Posted on 11/04/2002 12:22:21 PM PST by Asmodeus
http://twa800.com/news/pbs-10-31-02.htm
Associated Retired Aviation Professionals
Post Office Box 90, Clements, Maryland 20624 USA
PBS News Hour
October 31, 2002
This evening former Senator Warren Rudmann was interviewed on homeland defense. He mentioned Jim Kallstrom and stated that he was in charge of the "TWA 800 "Shoot Down" investigation."
P.S. As the News Hour ended, they stated that Rudmann didn't mean to use the phrase "Shoot Down".
To view the video of the show, go to:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/video/index.html# and search for the interview on "Securing the Homeland" dated October 31, 2002.
The Honorable Warren B. Rudman Co-Chairman U. S. Commission on National Security
Dear Senator Rudman:
I was one of the millions who watched your interview on PBS this evening and I applaud your work on behalf of this nation. I served in the war ahead of you – I was a Navy pilot in World War II and then spent my career as a pilot for United Airlines. I note that you served with distinction in Korea. I would like to mention two other Navy pilots, Commander William 'Bill' Donaldson and Major Fred 'Fritz' Meyer, who served in the war behind you, namely Viet Nam (Fritz later joined the National Guard which explains the Major).
During your interview you mentioned the shoot-down of TWA800. It was shot down, as you know. Fritz was in a helicopter with Captain Bauer and they were making a practice ILS approach at the Suffolk airport waiting for it to get dark so that they could practice night refueling. They were on short final with Captain Bauer flying and Fritz handling the radios and lookout. The tower called and said there was a Cessna entering the traffic pattern for their runway. Fritz was leaning forward in the cockpit trying to pick up the Cessna when he saw a missile arc across the sky. It disappeared momentarily and then there were at least two bright-white military ordinance explosions. Then followed the huge fuel explosion and fireball. All of the debris fell downward out of the fireball.
Fritz immediately cleared from the tower and flew to the accident site. They were the first on the scene and they stayed out there looking for survivors until they ran low on fuel. Fritz and I have become friends and I can provide to you a video tape and an 8 page transcript of his description of the accident. Or you may call him at (631) 495 3999 or email him at fmeyer8775@ aol. com.
Would you believe that the FBI interviewed 750 eyewitnesses, yet not a single one was allowed to testify at the accident investigation hearing? Commander Donaldson retired from the Navy with just about every rating a pilot can get including accident investigation. Bill just couldn't accept the misinformation appearing in the media. He launched his own investigation and he formed an Association of Retired Aviation Professionals to help. No less a person than Admiral Thomas Moorer, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, joined Bill's cause. Admiral Moorer even made a personal appeal to Congress to reopen the investigation. Bill devoted the last years of his life trying to present the truth to the public. He went into Walter Reed hospital with a back problem. They operated on his brain and we lost a wonderful patriot. However, Bill's research was put onto a website and it is being continued by his brother, Bob Donaldson. Please go to www. TWA800. com and you will find an unbelievable amount of evidence supporting the shoot-down.
My personal involvement started with the FAA radar tapes which showed a missile approaching TWA800 prior to the explosion. The controllers immediately reported what they had seen and the word went right to the top. A copy of the tape reached my fellow pilot, Captain Richard Russell, and he showed it to me. When word got out on the internet, the FBI threatened Captain Russell and then came to his house and confiscated a tape. Pierre Salinger was ridiculed for releasing the same information. In order to discredit the eyewitnesses, the CIA proposed that after the nose was blown off of TWA800, the aircraft continued to fly and climb 3200 feet trailing flames. This was supposed to be the rising bright streak seen by the eyewitnesses (never mind that the eyewitnesses saw the streak rising from the surface, not from a point 13,800 feet in the sky). The CIA prepared a video animation of this zoom-climb and James Kallstrom presented it on national TV when he announced that the FBI was withdrawing from the investigation. Well, such a nose-less zoom-climb is aerodynamically impossible, and Boeing issued a statement the following day denying any knowledge of the data and conclusions used for the CIA animation.
A month later, the NTSB presented a similar video animation at the public hearing. However, the NTSB also included a table of data in its report that was provided by Boeing. Using that data, I calculated that when the nose was blown off, the aircraft immediately pitched up and stalled. The most it could have climbed is about 200 feet. This is confirmed by the eyewitnesses who saw the debris fall downward out of the fireball. I went to the NTSB hearing on August 22, 2000, and asked the NTSB author of the zoom-climb, Dennis Crider, and his supervisor, Bernard Loeb, how they had calculated the zoom-climb. They wouldn't give me an answer. I wrote to Jim Hall, chairman of the NTSB, and asked for the calculations. We exchanged several letters but still no answer. Then I submitted Freedom of Information Act requests to the CIA and the NTSB. The CIA responded that it had used data and conclusions provided by the NTSB. The NTSB responded that it couldn't release the information because it was proprietary to Boeing. But Boeing had already denied knowledge of the data and conclusions. Now I am preparing a lawsuit to obtain the information.
