Air crash investigation. TWA 800 CH 7 1930 26 April.

[Tarkeeth]

In view of the above programme I thought the following which I received last year may be of interest.
*
TEN-YEAR COMMEMORATION OF TWA FLIGHT 800
*
by CAPT Ray Lahr


What really happened on the evening of July 17, 1996, off the shore of Long Island?*??With sincere apologies to those who may not wish to be reminded, this is what I believe happened.*??On a pleasant summer evening, TWA800 was making a normal climb on its flight to Paris.At about 13,800 feet, it was hit by one or two missiles.A missile ignited the CWT (center fuel tank).The explosion blew off the nose section, ruptured the front wing spar (which is also the front of the CWT), and broke the keel beam that runs under the bottom of the CWT. The wing separated and the aircraft fell in two flaming balls, each ball fed by the fuel from the separated wing.*??Does this sound at odds with the CIA/NTSB scenario that says that a spark of unknown origin ignited the CWT and blew off the nose, and that the crippled aircraft then made a z oom-climb that the eyewitnesses mistook as a missile?Yes, in my opinion there was no zoom-climb.However, a missile was politically unacceptable, so the CIA invoked the zoom-climb in a desperate attempt to dismiss the missile seen by the eyewitnesses.Please consider what the eyewitnesses saw.*??Major Fred Meyer saw a missile arc across the sky from right to left.It culminated in at least two ordnance explosions (bright white flashes like flash-bulbs).His copilot, Captain Chris Bauer, was sitting on the left side of the cockpit, and he looked up in time to see a second missile rising from left to right. Then came the huge fuel explosion, and all of the debris fell downward out of the fireball in two flaming streams.*??Captain David McClaine and First Officer Vincent Fruschetti on Eastwind Flight 507 were inbound descending to 16,000 feet.They were head-on toTWA800 which was climbing outbound and was limited to 15,000 feet until they were past each other.The East wind crew had been visually tracking the oncoming landing lights of TWA800 for a few minutes. As Captain McClaine reached up to turn on his own landing lights,TWA800 just blew up and the aircraft fell down to the water in two balls of flames. This was confirmed by two other airline crews on nearby flights.*??Chief Petty Officer Dwight Brumley was a passenger on U S Air 217.He had a window seat and he watched the missile rise and arch over prior to the explosion of TWA800. The debris fell downward.*??Mike Wire, Lisa Perry, Paul Angelides, and William Gallahger all saw the missile rising from near the surface towards TWA800 prior to the explosion. The debris fell downward.*??The list goes on.However, not a single eyewitness saw the CIA scenario of an explosion, a zoom-climb, a second explosion, a dive, a third explosion, and then a plunge into the ocean.*??In support of the eyewitnesses, Captain Richard Russell received a video tape of the ATC radar scope showing four rapidly approaching blips just prior to the explosion.*??So how does the NTSB respond to the eyewitness reports?The NTSB simply says that all ofthese eyewitnesses were wrong and that they didn't understand what they were seeing.The radar blips were anomalies. Furthermore, the NTSB did not allow a single eyewitness to testify at either of its public hearings.*??Now mind you, with rare exception, the NTSB did not interview the eyewitnesses, even though the NTSB is charged with that responsibility by Congress.Instead, the NTSB was shoved aside by the FBI, and the FBI conducted the interviews by itself, not even allowing the NTSB to participate in the interviews.Then, in order to discredit the eyewitnesses, the FBI called in the CIA, the master for cover stories.The CIA likewise had not interviewed the eyewitnesses.Instead, the FBI provided the CIA with a selected portion of its 302 forms (a 302 form is the interviewing agent's written recollection of an interview). The witnesses were assigned numbers by the FBI so that their identities could be kept secret. The interviews themselves were not video taped, or audio taped, or even transcribed verbatim.*??Working only from the 302 forms provided by the FBI, one individual CIA agent concocted the zoom-climb hypothesis to explain away all of the eyewitness missile reports. A zoom-climb is a rapid pull-up into a steep climb utilizing the forward speed of the aircraft.Such a steep climb is much beyond the capabilities of the engines alone on a large transport aircraft. This CIA agent proposed that after the nose was blown off, the flaming aircraft zoom-climbed from 13,800 feet to about ?17,000 feet.The eyewitnesses supposedly mistook the flaming B747 for a missile.Never mind that the eyewitnesses saw a missile rapidly rising from the surface, not a lumbering aircraft rising from a point two and a half miles in the sky.The CIA agent passed his zoom-climb c onclusion to the FBI the following morning.Then the NTSB was brought on board.From that moment on, the investigation was shaped to fit the zoom-climb hypothesis.*??The CIA created a video animation of its hypothetical zoom-climb and presented it to the FBI.In turn, the FBI presented the video to the world in a prime-time national television program in November, 1998. Boeing wasn't pleased, and it issued a statement the following day saying that it had no knowledge of the data used for the video. The FBI declared there was no evidence of criminality and that it was withdrawing from the investigation.However, the FBI did not release the evidence that it had gathered and analyzed, nor did it release the lab reports that it had prepared.The FBI was not a cooperative partner regarding the sharing of information.