cite this e-mail for two reasons. One is that the accepted wisdom among many TWA pilots immediately after the crash matches closely the detailed account of what transpired, at least as reported in an extraordinarily comprehensive anonymous review that I and investigator Ray Lahr received a few months ago.
The second reason is that all of the best eyewitness accounts that I have received that might verify this scenario are second-hand. In fact, no one that I know has talked to anyone who witnessed the firing of the fatal missiles.
My partner in this investigation, James Sanders, had developed any number of discreet first-hand sources in 1996-1997, but all of these sources "went away after we were indicted." The "we" refers to James and his wife, Elizabeth, at the time a TWA trainer, both of whom eventually were convicted of the bogus charge of conspiracy to steal airplane parts.
If an eyewitness were to come forward, now would be a good time, a safer time as well. The true story might derail the ambitions of a candidate or two – Al Gore for sure, Hillary probably – but the major media would be more willing to listen before either became the party's nominee. If either is elected president, the story dies.
I can be contacted through my website, cashill.com, and Ray Lahr through his, raylahr.com.
I have sent "The Review" to perhaps 100 people with more technical expertise than I, and it has impressed everyone that I have heard from. Unlike the subjunctive dithering of the NTSB report, The Review is declarative and confident and tells its tale with the dense technical poetry of a Patrick O'Brian novel.
According to The Review's author, the first missile, the one that destroyed the plane, was large and, if not un-armed, at least failed to explode. The missile shot above TWA Flight 800, found its mark and descended on it from the rear.
"The missile's momentum was high enough to pitch the nose of the aircraft sharply upward when it landed on the top of the stabilizer," claims the author, "and alter its heading to the right when it hit the body. The missile's supersonic speed caused these changes to occur nearly simultaneously."
The stabilizer is the horizontal part of the tail. The elevator is the movable control on the stabilizer. A hydraulically driven device called the "jackscrew," located in front of the tail, changes the stabilizer's pitch angle, which causes the plane to pitch up or down.
So much information is loaded into the recovered jackscrew that author and Air Force vet Tom Kovach calls it the "Rosetta Stone" of the disaster, "the one piece of the aircraft that proves the high-speed action events that brought down Flight 800."
Apparently, the missile smashed into the stabilizer with more force than the jackscrew could handle, so much force in fact that it ripped the forearm-thick steel of the jackscrew in half. This same force pushed the tail violently down and the nose up and wrenched the plane into an aerodynamic stall. Unable to take the extra stress from the aircraft's sudden up-pitch, the wing tips fractured simultaneously.
The violent upward pitch of the plane whipsawed the fuselage and snapped the rigid keel beam, which runs under the length of the fuselage. The missile meanwhile skipped off the stabilizer and into the right side of the fuselage, which had flipped up nearly vertically and to the right.
The savage force of this combined action ripped the cockpit off of the plane, which, along with the front of the keel beam and the air conditioning units, plunged into the sea before the rest of the plane did the same.
The Review author deduced this in large part from the debris field and physical evidence, like the fractured jackscrew, but there is more evidence, of course, namely the testimony of the eyewitnesses.
From her Fire Island deck, FBI witness No. 150 watched a shiny, cylindrical wingless object move at high speed from north to south. She then noticed the object head toward "a large commercial airliner" traveling east at the same altitude. The airliner "simply 'stopped' at that moment," she told the FBI.
"As the plane came apart, its nose turned up and to the right," her FBI 302 continues. "She could see windows on the top right side of front of the plane, even though she had previously been able to see only along its spine."
"The front was carried forward and arced down with its momentum," the 302 adds. "The right wing seemed to stay with the plane."
Six days after the crash, weeks before any of this information became public, witness No. 150 described the break-up sequence of TWA Flight 800 almost perfectly. She was one of more than 750 eyewitnesses that the FBI interviewed.
Another such witness, No. 551, tracked TWA Flight from his window seat on US Air 217 overhead. He watched the 747 for 30-40 seconds as it flew eastward, its cabin lights still on. Then he saw the front of the plane explode. "The plane seemed to stop in mid air like a bus running into a stone wall – no forward motion," he told the FBI.
The Review author believes that No. 551 was describing the same dramatic stall, a result of the missile impact that No. 150 described, likely the first blow of three. The author does not try to guess the missile's provenance, but he rules out a Stinger or similar shoulder-fired missile. One can infer from what he writes that the lethal missile was likely a product of the U.S. Navy or a NATO ally.
Dwight Brumley, a retired 25-year United States Navy master chief, also watched the incident from US Air 217. He is among those Navy people who believes that if this missile had come off of a sub or a cruiser, "Somebody would talk to somebody about what they knew (or at least suspected)."