I mention all of this because this secrecy on the part of our government is working at cross-purposes with your efforts to alert the public to the threats against us. Who knows, if we had faced up to TWA800, we might have averted 9-11. Whenever possible, the government clamps a lid on terrorist actions in an effort to convince the public that the terrorists are not really hurting us. On the other hand, groups like your Hart-Rudman Commission are trying to raise public concern so that we will take preventive action. I guess the part that bothers me the most is that they are destroying my trust in my government. Before he died, I discussed with Bill Donaldson why he was putting so much effort into this cause. His answer was, "Nobody is going to screw around with my constitution". Well, I guess there are a few of us odd-balls out here who are willing to fight to get the truth out of our government.
Sincerely,
Ray Lahr
Very short hand description of events... leads one to think that the doctors killed him... not the case. Cmdr. Donaldson went in for a routine back problem but they found cancer... and it had metasticized to his brain and other organs.
Only in YOUR fevered mind, Asmodeus. The more than 100 witnesses who saw something streak up and strike another object would prefer to believe their own eyes rather than your repeated and boring denials.
Asmodeus, in your scenario, exactly WHAT brought flight 800 down from 13,800 feet to under 7500 feet for the massive fireball explosion in 35 seconds? How did it get there?
"Very short hand description of events... leads one to think that the doctors killed him... not the case. Cmdr. Donaldson went in for a routine back problem but they found cancer... and it had metasticized to his brain and other organs."
Witness Meyer reportedly says "I suspect that Bill Donaldson was murdered."
Yahoo TWA 800 Forum
Message #8272
From:Richard Savage
Date: Wed Jun 12, 2002 5:17 am
Subject: Fritz
Here's something I got from Major Meyer.
Rick; I'm not "sick" of this stuff, but I do have two children to raise alone and don't have the time some folks have. I encourage all to keep the fires burning. The most serious consequence of this tragedy is how effectively our government deceived the people. We must expose them. !) I have not conducted an investigation; I have been privy to others conducting investigations whom I shall not name since I suspect that Bill Donaldson was murdered. Lisa Perry is the best witness of all I have interviewed. However , she fears for her safety and is being urged by her husband and family members to " keep a low profile". She gave us the details of her observations in Oct. '96; long before careful investigation confirmed everything that she said. The time frames must always be discounted because, it seems , adrenalin changes one's internal clock. The three persons in my A/C all concurred 2 days later that we thought the entire sequence took about 10 seconds. I won't give any info to anyone about her since I don't know you, and believe she is in real danger. At least two persons key to this inquirey have died mysteriously. Mike Wire has been willing to come forward before. I shall ask him if he wants to communicate with you. However I will explain to him that I do not know your background and cannot vouch for you. .FCM
His supposed satellite evidence is pure tinfoil - as nutty as the meteorite theories or that HAARP did it. No sat images were ever released, and he touts this as conclusive. It's pure baloney. Compared with the down-to-earth certainty that a) Al Quaida and other Islamist radicals had access to SAMs of various sizes; and b) Passenger jets had been shot down before.
All other theories are like looking for a meteorite as an explanation in an apperent drive by shooting. A perverse exercise in ignoring the obvious threats.
Asmodeus... this is CONTRARY TO THE HARD EVIDENCE FROM RADAR DATA!
Where did the CIA's extra 7 seconds come from?
According to the radar returns, the main wreckage was in the Atlantic Ocean at ~42 seconds after the initiating event, NOT at one mile up in the sky as the CIA cartoon (and you) claimed!
Where was the time in the CIA data to allow for 3200 ADDITIONAL feet of climb AND an additional 3200 feet of fall???? Seven measely seconds doesn't even begin to provide enough time for that additional climb and fall. In ballistics, the time of an unpowered climb to peak altitude is equal to the time to fall back to the initial altitude... and the fall is from ZERO vertical movement at the peak, accelerating at 32feet per second per second downward, regardless of forward velocity. This would require MUCH more time than SEVEN SECONDS.
IF, as you and the CIA hold, the Massive Fireball occurred at a minimum 5500 feet, 42 seconds AFTER the initiating event, the aircraft would have taken an additional ~12 seconds OR MORE to fall to the ocean surface, during which it should have provided at least TWO more radar returns... it didn't.
If, we allow your MAXIMUM altitude for the Massive Fireball of 7500 feet, it would take an additional ~17 seconds of additional fall time to hit the ocean... and at least THREE more radar returns... it didn't. Asmodeus, the time simply isn't there.
The radar doesn't lie... the laws of physics and ballistics don't lie... the CIA can, does, and did.