*??There is reason to believe that something exploded in the passenger cabin of TWA800, and foreign objects were imbedded in some passengers. Red residue wa s found on a row of seat backs. James Sanders, investigative reporter, had some samples analyzed. The residue was consistent with rocket fuel.The FBI stood by during the autopsies and confiscated all of the foreign objects as they were removed.Those objects were sent to the FBI's own lab for analysis.Reports were written but never released, not even to the other agencies. A determination that the objects were explosive fragments from a missile would have undermined the predetermined cause as being a spark of unknown origin.*??Graeme Sephton, an engineer and citizen investigator, submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for the FBI lab reports.Mr. Sephton was denied.He initiated a lawsuit.Surprisingly, he won and the court ordered the FBI to produce the reports.Subsequently, the FBI came back and said it had searched for the reports and couldn't find them.The court then ruled that the FBI had made a good faith effort, and Mr. Sephton was denied.The most widely publi cized and most expensive accident investigation in the history of aviation, and the FBI loses its own lab reports?That is highly unlikely.Presumably, the objects still exist.Obviously, the FBI does not want the public to know what it found.*??When I saw the CIA video animation on national television, all of my experience told me that the zoom-climb was impossible.An aircraft cannot continue to fly if the center section of the wing blows up, andthe nose, including the cockpit, rips off.Even if the wing had remained intact for a few seconds, the pitch-up after the nose departed would have created an extra g force that would have collapsed the weakened wing.*??In addition to assuming that the wing remained intact, the zoom-climb scenario had to make additional assumptions about the condition of the aircraft in order for the zoom-climb to be viable. Let's explore those assumptions.*
First, we must also assume that the thrust of the engines remained balanced- all engines had to maintain the same thrust or all had to quit simultaneously to keep the aircraft from yawing and flipping.Remember that when the cockpit left, all engine control cables and electrical wires were ripped away.Which cables snapped first?Was each engine calling for full thrust or shut-down?It is highly unlikely that the thrust remained balanced.*??Second, we must also assume that the control surfaces of rudder, elevator, and ailerons remained balanced and neutral.Again, all control inputs to those surfaces were ripped away with the departure of the cockpit.In flight, all of those surfaces are constantly being manipulated either by the pilot or the autopilot.Unfortunately, the pilots and autopilot departed with the cockpit.*??Third, we must also assume that the aircraft did not stall during the zoom-climb.A stall would not have left enough forward speed to reach the point where the aircraft impacted the ocean.Now this assumption was impossible. When the 80,000 pounds of nose departed, the c.g. (center-of-gravity) moved about 11 feet toward the tail. The aircraft immediately pitched up and stalled (a stall is when the wing no longer produces lift). The stall was inevitable with the aft c.g. After the aircraft stalled, the aft c.g. would continue to drag the aircraft deeper into the stall and pull it down tail first. There was no way to recover from the stall. The aircraft could never get its nose down and dive as depicted in the CIA video.*??When the aircraft exploded, there was enough forward speed to free-fall to the impact point.But let's assume that there was a zoom-climb and that the zoom-climb was almost complete before the stall.The zoom-climb had to come at the expense of forward airspeed.A zoom-climb is a trade of kinetic energy (speed) for potential energy (altitude). Without a dive and some help from an un-stalled wing, the aircraft could not convert the altitude back into the required forward airspeed.It would have crashed short of the actual impact point.*??Thus we see that the CIA adopted an impossible set of assumptions in order to make its zoom-climb scenario feasible.The wing had to remain intact.The aircraft had to remain in lateral balance and trim.The aircraft could not be allowed to stall.In my opinion, none of these assumptions were valid.*??There was one other step that had to be taken to protect the zoom-climb scenario.The last four seconds of the flight data recorder had to be removed.Those four seconds probably showed the break-up sequence and the loss of the wing.Mr. Glen Schulze, an expert in that field, carefully studied the timing blocks on the FDR tape and established that those four seconds were indeed missing from the tape.Commander Wi lliam Donaldson discovered that the very last recorded data segment indicated an external explosion in the vicinity of the external sensors for the flight instruments.*??I have been struggling for most of 10 years trying to get the CIA and NTSB to release the data and calculations used for the hypothetical zoom-climb.They have steadfastly refused.My lawsuit is scheduled for another hearing on July 10, 2006.It is almost too much to hope for, but there is a slight chance that we might get some good news for the 10 year commemoration.*??Although I am a former Navy pilot, and a retired United Airlines pilot, and a former Safety Representative for the Air Line Pilots Association, I no longer represent any of those organizations. This presentation represents my own personal opinions.
Captain Ray Lahr