Brumley thinks it possible that there was a test of a defensive missile system by a black ops team that went awry. More likely, he speculates, "We were completely caught with our pants down and TWA 800 was just flat out shot down by an unknown missile."
"I just know," Brumley tells me, "that I saw something streaking up toward TWA 800 and that after the initial explosion she never climbed anymore. No 'zoom climb.'"
If someone knows more or different, we would certainly like to hear from him.
So you accept the fuel tank 'theory'?
bump for later
I'm not a conspiracy believer. Never have been. Not even during Watergate.
But, I have a BIL that is Ret. Navy. 24 years in engineering. He worked with every aerospace company the Navy dealt with during his time. He went from the Navy to McDonnell Douglas, then to Boeing. He's qualified as an expert witness, and has been called upon for consultations on a variety of aircraft from a multitude of manufacturers. He was consulted by the NTSB & the FBI in regards to TWA Flt 800. He has more degrees than there are letters in the alphabet, and I trust him implicitly and believe him absolutely and without qualification. He never jokes or kids or embellishes, and he's extremely serious in everything he does. Neither his report, nor anyone's on his team has ever been published or even acknowledged.
Without going into detail, which I would probably get wrong anyway, and so as not to help id him, I'll tell you what he says. Based on the available evidence he was able to view, it's physically impossible to have happened in the manner, or by the method, described by the NTSB. He was and is 100% sure there was a coverup.
When I, and the family, pressed him for his ideas on what might have actually taken place, he said that "something" hit that plane. As I recall, he described a possible scenario that was eerily similar to the one described in the article above. That is, a missile descended from above and to the rear.
Since published reports, gathered through FOIA, have accounted for every type of projectile in our inventory that could have been used to do this, there are only two reasonable assumptions left to be made.
1. It was a ground based, shoulder fired missile, fired by a terrorist, or
2. It was, as stated earlier, Black Ops.
My vote goes to terrorism. The only problem with that is, no terrorists have claimed doing it. Still, I believe it was terrorism, and Clinton was involved, and it has been thoroughly covered up. THAT'S my story, and I'm stickin' to it.
:O)
P
No disrespect to your BIL, but Boeing disagrees with him. And his credentials cannot account for the complete lack of evidence of anything striking the aircraft. Furthermore, it is physically impossible for a shoulder launched missile to have descended toward TWA 800 and struck it from the rear. The infrared seekers on shoulder launched missiles must maintain a lock until impact, and guide to their targets using a lead or pure pursuit. They don't overshoot their targets in the vertical and then descend to hit them. And I'm not sure what you mean by "black ops".
But you see where this leads...you can by all means rely on your BIL. But to do so, you have to discount the findings of Boeing, TWA, ALPA, the NTSB and the FBI, all of whom agree nothing hit the airplane. Then you have to find a missile that could do what you describe, when no such missile exists. That leaves "black ops", but do you really think super secret government organizations do their testing within miles of one of the most densely populated parts of our country? That's what places like Area 51 are for. Again, no disrespect to your BIL, but perhaps he didn't have access to every part of the investigation and might not have been able to draw an accurate conclusion based solely on the evidence he did see.
So they were experts in international terrorism and they helped by producing a laughably misleading cartoon? I guess we all can have our alternate realities.
The CIA video was produced to show all those witnesses (who didn't know what they had seen) that the thing going up was not a missile, but rather the plane itself. (Go to any library and find the NY Times article the day after the cartoon was first shown, or use LexusNexus if you have it.)
(Do you think the plane went up after the first visible explosion occurred?)
ML/NJ
Another one who doesn't know what he's talking about. (What's going on here at FR?)
The black box data stopped almost immediately when TWA 800 exploded. It most definitely did not show any unusual climb. (The plane was leaving 13,000 for 19,000, so that climb is reflected in the data.) What the originally released black box data did show was an indication of an explosion outside the plane reflected in air speed, angle of attack, and other changes. The government subsequently deleted these last lines from their report ridiculously claiming that these were data left over from a previous flight.
ML/NJ
He lost all credibility right there
That was my first thought... Aren't Tomahawks only used against stationary targets, and guided by an inertial guidance system? And don't they get their target coordinates just before launch? I'm pretty suer that they don't have any sort of target tracking system. That would mean that a Tomahawk would never be launched against a moving target.
More importantly, as you stated quite succinctly, it's NOT an anti-aircraft missile! It's a ground attack weapon! For goodness sakes, Tomahawks are designed to carry nuclear warheads!
Mark
I assume you didn't read the link to the CIA document I provided you? If you had, you would know what data they had to produce the video they produced. Why don't you read it? Afraid reality will disrupt your conspiracy?
You assume a lot of things, don't you? You assume that I didn't look at the stuff you linked. You assume that the Navy must be Simon Pure. You assume that all those witnesses were all smoking the same dope that night, or whenever it was that they were interviewed.