The timeline I prepared was constructed from SOME eyewitness testimony, the radar return data, the laws of physics and ballistics... I fitted the OBSERVED events into the GIVEN TIME and the GIVEN POSITIONS of the crippled aircraft provided by the objective radar returns and applied the immutable laws of physics and ballistics to backtrack the events. For the plane to have been where each return on the radar placed it, my time line fits. YOURS DOES NOT.
I think he likes to throw rocks.
He hasn't got a life... or he needs to pay the rent... so he gets productive again so he can bill his bosses for some more dis-information time.
So what your saying is that you don't have any clue you just know that the plane was shot down? Jeesh, if you're going to refute something, the least you could do is come up with a better theory. Aliens, the CIA, Langoliers, something....
Loser. Get off my computer!
Each witness report has to be carefully examined as has been demonstrated by the irreconcilable conflicts between the reports the three Star "shootdown" witnesses - Major Meyer, Dwight Brumley & Mike Wire - and your "shootdown" sequential timeline. Your above allegations are NOT evidence that you have ANY witness reports that will support your "shootdown" sequential timeline. The fact is that the vast majority of the witnesses were so ineptly interviewed that NOBODY knows what they actually said, much less what they actually saw, as documented in the following.
The FBI provided the NTSB with a variety of documents pertaining to interviews conducted by FBI agents. The documents consist primarily of FD-302 forms, teletypes, and inserts. An FD-302 is a standard FBI form that is used to record the admissible testimony of an FBI agent. 16 In addition to FD-302s, interview results were also frequently summarized in teletypes or inserts, which are somewhat less formal investigative documents that also could be used as evidence. Although it is not technically correct to refer to all of the documents as "302 forms," for the purposes of the accident investigation, all of the documents are functionally equivalent. This report refers to FBI documents of any type pertaining to interviews as "witness documents." These documents are summaries of some of the information provided to FBI agents by witnesses during interviews conducted as part of the FBI's criminal investigation. No verbatim records of the FBI interviews were produced. The documents are almost exclusively written in the words of the agents who conducted the interviews, and not in the words of the witnesses themselves.
The documents were created to capture information relevant to its criminal investigation, and FBI agents frequently included only information that appeared relevant to this purpose. Witnesses were almost always interviewed by more than one FBI agent (or other law enforcement personnel), one of whom served as the note taker.
A witness document was prepared later by reference to these notes. Although some agents typed these documents themselves, many were prepared by typists by reference to handwritten drafts. The agents reviewed the typed documents for accuracy. This review was often accomplished shortly after the interview, but due to the large number of interviews being conducted, a backlog developed, and sometimes several days or weeks elapsed before handwritten interview notes were typed and reviewed.
The witnesses themselves were not asked to review or correct the documents. Because of these factors, the witness group avoids referring to the witness documents as "statements."
The witness interviews conducted by the FBI were done in support of its criminal investigation. During the September 30, 1998, meeting, FBI Special Agent Otto told the witness group that in the initial days of the investigation, the FBI began to suspect that a missile might have been used against flight 800 because so many eyewitness accounts included descriptions of a flare-like object or fireworks in the sky prior to the appearance of a large fireball. Consequently, rather than recording a complete accounting of the visual and aural events described by the witnesses, Special Agent Otto indicated that FBI agents tended to use the witness documents to capture information that appeared relevant to its criminal investigation.
It appears that during some interviews the questions asked by the FBI agents were framed in a manner that emphasized aspects relevant to the missile investigation. In fact, some suggested interview questions are included in document CC-5, which pertains to Witness 32. Some of these include:
What was the timing of events? How long did the missile fly, etc. What does the terrain around launch sight look like? Were scorch marks visible? Where was the sun in relation to the aircraft and the missile launch point? The witness group and the document readers found that a number of other aspects of the witness documents make it difficult to extract accurate and reliable information from them.
These include possible interviewer and interviewee bias, ambiguous clock-point and angle references, potentially inaccurate distance estimates, combined accounts, reporting of witness speculation and conclusions, imprecise or vague language, internal inconsistency, and errors concerning the origin streak of light. Each of these issues will be discussed along with an example or two.
Possible interviewer and interviewee bias. As mentioned previously, FBI witness interviewing was focused on the possibility that a missile had been used against the accident airplane. This focus may have resulted in bias on the part of some the interviewers. For example, the document (CC1-628) pertaining to Witness 590 (10.4 nautical miles slant range from flight 800, interviewed July 20, 1996) describes an ascending red ball. 10,11 The document further states, "Upon impact, [redacted] observed a large fireball." Neither the document nor the attached interview notes states that the witness saw anything other than the red ball in the sky; thus, it is unclear what the "impact" mentioned in the document is. Although this incongruity could be due to other reasons, the witness appears to have described an ascending red ball and a large fireball, which the interviewer related using the word "impact."