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[Capt Kremin]

For those who found the above impossible to read... Iparagraphed it below!!


TEN-YEAR COMMEMORATION OF TWA FLIGHT 800
by CAPT Ray Lahr


What really happened on the evening of July 17, 1996, off the shore of Long Island?

With sincere apologies to those who may not wish to be reminded, this is what I believe happened.

On a pleasant summer evening, TWA800 was making a normal climb on its flight to Paris. At about 13,800 feet, it was hit by one or two missiles. A missile ignited the CWT (center fuel tank).The explosion blew off the nose section, ruptured the front wing spar (which is also the front of the CWT), and broke the keel beam that runs under the bottom of the CWT. The wing separated and the aircraft fell in two flaming balls, each ball fed by the fuel from the separated wing.

Does this sound at odds with the CIA/NTSB scenario that says that a spark of unknown origin ignited the CWT and blew off the nose, and that the crippled aircraft then made a z oom-climb that the eyewitnesses mistook as a missile?Yes, in my opinion there was no zoom-climb.However, a missile was politically unacceptable, so the CIA invoked the zoom-climb in a desperate attempt to dismiss the missile seen by the eyewitnesses.Please consider what the eyewitnesses saw.

Major Fred Meyer saw a missile arc across the sky from right to left.It culminated in at least two ordnance explosions (bright white flashes like flash-bulbs).His copilot, Captain Chris Bauer, was sitting on the left side of the cockpit, and he looked up in time to see a second missile rising from left to right. Then came the huge fuel explosion, and all of the debris fell downward out of the fireball in two flaming streams.

Captain David McClaine and First Officer Vincent Fruschetti on Eastwind Flight 507 were inbound descending to 16,000 feet.They were head-on toTWA800 which was climbing outbound and was limited to 15,000 feet until they were past each other.The East wind crew had been visually tracking the oncoming landing lights of TWA800 for a few minutes. As Captain McClaine reached up to turn on his own landing lights,TWA800 just blew up and the aircraft fell down to the water in two balls of flames. This was confirmed by two other airline crews on nearby flights.

Chief Petty Officer Dwight Brumley was a passenger on U S Air 217.He had a window seat and he watched the missile rise and arch over prior to the explosion of TWA800. The debris fell downward.

Mike Wire, Lisa Perry, Paul Angelides, and William Gallahger all saw the missile rising from near the surface towards TWA800 prior to the explosion. The debris fell downward.

The list goes on.However, not a single eyewitness saw the CIA scenario of an explosion, a zoom-climb, a second explosion, a dive, a third explosion, and then a plunge into the ocean.

In support of the eyewitnesses, Captain Richard Russell received a video tape of the ATC radar scope showing four rapidly approaching blips just prior to the explosion.

So how does the NTSB respond to the eyewitness reports?The NTSB simply says that all ofthese eyewitnesses were wrong and that they didn't understand what they were seeing.The radar blips were anomalies. Furthermore, the NTSB did not allow a single eyewitness to testify at either of its public hearings.

Now mind you, with rare exception, the NTSB did not interview the eyewitnesses, even though the NTSB is charged with that responsibility by Congress.Instead, the NTSB was shoved aside by the FBI, and the FBI conducted the interviews by itself, not even allowing the NTSB to participate in the interviews.Then, in order to discredit the eyewitnesses, the FBI called in the CIA, the master for cover stories.The CIA likewise had not interviewed the eyewitnesses.Instead, the FBI provided the CIA with a selected portion of its 302 forms (a 302 form is the interviewing agent's written recollection of an interview). The witnesses were assigned numbers by the FBI so that their identities could be kept secret. The interviews themselves were not video taped, or audio taped, or even transcribed verbatim.

Working only from the 302 forms provided by the FBI, one individual CIA agent concocted the zoom-climb hypothesis to explain away all of the eyewitness missile reports. A zoom-climb is a rapid pull-up into a steep climb utilizing the forward speed of the aircraft.Such a steep climb is much beyond the capabilities of the engines alone on a large transport aircraft. This CIA agent proposed that after the nose was blown off, the flaming aircraft zoom-climbed from 13,800 feet to about 17,000 feet. The eyewitnesses supposedly mistook the flaming B747 for a missile.Never mind that the eyewitnesses saw a missile rapidly rising from the surface, not a lumbering aircraft rising from a point two and a half miles in the sky.The CIA agent passed his zoom-climb c onclusion to the FBI the following morning.Then the NTSB was brought on board.From that moment on, the investigation was shaped to fit the zoom-climb hypothesis.

The CIA created a video animation of its hypothetical zoom-climb and presented it to the FBI.In turn, the FBI presented the video to the world in a prime-time national television program in November, 1998. Boeing wasn't pleased, and it issued a statement the following day saying that it had no knowledge of the data used for the video. The FBI declared there was no evidence of criminality and that it was withdrawing from the investigation.However, the FBI did not release the evidence that it had gathered and analyzed, nor did it release the lab reports that it had prepared.The FBI was not a cooperative partner regarding the sharing of information.

There is reason to believe that something exploded in the passenger cabin of TWA800, and foreign objects were imbedded in some passengers. Red residue wa s found on a row of seat backs. James Sanders, investigative reporter, had some samples analyzed. The residue was consistent with rocket fuel.The FBI stood by during the autopsies and confiscated all of the foreign objects as they were removed.Those objects were sent to the FBI's own lab for analysis.Reports were written but never released, not even to the other agencies. A determination that the objects were explosive fragments from a missile would have undermined the predetermined cause as being a spark of unknown origin.

Graeme Sephton, an engineer and citizen investigator, submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for the FBI lab reports.Mr. Sephton was denied.He initiated a lawsuit.Surprisingly, he won and the court ordered the FBI to produce the reports.Subsequently, the FBI came back and said it had searched for the reports and couldn't find them.The court then ruled that the FBI had made a good faith effort, and Mr. Sephton was denied.The most widely publi cized and most expensive accident investigation in the history of aviation, and the FBI loses its own lab reports?That is highly unlikely.Presumably, the objects still exist.Obviously, the FBI does not want the public to know what it found.

When I saw the CIA video animation on national television, all of my experience told me that the zoom-climb was impossible.An aircraft cannot continue to fly if the center section of the wing blows up, andthe nose, including the cockpit, rips off.Even if the wing had remained intact for a few seconds, the pitch-up after the nose departed would have created an extra g force that would have collapsed the weakened wing.