Your linked document is a "by words multiplied" presentation made more than a year after the cartoon was produced and released. It was part of the NTSB attempt to pretend that they were investigating while in fact they were covering up. I suggested before, and I suggest to you again, that you find a report from the presentation made when the cartoon was released.
If the NTSB report were honest, it would have included all of the FDR data but it does not. The claim for the omitted data (which was in the first issue of the document and quickly deleted when people such as myself published analyses* of it on the internet) is that it is left over from some other flight. Of course this claim is laughable, which is why they didn't include the data with their explanation. They just hoped that no one would notice.
ML/NJ
* E.g. Someone earlier on this thread said the FDR data indicated that the plane gained altitude. Actually this deleted data showed the plane LOST some 3000 feet on the last recorded iteration. But what the altimeter does is measure air pressure and the instrument translates this into altitude. A 3000 foot decrease in altitude indicates a substantial increase in static air pressure; sort of like what would happen from the blast wave from an explosion. Of course the idea that this data is left over from the last flight is absurd. Was the last flight conducted at 10,000 feet? Did it ever have and angle of attack like 97 degrees? (I'm guessing at what the AOA and altitude were from memory.) AOA of 97 deg could be an indication of the direction in which the blast wave was moving. As a great pilot yourself you undoubtedly could explain why I say what I say, but instead you choose to blow smoke.
I'll start by admitting that I haven't read the CIA documentation in your link. But I'm just wondering why it would be so unreasonable to think that something in which the Clinton administration played a primary role would not be tainted? Considering his track record, to me it's fair to say that he corrupted everything and everyone he touched from the time he was a governor to the day he looted the White House on the way out. And he has produced a trail of bodies of innocent and guilty alike to show for his efforts. I don't recall that he ever required a good reason to lie or cover up, just that he did it either reflexively or after cold political calculation. Starting from that basis, it's easy to understand why an "official" report issued by his government might omit, even suppress, facts that don't serve his purposes. Every agency you mention, including Boeing, had a motivation to go along with him, if such a coverup occurred. Conspiracy theory? Conspiracies begin with liars, and they do occur.
No. I don't. And that is exactly what I'm demonstrating on this thread. I don't read idiocy like that published by Cashill and believe it's true until I do my own research. Which leads me to read published documents like the one I linked to you. And once I do, I learn the exact answers to questions like the ones you've posed on this thread. And rather then just give you answers, and expect you to take my word for it, I give you a link to the source from which I got my information so that you can read it yourself. And what do you do? Ignore it and ask the same questions you obviously really don't want answers to.
With regard to making assumptions about you...I provided you with a link to a document that specifically answers your questions. Your response is to ask more of the same questions. Now I can either assume you haven't read the document, or assume you read it and are too stupid to understand what it says. In this case, I chose to take a more gentle approach and assume you just didn't read it. Perhaps I should have taken the other choice.
Now I know you think you are clever calling the CIA animation a "cartoon", but really you are just repeating a phrase commonly used by the TWA 800 conspiracy community to refer to the CIA video. I suppose conspiracy nuts believe the CIA should have flown an actual 747, blown it up and shot video of that. I think animation was a better choice. What conspiracy nuts won't discuss regarding the CIA video was that it was never a part of the NTSB investigation, had ZERO to do with the conclusions of the NTSB investigation, and does not accurately represent the NTSB/Boeing/TWA/ALPA joint effort at reconstructing the break up sequence. In other words, conspiracy nuts focus a good part of their "investigation" on a video that was irrelevant to the NTSB TWA 800 accident investigation.
But feel free to rant on about it. Since the entire conspiracy investigation is irrelevant, it is only appropriate that its followers focus on the least relevant aspects of the case.
In this case, the percentage of players involved in the accident investigation that weren't members of the Clinton administration far outweigh those who were. Unless you believe TWA, Boeing, the Airline Pilots Association, the United States Navy, the FAA, and all the longterm (decades long in many cases) employees of those organizations involved in the years long investigation of TWA800 were all part of a cover up, it is not realistic to believe the investigation of TWA 800 was a Clinton administration cover up. You would also have to believe that the hundreds of people involved, most of whom had nothing to do with the Clinton administration have been able to keep their mouths shut for over a decade.
This wasn't a suspicious suicide. This was a MAJOR aircraft incident that killed hundreds and involved the work of thousands to investigate. Clinton couldn't even hide a blow job from an intern in his own office. There's no way he could hush up some conspiracy involving TWA 800.
I think you should go back and look at what you wrote, and then maybe apologize.
You suggest that maybe I'm "stupid," which is, of course, last refuge of someone with nothing to say, and no answers to give. You cite the NTSB report, which I have read though certainly not in its entirety and not last night, as if it were some sort of Holy Grail. I wonder what cover-ups of the past you can point to that never issued their own exonerating documents.