For a similar example, see document CC1-382, which pertains to Witness 411 and Witness 412 (both of whom were 8.2 nautical miles slant range from flight 800, interviewed July 20, 1996). These witnesses describe seeing a flare-like object, but "they did not see what [the] flare struck, but it exploded in air into a large orange fireball." This characterization may suggest that the interviewer and/ or the interviewees believed that the flare-like object was a missile, which must have struck something. Beliefs concerning the possibility of a missile attack may have biased or colored the word choices used in reporting the witness accounts; therefore, these accounts must be interpreted carefully.
The presence of missile experts at some interviews may also have influenced these biases.
One document pertaining to Witness 243 (CC4-146, interview date not provided) states that the witness saw an ascending object and then an explosion. However, another document pertaining to this witness (CC1-28, interviewed July 18, 1996) states that the witness (12.0 nautical miles slant range from flight 800) noticed something similar to a flare and "the flying object was relatively slow in flying up and took about four or five seconds before hitting the airplane." Though the document implies that the witness saw an airplane, the document does not specifically state that the witness actually saw an airplane. The interviewer or the interviewee may have used these words to convey that the witness observed an explosion after seeing the flare-like object.
Some documents noted that the witness did not realize what he or she was observing, and some documents specifically state that the witness made conclusions about what he or she observed after learning about the accident in the media.
For example, the document pertaining to Witness 326 (CC-368, 13.2 nautical miles slant range from flight 800, interviewed July 24, 1996) states that this witness did not think much about what was observed until watching the evening news.
The document pertaining to Witness 271 states that she did not realize that she had observed an airplane crash until about an hour later when family members told her that TWA flight 800 had exploded.
The document pertaining to Witness 166 (CC1-374, 31.0 nautical miles slant range from flight 800, interviewed July 26, 1996) states that this witness concluded that he had observed a missile after hearing news accounts about the crash.
Clearly, some witnesses discussed the crash with each other and/ or learned about it from the media before they were interviewed. It is likely that media coverage about the crash and the associated criminal investigation may have led to bias on the part of some the interviewees.
Ambiguous clock-point and angle references. Sometimes direction or position is described using clock-point references that do not appear to be those generally used in aviation. It is not always readily apparent whether "o'clock" is referring to the observed object's path of travel, its position, or its elevation angle.
For example, the document pertaining to Witness 533 (CC-371, interviewed July 19, 1996) describes "the trajectory of the smoke trail initially as verticle [sic] (approximately 11: 00 direction)." Without knowing the orientation of the clock face in space, this type of description is difficult to interpret. The clock face could be parallel to the line of sight of witness such that 11 o'clock is almost directly above the witness, perpendicular to the line of sight of the witness such that 11 o'clock describes a trajectory that is nearly perpendicular to the horizon, or the clock could be parallel to the horizon such that 11 o'clock is just to the left of being directly in front of the witness (8.1 nautical miles slant range from flight 800).
In another example, the document pertaining to Witness 216 states that he "observed to his right, at about forty-five (45) degrees, a flare vertically going 'down'… [and] saw a horizontal explosion about one-half (1/ 2) way down from where he first observed what he believed was a 'boat flare'" (CC1-261, interviewed July 23, 1996). From this description, it cannot be determined with certainty where the witness first observed the flare. It appears that the witness (10.3 nautical miles slant range from flight 800) said that he first observed the flare at 45 degrees above the horizon; however, the description could also be referring to the direction in which the witness first observed the flare. The flare may have been first observed 45 degrees to his right. Because the initial position is ambiguous, the description of an explosion half way down from that point is also ambiguous.
And WHO is going to evaluate those non-existant witness reports? YOU? As you, yourself, have pointed out the FBI 302s are useless and evaluating garbage will only get you garbage... which is what you post.
Where is YOUR analysis of the objective radar data? Where do you place the aircraft at each of the known returns? What caused it to get from 13800 feet to 5500-7500 feet for the Massive Explosion? WHAT WAS THE INITIATING EVENT?
I have seen NOTHING NEW in any of your posts. You rehash the same drivel, thread after thread.
You seem to live for the opportunity to display your cut and paste techniques and to promote your self serving BLOG, not to mention your extremely childish animated site where you continue your now muted ad hominum attacks on people who disagree with you.
Let me be the first to say it. No one can touch your cut and paste technique... it is excellent... and very colorful. When my children were in Kindergarten, they could not have done better.
Got anything that isn't eb44 warmed over? If not, go away. Your postings are spam and abuse.
Yes--eb44, Elmer Barr, and Asmodeus are all nom-de-plumes for the afore-mentioned previously banned and discredited spammer.
No--He has nothing other than spam and abuse...
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