In addition to assuming that the wing remained intact, the zoom-climb scenario had to make additional assumptions about the condition of the aircraft in order for the zoom-climb to be viable. Let's explore those assumptions.

First, we must also assume that the thrust of the engines remained balanced- all engines had to maintain the same thrust or all had to quit simultaneously to keep the aircraft from yawing and flipping.Remember that when the cockpit left, all engine control cables and electrical wires were ripped away.Which cables snapped first?Was each engine calling for full thrust or shut-down?It is highly unlikely that the thrust remained balanced.

Second, we must also assume that the control surfaces of rudder, elevator, and ailerons remained balanced and neutral.Again, all control inputs to those surfaces were ripped away with the departure of the cockpit.In flight, all of those surfaces are constantly being manipulated either by the pilot or the autopilot.Unfortunately, the pilots and autopilot departed with the cockpit.

Third, we must also assume that the aircraft did not stall during the zoom-climb.A stall would not have left enough forward speed to reach the point where the aircraft impacted the ocean.Now this assumption was impossible. When the 80,000 pounds of nose departed, the c.g. (center-of-gravity) moved about 11 feet toward the tail. The aircraft immediately pitched up and stalled (a stall is when the wing no longer produces lift). The stall was inevitable with the aft c.g. After the aircraft stalled, the aft c.g. would continue to drag the aircraft deeper into the stall and pull it down tail first. There was no way to recover from the stall. The aircraft could never get its nose down and dive as depicted in the CIA video.

When the aircraft exploded, there was enough forward speed to free-fall to the impact point.But let's assume that there was a zoom-climb and that the zoom-climb was almost complete before the stall.The zoom-climb had to come at the expense of forward airspeed.A zoom-climb is a trade of kinetic energy (speed) for potential energy (altitude). Without a dive and some help from an un-stalled wing, the aircraft could not convert the altitude back into the required forward airspeed.It would have crashed short of the actual impact point.

Thus we see that the CIA adopted an impossible set of assumptions in order to make its zoom-climb scenario feasible.The wing had to remain intact.The aircraft had to remain in lateral balance and trim.The aircraft could not be allowed to stall.In my opinion, none of these assumptions were valid.

There was one other step that had to be taken to protect the zoom-climb scenario.The last four seconds of the flight data recorder had to be removed.Those four seconds probably showed the break-up sequence and the loss of the wing.Mr. Glen Schulze, an expert in that field, carefully studied the timing blocks on the FDR tape and established that those four seconds were indeed missing from the tape.Commander Wi lliam Donaldson discovered that the very last recorded data segment indicated an external explosion in the vicinity of the external sensors for the flight instruments.

I have been struggling for most of 10 years trying to get the CIA and NTSB to release the data and calculations used for the hypothetical zoom-climb.They have steadfastly refused.My lawsuit is scheduled for another hearing on July 10, 2006.It is almost too much to hope for, but there is a slight chance that we might get some good news for the 10 year commemoration.

Although I am a former Navy pilot, and a retired United Airlines pilot, and a former Safety Representative for the Air Line Pilots Association, I no longer represent any of those organizations. This presentation represents my own personal opinions.
Captain Ray Lahr

[J430]

Air Crash Investigations CH 7 tonight

Seems my post was merged So edited to make more sense.

When you read about supposed residue found on seats from 3 rows being that of a rocket propelled device it does make you wonder if the truth is really being told. Or more the point which story is the truth.
Conspiracy theories abound.
I just hope there is less repeating and recapping after every ad break this time! The producers must think we have the attention span of a goldfish Ok some of us might!

How would you know who to believe,,,,,,,
J

[Casper]

In 1996 Holtsclaw was serving as the deputy assistant for the Western Region of the Air Transport Association. Within a week of the crash, Holtsclaw received the radar tape directly from an NTSB investigator frustrated by its suppression. "The tape shows a primary target at 1200 knots converging with TWA 800, during the climb out phase of TWA 800," swears Holtsclaw on the Lahr affidavit.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The above is documented fact. For further info, check out:
http://www.twa800.com/index.htm

[56P]

TWA Flight 800 Missile Theory
Physical Evidence

Trans World Airlines flight 800 suddenly exploded off Long Island, New York on July 17, 1996. All 230 passengers died. Within days ABC News reported that more than 100 eyewitnesses indicated Flight 800 was shot down by a missile. [1] Having examined witness sketches, let us now examine physical evidence.
High Velocity Fragments
Many anti-aircraft missiles are designed to detonate in the proximity of a target and kill it with a spray of fragments. According to the official report, small holes produced by "fragments" traveling as fast as bullets were found in Flight 800. The following graphic illustrates (a) an external detonation, (b) the location of two holes described in the official report, (c) the trajectory of the causal fragments, and (d) a photograph of one of those holes published in the official report. [2]

proximity detonation outside Flight 800

Small holes in Flight 800 described in official report. Photos from official report. [2]
Officials concluded that the two holes located above were made by "fragments" traveling along a downward trajectory at velocities between 1,000 and 1,500 feet per second. [2] These two holes where located in the pressure deck of the rear landing-gear bay (B) as shown. Other small holes produced by downward- traveling fragments were found in recovered portions of the center wing tank (A) the sudden explosion of which reportedly destroyed Flight 800. [3] Matching the speed of bullets such fragments may have ignited fuel vapors in the center tank.


