Posted on 11/19/2002 4:41:39 AM PST by canalabamian
Bingo. The famous "dog that didn't bark" scenario, in which U.S. Navy vessels that would have responded to a missile launch from an unknown source by searching for that source decided instead to flee the scene as quickly as possible.
Also, someone pointed out that there was no change in flight patterns for other aircraft flying over the wreckage site immediately after the crash. If there was any suspicion that TWA 800 had been brought down by a missile of unknown origin, then all flights would have been either diverted or grounded -- there would have been an implicit assumption that whoever fired the missile was capable of firing another one.
If TWA Flight 800 was brought down by a missile, it was the U.S. Navy that fired it.
I never doubted this was a raghead stunt, sultan.
Only question I've ever really had was why Clintigula felt a coverup was necessary??
What'd the pig have to gain insoding??
...any thoughts?
By the way - this Clinton Thuggery is continuing today. Every incoming Democratic "freshman" in our Congress is going to be briefed by Mz. Hitlery herself: YOU EITHER TOW OUR LINE, DO AS WE ORDER, OR YOU ARE DESTROYED (YOUR POLITICAL CAREER IS OVER). It is that simple.
That is because a fuel tank explosion was proven impossible, even by the experts trying to replicate it. The best they could come up with was a flame-front that took several seconds to propagate through a 1/4 scale model. This required tweaking the heat just so, and igniting the fuel vapors with a hot wire, and neither the fuel vapor denisity nor the ignition source were ever shown to exist in a real fuel tank. Nor did the resulting fuel fire cause the scale model to come apart, although it was claimed that enough combustion gasses could be produced quickly enough that the tank (which is vented) would not release the pressure quickly enough to prevent some structural failure. In theory.
That, and the ridiculous CIA animation that is loony on a par with meteorite and death-ray theories.
Terrorists, on the other hand, are very real. So are SAMs in the hands of Iraq, the Taliban in Afganistan, Iran, Hezbolla, etc. It need not even have been one of our man-portable Stingers if, as it seems likely, the missile was fired from a boat. Missiles, bombs, and suicidal hijackers have all brought down several airliners, killing thousands of innocents. TWA800 could be something else. But the likelihood of that is very very very low.
Oddly enough, I expect some people here who have pooh-poohed the missle theory (the government wouldn't LIE to us, would they?), to jump on board now, if there is an Iraqi connection, if it will serve the cause to start a fun war.
P.S. If the missile was delivered by Islamic terrorists, Clinton was politically stupid to cover it up! But maybe he had his reasons. "MOHAMMAD FERRAT"
There are other Russian Stinger clones that would have had a high kill probability though.
That's not the only problem with the Stinger theory. There are a couple of others:
1. The Stinger is a heat-seeking missile and, as such, would have homed in on the exhaust port of one of the engines. The missile that brought down FL800 exploded in front of the left wing. A heat-seeking missile would have approached from behind, exploding in or near one of the engines. This missile must have been radar-guided and proximity-fuzed. Not a Stinger.
2. The two-pound warhead on a Stinger is far too small to account for the damage that was done to the plane. The missile blast tore off the left wing and the nose. A two-pound warhead couldn't do that, but a full-size surface-to-air missile certainly could.
The aircraft was only at the far end of a Stinger's range because it had been ordered to reduce its elevation by several thousand feet to make way for a northbound US Air flight landing in Providence, Rhode Island that was running behind schedule. I can't see why anyone intending to shoot down an airliner would have waited out there for the odd chance that one would be flying overhead at a lower-than-normal altitude. If you're going to go through all the trouble of getting a missile on a boat and anchoring offshore, you would do it much closer to JFK Airport than the Hamptons.
If it was a missile, it need not have been a shoulder-fired missile. It was probably fired from a boat. Plus, the most compelling physical evidence I have heard of that it was a missile is the description of ceramic balls recovered from victims' bodies. I think these are part of a missile warhead. My very speculative theory is that it was an expanding rod warhead (which AFAIK are not found in MANPADs).
"1. The numerous witnesses from multiple points on the south shore of Long Island who saw something fired upward toward the aircraft."
Eye-witnesses are often proved inaccurate sources of testimony, not because they are purposefully deceitful, but they often mix fact with hear-say and "remember" more than actually occurred.
"2. The fact that the CIA and FBI were involved in the investigation from the start -- the CIA doesn't investigate "normal" airline crashes."
From the outset, the claim of a missile attack or a bomb on the international flight triggered the involvement of those agencies specifically equipped to investigate such. Nothing extrordinarily unusual to do under the circumstances, until such claims are abated by facts brought out by forensic evidence.
"3. Wolf Blitzer's announcement on CNN that evening that Bill Clinton was going to address the nation about the crash of TWA 800 -- an address that was never made. A "normal" airline crash is not something that prompts a nationwide address by the president -- even a dysfunctional president with a pathological craving for media attention."
When such reports of a terrorists strike were rampant, it made sense that the President, no matter how dispicable the excuse of a man, would seek to calm the fears of the general public - unless the evidence changes the focus to catastrophic failure of the AC.
"4. Have you ever seen so much attention and money provided to the families of an airline disaster as you saw in New York that night?"
Tort settlements are increasingly huge. That's one reason why the cost of a general aviation aircraft is so unreasonably expensive, many times four to five times the cost of a comparable road vehicle.
"5. The number of airlines that have crashed in the last ten years under mysterious/unusual circumstances -- TWA 800, the SwissAir flight off the coast of Nova Scotia, that Egypt Air flight where the pilot or co-pilot allegedly crashed the plane, Flight 587 that crashed into the neighborhood in Queens, NY last year. Notice that these were all international flights, and that they all originated -- you guessed it -- from JFK Airport in New York City. I'd rather play in traffic than fly out of that freakin' place."
The number of airline TO's & TD's in NYC is astounding, and with the high level of traffic comes the fact that more high-cycle, high-time airframes converge in one area. These AC are on "quick" turn-around schedules creating stress on personnel and equipment which could lead to neglect and error, thus exposing the flying public to dangerous oversights which could lead to crashes or other serious reportable incidents.
Whatever the cause, we must remain vigilant to look at all the evidence of each crash and reason appropriately to help avoid similar incidents in the future.
Regards,
Az
IF (and that's a big IF) Flight 800 was brought down by a missile, it was shot down by a U.S. Navy missile that had accidentally tracked the aircraft instead of the drone that it was supposed to hit. The missile was not a heat-seeking missile or even a standard "proximity-fused" missile, but one with an explosive warhead that would have exploded near the aircraft and shredded the plane with tungsten carbide shrapnel.
Not at all. This happened four months before the 1996 elections, and the bent one didn't want it to be known that terrorists were killing Americans on his watch. It would've been a formidable campaign issue, and he knew it.
Hundreds of eye witnessess to the missile were so outraged over the FBI and CIA lies they created the TWA800 Eyewitness Alliance of NY.
Yeah, that and jet fuel, aka kerosene, vapors will burn explosively at 12,000' MSL........without being compressed! You don't need no stinkin' O2! All you gots to do is put some wires close by.
Ever tried to light a match at 12,000'?
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