As for the use of the word, "cartoon," I believe that I was the first to so-characterize the CIA video in this manner. I did so while publicly speaking with James Kallstrom on Bob Grant's radio program. Kallstrom was not amused. (I once saw a description of this call on usenet. Maybe you can find it.) Part of the reason he was not amused is that it is such an accurate description. (I asked you if you believed the plane soared upwards as depicted in the video, but you seem best at blowing smoke rather than entering into an honest dialogue, so you ignored the question and told me again to read the NTSB report.) I'm pleased that so many have copied my use of the word cartoon.
As for Cashill, sadly I have to agree with you. His writings are a mixture of fact, fiction, and supposition, which strike me mostly as an income source for him, or maybe a sort of disinformation backfire.
ML/NJ
There you go with another assumption!
Maybe the Slickster wanted everyone to be talking about the blow job instead of that bullet hole in Ron Brown's head? You probably think he couldn't control talk about "Whitewater" either. But "Whitewater" was a 20 year-old, five figure land deal; and he had the mass media all atwitter about that while Clinton, as President, was accepting seven figure bribes from the Communist Chinese.
Maybe you'll suggest I read the Starr Report now?
ML/NJ
Apologize for what? For being right? I ask you to answer the following honestly...did you read the document at the link I provided for you?
"You suggest that maybe I'm "stupid," which is, of course, last refuge of someone with nothing to say, and no answers to give."
No. I specifically stated I chose to believe you just didn't read the document. You accused me of making a false assumption. Based on your continued questions, you've given no reason to indicate I'm wrong.
"You cite the NTSB report"
You continue to prove my assumption is 100% correct. I have not cited the NTSB report. The link I provided for you was not the NTSB report. It was a copy of CIA correspondence and a transcript of an interview with CIA investigators. And as it clearly states, and as I have clearly stated, the CIA video and their participation in the TWA 800 incident had nothing to do with the NTSB investigation.
"(I asked you if you believed the plane soared upwards as depicted in the video, but you seem best at blowing smoke rather than entering into an honest dialog, so you ignored the question and told me again to read the NTSB report.)"
First, yes I believe TWA 800 climbed after the initial explosion. Second, as I already stated in this thread, the CIA video did not accurately depict the break up sequence (which includes the flightpath of the aircraft). How could anyone possibly have something resembling useful dialog with you when you not only won't read the evidence they provide you...you won't even read their own posts. Furthermore, not once on this thread have I told you to read the NTSB report. I guess making things up is par for the course for a conspiracy advocate, but it doesn't work well on an internet thread where every post is preserved for review.
"I did so while publicly speaking with James Kallstrom on Bob Grant's radio program. Kallstrom was not amused. (I once saw a description of this call on usenet. Maybe you can find it.)"
Typical of a conspiracy advocate. Make a claim and then ask someone else to prove it. All part of "honest dialog" I suppose. Here's a suggestion...as part of a continued "honest dialog", how about if one of us makes a claim we actually provide evidence we both can look at to back it up.
"As for Cashill, sadly I have to agree with you."
Glad to hear it.
Wow. You accuse me of making an assumption that Clinton couldn't hide his sexual exploits (I'll remind you Clinton was impeached as a result of his efforts to lie about trashing the Oval Office). And then you rattle off a list of wild assumptions straight out of the "Conspiracy 101" handbook. I'm not sure you really know what the word "assumption" means.
Blow some more smoke, why don't you?
The link you provided was to an Appendix included with the NTSB report, rather than the whole report itself. As far as I am concerned this is a distinction without a difference. For you it is apparently a major concern.
I'll let the Peanut Gallery decide. In fact, I continue now only for the benefit of the Peanut Gallery as you apparently have swallowed so much Clinton/Kallstrom Kool-aid that you have rendered yourself hopeless.
Peanut Gallery, please consider this statement:
First, yes I believe TWA 800 climbed after the initial explosion.(He bahleeves! He bahleeves! Glory, Hallelujah!) One of the things every pilot learns to do is to judge whether other planes that the pilot sees are below, above, or at nearly the same altitude as his altitude. So here was Capt. David McClaine, whom I spoke with more than a year before the NTSB got around to interviewing him, flying 15 miles away from TWA 800, opposite direction, staring (because he was waiting to be clear of it so he could get the direct TTN routing from ATC that he was requesting) at TWA 800 when it exploded. David McClaine says that TWA 800 did not climb at all. The CIA cartoon has TWA 800 climbing from well below McClaine's altitude to an altitude above ~10,000 hour pilot McClaine. But Honourable AF Pilot Rokke who was not in the air, or at least not in the air anywhere close to TWA 800 that he is talking about, knows better than David McClaine. What chutzpah!
ML/NJ
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