Known Missile Evidence
After a Russian airliner was accidentally hit by a missile from a Ukrainian military exercise, small holes were evidence of the missile strike. On the left, a Russian investigator points to a small hole made by shrapnel from the missile that investigators concluded exploded outside that Russian aircraft. [4, 5]

And Yet No Missile Evidence?
Given that officials concluded that small holes found in Flight 800 were made by "fragments" traveling 1,000 to 1,500 fps -- as fast as bullets -- along a trajectory inconsistent with fuel-tank shrapnel, how did they conclude that there was no missile evidence? While items of physical evidence are real, categorical schemata are mental constructions. Officials imposed a categorical schemata onto the small holes that arbitrarily placed penetration velocities at or below 1,500 fps into the "not missile evidence" category. Since no penetration velocity was reported to exceed that limit, none of the small-hole evidence could fall into the missile- evidence category even though fragments traveled as fast as bullets along a trajectory that fuel-tank shrapnel could not follow.
Questions: Why are there holes from projectiles that traveled downward like bullets through Flight 800? Other than a high-explosives detonation, what could accelerate small fragments to bullet-like velocities along the indicated trajectories? The official investigation provides no answer. Apart from defining the projectile holes as "lower velocity," and thus not missile evidence by decree, the NTSB provides no causal explanation for the existence of these high-speed impacts.

Evidence of Evidence Tampering
Conclusions derived from physical evidence are only as reliable as the integrity and preservation of that evidence. Because parties to the official Flight 800 investigation have reported that physical evidence has been altered, destroyed, and disappeared, the official conclusions about the physical evidence are questionable.
Senior NTSB official Hank Hughes testified before a Senate Committee about the disappearance and destruction of Flight 800 evidence. [6] He testified that FBI agents would remove physical evidence from the Calverton hangar without proper notification (other insiders have reported the same). Hughes testified that in one case FBI agents were caught sneaking into the hangar at 3 am on a Saturday morning. Hughes also testified that
"an agent from the FBI was brought in from Los Angeles... [he] had some experience in bomb investigations, and I saw him in the middle of the hangar with a hammer in the process of trying to flatten a piece of wreckage. In investigative work, you do not alter evidence. You take it in its original state and preserve it. But I actually saw this man with a hammer, pounding on a piece of evidence, trying to flatten it out." [7]
Hughes testified further that "contrary to universally accepted forensic procedure" [8] all clothing from Flight 800 passengers -- which could contain traces of explosives -- was co-mingled and stored wet, which allowed mold to grow on the clothes. According to Hughes this "destroyed" any evidentiary value the clothing could have provided. [9] Hughes described the standard protocol for handling clothing as follows:
"Stated procedure for any clothing in a crime scene or other accident site -- and the procedures are basically the same, there is no difference between a crime scene and an accident scene investigation in terms of the handling of evidence -- but wet clothing, whether it is wet by chemicals, body chemicals, blood, or water, salt water in this case, the proper procedure is to air dry the clothing, wrap it in clean butcher paper after it has been photographed, catalog it, and put it away for safekeeping." [9]
Hughes also discovered that seat cushions and seats from Flight 800 that disappeared from the hangar had been dumped in a dumpster. [9] Investigative journalist James Sanders had acquired two tiny samples of Flight 800 seat cushioning from the Calverton hangar that was covered with a red residue containing high concentrations of elements found in missile fuels and explosives. [10] Shortly after Sanders published his findings the cushioning from the residue-covered seats was stripped off the seats and removed from the hangar. [11] Could that residue-covered seat cushioning that disappeared be the same seat cushioning Hughes discovered in a dumpster?
In his testimony before the Senate, Hank Hughes listed many other alarming instances that seriously compromise the reliability of the official Flight 800 investigation. [8]

More Evidence of Tampering
Linda Kuntz, a TWA employee and former party to the official investigation, observed what she believed to be evidence that NTSB officials were altering data to make it appear that seats from the rear of the plane found in the western debris field were instead found further to the east. Linda Kuntz called on the assistance of two New York Police Officers who photographed the evidence in question. They then informed TWA attorneys, who informed the NTSB. The NTSB then contacted the FBI in order to have Kuntz investigated for taking photographs in violation of regulations. Kuntz was then dismissed from the investigation and threatened with indictment and prosecution. [12]
Major Frederick Meyer, a New York Air National Guard pilot, was assigned to transport a piece of Flight 800 wreckage from the Calverton hangar to FBI headquarters in Washington, DC. About this special piece of wreakage, Meyer told the Village Voice:
"I knew from looking at it that it was the leading edge of some aerofoil -- horizontal stabilizer, rudder, or wing -- and it had punctures in it. We're talking about a piece of aluminum alloy that is very strong and rigid. In this were dimples with holes in the center of the dimple, like something was driven through with incredible force." [13]
Meyer said the holes "were about 3/4 of an inch to one inch in diameter." [14] When I asked him if the punctures appeared to come from the outside, he replied: "The dimples around each hole indicate that something passed through from the outside to the inside." [15] Penetration from the outside to the inside would be consistent with an external explosion, such as the explosion a proximity-fused missile warhead would deliver.
Unfortunately the whereabouts of that important evidence is unknown. Robert Davey, a Village Voice reporter, tried to tack it down without success. As he reported in the Village Voice, FBI spokesman Joe Valiquette "says the FBI returned the wing with the suspicious holes in it to the NTSB investigation in Calverton... However, NTSB director Goelz says he is not aware of any piece from a wing edge with holes in it." [13] Perhaps it slipped into a black hole.
Speaking of black holes, the New York Times reported: "Certain federal agents, calling the FBI's laboratory in Washington a 'black hole,' remained convinced that the bureau was hiding its positive lab confirmations." [16] This was after investigators at Calverton kept sending debris with traces of explosives to FBI headquarters only to have the FBI consistently declare those traces to have been false positives, even though investigators at Calverton were using the highly sensitive and accurate EGIS detection system. [17]
Evidence of evidence tampering in the official Flight 800 investigation keeps coming in. Just last August (2000) Agence France Presse reported that Glen Schulze, a flight data recorder (FDR) expert, [18] determined that the last four seconds of FDR data had been tabulated but was removed from the data before it was released to the public. [19] The last seconds of FDR data are the most important evidence for diagnosing the cause of a crash. Schultze recently published his analysis of the FDR data. [20]
Additionally, the Flight 800 Independent Researchers Organization (FIRO) has filed a lawsuit against the FBI for its failure to release data in compliance with the Freedom of Information Act. [21] The data in question pertains to shrapnel recovered from bodies. The chief medical examiner for the crash, Charles Wetli, had stated that "virtually all of the bodies had shrapnel" and that "FBI agents were here and standing with us while we were doing the autopsies and taking the shrapnel that we found." [22] What became of that critical evidence? Obviously someone at the FBI knows, but it seems they don't want us to know. FIRO is also suing the NTSB for its refusal to release radar data. [23]

In Conclusion
Even if all the examples cited above and others not cited here were not deliberate acts of tampering, it would still not be reasonable to conclude that the physical evidence refutes eyewitness accounts of a missile engagement when so much of it has been damaged, destroyed, disappeared, withheld, or remains unrecovered under the ocean. The claim that a lack of physical evidence of a missile trumps Flight 800 missile witnesses is only as reliable as the integrity and preservation of all physical evidence. That claim is therefore clearly not reliable. Furthermore, with respect to evidence that has managed to survive the official investigation, it seems that definitional standards used by investigators serve to define potential missile evidence out of existence, thereby preventing the possibility of its discovery.
________________________________________
[1] The Washington Times, 07/24/96, cites ABC News report.

[2] NTSB Public Exhibit 15B: Examination of Small Holes.

[3] Ibid, pages 4-7.

[4] BBC: 'Missile traces' in plane wreckage. 10/9/01.

[5] Melnyk, Yuriy. Russian Tu-154 airliner downed by the Ukrainian anti-aircraft complex. York Vision, 132, November 2001.

[6] Senate Hearing 106-534. Administrative Oversight of the Invetigation of TWA Flight 800. May 10, 1999.

[7] Ibid, transcript page 11.

[8] Ibid, Hank Hughes Senate-Hearing notes.

[9] Ibid, transcript, page 10.

[10] FIRO: The Red Residue of TWA Flight 800: A Brief Description and the Scientific Paper-trail.

[11] FIRO: Red Residue Stripped from Seats.

[12] Associated Retired Aviation Professionals Interim Report on the Crash of TWA Flight 800 and the Actions of the NTSB and the FBI. pages 20-21.

[13] Davey, Robert. Flight 800 The Missing Evidence. The Village Voice, April 15, 1998.

[14] Eyewitness Meyer Speaks to the Granada Forum.

[15] Personal corresponadnace with Major Meyer.

[16] The New York Times: Behind a Calm Facade Investigation Embodied Chaos, Distrust, Stress. Joe Sexton, 08/23/96.

[17] TWA 800 Case Files, Vol 2, No. 1, August 1997.

[18] Resume of Glen H. Schulze.

[19] Agence France Presse: Independent panel criticizes TWA Flight 800 crash report. August 22, 2000.

[20] The Four Missing Seconds, Analysis from the Flight Data Recorder, Glen Schulze. September 26, 2000.

[21] FIRO Complaint Against FBI.

[22] CNN Interactive: Six months later, still no answer to TWA Flight 800 mystery. 1/17/97.

[23] FIRO Complaint Against NTSB.

CRASH of TWA FLIGHT 800

[bushy]

Flashpoint?

They stated that Jet A has a flashpoint of 38.5 gegrees. If true that is scary. Our ambient temperature here often exceeds that.

[J430]

Bushy
I am not a chemical engineer or scientist, but i thought that sounded a bit low, however it was not made clear that the value is determined at approx 14,000' (half an atmosphere roughly) and less pressure lowers boiling points and it giot me thinking, so I went and did a google.....well if the first thing I found is not that of a research paper done about TWA800. Its heavy reading but here it is.
www.galcit.caltech.edu/EDL/publications/reprints/galcit_fm99-4.pdf

But when you look at Shell's Aviation data sheets......

Colour Colourless. Pale straw.
Physical State Liquid.
Odour Characteristic.
pH Value Data not available.
Vapour Pressure <0.1 kPa at 20ºC.
Initial Boiling Point circa 150ºC.
Final Boiling Point circa 300ºC.
Solubility in Water Negligible.
Density 775 to 840 kg/m3 at 15°C.
Flash Point 38ºC minimum (Method: Abel Setaflash).
Flammable Limits - Upper 6%(V/V) maximum.
Flammable Limits - Lower 1%(V/V) minimum.
Auto-Ignition Temperature >220ºC.
Kinematic Viscosity 1 to 2 mm2/s at 40°C.
Vapour Density (Air=1) Greater than 5.
Partition co-efficient, n-octanol/water log Pow 2 to 6.
Other Information The above properties are generic.

So there you go. Still less a problem than good old AVGAS!
J

[Peter Fanelli]

It was brought down by a meteorite.

That was the "missile" seen "rising from the surface and striking the aircraft."

Only it wasn't rising from the surface, it was entering the atmosphere from down over the horizon south of Long Island.

I believe this after having a close encounter with a meteorite myself late one night near Port Lincoln.

Now the evidence is on the bottom of the ocean, but who's going to suspect an innocent looking rock.

[Marauder]

Peter,


That wasn't a meteorite, it was a well aimed Bollinger Cork fired your way by CK

[BombsGone]

An F111 in 2002 had a fuel tank explosion of the type theorised by the NTSB. Ageing aircraft old wiring etc. The NTSB report is both well researched and plausible representing the most likely chain of events. It was written by professionals with a vested interest in promoting flight safety.

The conspiracy theories attached to TWA 800 are bollocks as the number of people who would have to be complicit in the cover up makes it unreasonable in the extreme. But then again maybe man didn't walk on the moon. If such rubbish didn't tie up valuable resources as mentioned in the TV show it would be laughable.

[aircraft]

Ahem...

The NTSB investigation found that the origin of the fuselage rupture was the centre fuel tank. Enough of the wreckage was recovered to show clearly where the break started and how it progressed around the fuselage, resulting in the separation of the nose section.

The evidence of a missile strike would be EXTREMELY OBVIOUS if a missile had entered the fuselage.

There have been other cases of exploding fuel tanks. The Iranian air force had a 747 explode in flight and there was the Thai Airways 737 that exploded shortly before passengers were about to board.

The explosive residue found on some seats was found to have gotten there as the result of an earlier exercise training bomb sniffing dogs. If I recall correctly, it was 3 seats and they were adjoining.

This happened in 1996 and was a really big event. If it was a conspiracy, a very large number of people would have to be kept quiet - the navy personnel, those involved in the wreckage recovery and those involved in the investigation (which included both the NTSB and the FBI). There would have to be at least 500 people across these groups. Each of these people have family members and other acquaintances that would notice something funny about the person if they had suddenly become party to such a disaster.

People need to realise that things like this happen. The idea that it was shot down by a missile is just too improbable.

[Peter Fanelli]

Yep they found that the centre fuel tank exploded, but I don't believe they ever proved an ignition source.

It was a hot rock.

[Angle of Attack]

Umm an ignition source was a fuel tank quantity indicator that was short circuited by a high amperewire that provided a high voltage surge which sparked shortly before the explosion. It was recorded as two surges on the CVR shortly before the explosion. The me, now generation, can't believe that $hit happens and planes go down, Get me more common sense and less youtube generations! haha!

[aircraft]

Peter Fanelli wrote:

Yep they found that the centre fuel tank exploded, but I don't believe they ever proved an ignition source.

It was a hot rock.

So how do you know it was a "hot rock"? You seem to be saying that because you have seen a meteorite, it must have been a meteorite. That's an interesting way of establishing cause and effect.

Only it wasn't rising from the surface, it was entering the atmosphere from down over the horizon south of Long Island.

I believe this after having a close encounter with a meteorite myself late one night near Port Lincoln.

You don't seem to understand the trajectory of meteorites or "shooting stars". They don't follow the curvature of the earth as you are implying. It may interest you to know that the vast majority of shooting stars are the size of a grain of sand.

When you say "close encounter" how do you know how close? To estimate distance to an object you have to know the size of the object. Your object was, presumably, a streak of light. How can you tell whether a streak of light is 1 mile away or 1,000 miles away.

The NTSB declared the ignition source to be of unknown origin because they couldn't definitely say it was from wiring. If I remember correctly though, there were aspects of the wiring that gave them cause to strongly suspect it.

[Peter Fanelli]

I base my OPINION, I am allowed to have one am I not, on the reports of a "missile" seen rising from the surface of the water and striking the aircraft coupled with my view of the smoke trail left after a satellite re-entered the atmosphere visible from Baltimore several years ago. The traffic reporter was mid report when he saw the satellite but I was unable to see it in the direction I was travelling. A couple of minutes later I turned into BWI airport and was surprised to see a smoke trail not coming from above down towards the earth but rising up from the horizon and climbing from my perspective to a point where it apprently completely burned up.

Now, how do I know it was close. Well I'd just descended through about 4000' of solid cloud into visual conditions beneath when the cloud above me lit up a bright orange and after a few seconds the object appeared beneath the cloud and impacted the surface somewhere beyond Pt Lincoln. Was it close? Any object close enough to light up my surroundings vs the size of the universe it came from I think I'm within my rights to call close.

Getting back to the issue at hand, try to imagine an object approaching the earth from over the horizon to a viewer on Long Island NY with a re-entry point out of sight over the horizon (Not very far away to someone on the ground) the object then comes into view appearing to the viewer on the ground to rise from the horizon (or US Navy ship if you like) and TWA 800 just happens to be in it's path. Imagine if you will that it's not the size of a grain of sand but big enough to punch a hole in the aircraft and proceed into the centre fuel tank, it might also just be hot enough to cause ignition.

Given the lack of any PROOF of ignition by other sources I feel I'm entitled to entertain my version of what COULD have happened. Oh and by the way, this isn't a conspiracy theory. A conspiracy theory would be the US navy shooting it down with a missile. I'm talking about a freak of nature. Unless of course the USA has a base on the moon and they're chucking rocks at airliners.

By the way, think a meteorite would be too small to penetrate a 747?

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap021118.html

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap030506.html

[BombsGone]

Peter your perfectly entitled to an opinion and I don't doubt that a meteor is capable of downing an aircraft. However as I stated official NTSB reports give there conclusions based on the mose likely chain of events or "most probable cause". In this case several real changes and positive benifits to air safety have come out of the TWA report. Fuel tanks have now been redesigned and ignition sources more carefully checked. So from the report and my own experience I'll go with their version of events.

As for the conspiracy theory stuff you could draw parallels with the KAL 007 shoot down which inspired several conspiracy books later shown to be complete bollocks. Here is an article outlining the shoot down and associated conspiracy stuff. I'd hate to think of what all this misinformation did to the greaving relatives.

http://www.jamesoberg.com/russian/kal007.html

[Thirty Eight South]

Interesting conjecture, but arguing of the mechanics of what bought the 747 down isn't addressing the point as there's considerable witness and documentary evidence that supports the missile hypothesis, most of which has been ignored or manipulated by the NTSB e.g. - evidence tampering, false and misleading presumptions based on the requirement to support the official explanation of the story - that the 747 center fuel tank ignited fuel vapour with an inert wiring system that served as an ignition source: that explanation is a load of bolloxs.

Building a causal theory based around what you want to have happened automatically excludes any evidence that is non supportive (or as Einstein was fond of saying 'If the facts don't fit the theory, that's too bad for the facts') for example the wreckage fragmentation and spread pattern of the debris supports an external ignition source and/or impact..missile, meteor, donut or whatever

The question is: 'What was it about this accident that the US was determined to prevent from being acknowledged?'

- Here's a theory - that the entire eastern seaboard was (and is) susceptible to ground shoulder launched SAM's remotely launched from any location, and that the US does not have an effective response to this, can't afford it and can't police it just to prove there airways are risk free and that the threat was understood before the event and is still an existing threat.

As with all theories you have to determine the consequences, in this case it's easy as the knock on effects of this admission as phenomenal:
- Paralyzingly the eastern approaches airways until it can be proved there is no non acceptable risks
- Determining acceptable civil aviation counter measures
- Carriers insurance ect, ect.

When you have no faith in the aviation investigation authorities ability to remain non partisan, you have to challenge the assumptions presented as fact. You can't discount 400 credible eye witness accounts about a trace moving from sea level towards the 747 followed by an explosion without being laughed out of the room. And if that official explanation is bolloxs, then what are ones are as well?

[aircraft]

Sigh, here we go again...

Thirty Eight South,

... that the 747 center fuel tank ignited fuel vapour with an inert wiring system that served as an ignition source: that explanation is a load of bolloxs.

What is bollocks about it? As I said in a previous post, there have been instances of exploding centre fuel tanks before. For a spark, you just need a higher voltage wire (somewhere else in the aircraft) arcing with a wire that runs to something in the fuel tank.

As an experiment, you can easily create two sets of wiring where an arc from one set induces a high current and spark in the other. The location of the arcing can be a long way from where the spark occurs - ask any electrician.

You can't discount 400 credible eye witness accounts about a trace moving from sea level towards the 747 followed by an explosion

400 credible eye witnesses? Where does that number come from? Were they all saying essentially the same thing (e.g. position of origin of missile trace, appearance of trace, etc).

A funny thing about witnesses - they can imagine they saw anything you suggest they saw. I once heard of a case where a radio station, as a late night prank, reported that strange lights had been seen in the air over the city. There soon followed hundreds of callers to the station, saying they had seen the lights. The callers went on to give their own descriptions.

[Thirty Eight South]

My mistake- it wasn't 400, that was from memory. In fact it's 700, take a look at the link and wade through this:

http://twa800.com/witnesscd/eyewitnesshighlights.htm

(you can google search this info)
The New York Post, in its story of September 22, 1996, reported, Law-enforcement sources said the hardest evidence gathered so far overwhelmingly suggests a surface-to-air missile...

The FBI interviewed 154 "credible" witnesses -- including scientists, schoolteachers, Army personnel and business executives -- who described seeing a missile heading through the sky just before TWA 800 exploded.
"Some of these people are extremely, extremely credible," a top federal official said.
FBI technicians mapped the various paths -- points in the sky where the witnesses said they saw the rising "flare-like" object -- and determined that the "triangulated" convergence point was virtually where the jumbo jet initially exploded.

The clue to this investigation is the exclusion of the eye witness reports from the official answer.

If the 747 tank explosion cause can be explained, it can be replicated: why didn't the NTSB go out to the Mojave, find a decommissioned 100 series 747 and replicate the explosion? The more conjecture, the more room there is to postulate and defend alternative theories, however unsubstantiated they may be

The only way that the tank explosion can be explained is if you exclude all of the other factual information (including the exclusion of electrical bonding and probability)...bolloxs is about as polite as you can get having reviewed the information

Challenging official explanations of events doesn't make them conspiracy theories either, it just makes them alternative theories

[Chronic Snoozer]

Has anyone heard of a motive or a claim of responsibility if the scenario of a missile is to be believed? (and don't tell me it was the second gunman on the grassy knoll.)