My wife Robin was working as a mechanic at TWA at the time
and all the TWA mechanics agreed it was unlikely that the center
tank blew up as claimed by the NTSB. They were told to look at
the wiring on all the 747's center tanks and no defects were found.
Thousands of 747s routinely took off with the center tank empty
if that fuel was not needed for the length of the flight. This reduces
the bending loads on the spar center section.
Jet fuel is not as volatile as gasoline and when was the last time your
fuel tank blew up on your car?
Paul Lamar
Amazing!
David Leonard
I never bought that fuel tank story, but it's hard to believe all those
sailors would sit by for the lie either.
Someone either did a ton of research to come up with that "conspiracy
theory" or there really is a conspiracy.
C. Smith
When you are in the military it is quite easy to be intimated.
You are forced to give up certain freedoms enjoyed by civilians.
All they need to do is declare everything top secret.
To reveal top secret information is asking to be charged
with treason. I think the penalty for that is still death.
David Leonard being a former US Navy commander would
know more about that than I. A mere enlisted man.
Paul Lamar
Sorry, but there are too many holes in this account.
- There would be hundreds of people involved in this cover-up.
There's just no way that all the credible ones would shut up and refuse
to go on the record, especially when the personal interests of those
involved were not necessarily aligned with those allegedly telling them
to shut up. Stephanopoulos in particular is an opportunistic and
ambitious type who would certainly ride this to the top if there was
anything to it.
An engine on the P-3 was damaged by debris from the 747? How close
together were these airplanes supposed to be? According to the alleged
chronology below, they were separated in altitude by at least 6000 in
altitude, with the P-3 being above< the 747.
Aside from the info in the supplied article, there are just too
many problems with the missile theory. Most importantly, it doesn't
match the radar data and it doesn't match the observables of the wreckage:
1. The wreckage from around the center tank was found in the
"earliest" part of the debris field, closest to JFK.
2. The fuselage clearly showed that the center tank was
overpressurized (i.e. it exploded) and the structure and panels around
it were bowed out.
3. Lack of high-velocity penetration of the fuselage. Missiles
generate thousands of these fragments, and their presence and the damage
they cause are fairly easy to spot. The proximity fuses on most missiles
would assure that these fragments came from the outside into the
aircraft ( a dead give away), but even if the missile body penetrated
the aircraft and detonated inside, the fragmentation pattern from the
warhead would be very distinctive.
I can understand why some people would be reluctant to accept that
an internal problem with this plane (design or maintenance) caused this
crash, but the missile idea just doesn't match what we know at this point.
Mark Waldronm
NAVY divers were first on the scene.
Some people said the center tank was hotter than normal sitting
on the ramp. However 747's fly all over the world in hot desert
countries
with empty or near empty center fuel tanks. The missile warhead did
not have
to explode to bring the 747 down. The impact alone could
have done it. The missile impact on the center tank
could have triggered an explosion of the center tank.
To this day no other 747 center tank has every exploded.
Paul Lamar
Yes, this is probably not a completely accurate account either. It
definitely has some holes, starting with the fact that P-3s are not used
to tow targets for exercises of this nature.
However, there DO seem to be hundreds of eye witness accounts of a
missile, including from Navy sailors. And it is true that the FBI
filtered and withheld the eye witness testimony from the NTSB. You can
verify that in the final NTSB report (which has been changed several
times since first release):
http://www.ntsb.gov/doclib/reports/2000/AAR0003.pdf
The FBI has been accused by NTSB insiders of significant evidence
tampering, the to point where the 'debris zones' can no longer be relied
upon. In fact, with the extent of apparent witness tampering, the radar
data also cannot be trusted. However, some experts argue that there is
evidence of a high velocity explosion on radar data. FAA primary radar
is unlikely to capture a missile.
Journalist James Sanders who wrote a book on the subject was jailed for
5 years on trumped up charges.
http://www.wnd.com/2003/03/17721/
http://www.cashill.com/twa800/sotomayor.htm
He presented, in his 1998 book, what is IMHO a much more plausible
scenario than the one listed above. Here is an excerpt:
http://whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/CRASH/TWA/sandersbook.html
Lastly, yesterday I watched the documentary TWA: Flight 800
It can be streamed from Netflix and other sources. I don't find it's
final proposed scenario very compelling, but I find the evidence of a
government cover-up very compelling.
David Leonard
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
New Info on TWA 800
July 28-29, 2014 -- USS Seawolf missile shot down TWA 800
By Wayne Madsen
According to a senior member of the staff of then-Secretary of
the Navy John Dalton, the test firing of a new generation Navy
missile from the submarine USS Seawolf accidentally struck TWA
flight 800 en route from New York to Paris on July 17, 1996.
According to the former Navy official, the missile test was so
important for the Clinton administration, it was being shown
live on a Navy closed-circuit television feed at the White
House. The Seawolf's missile was to have struck a drone
reportedly being towed by a Navy P-3 Orion maritime surveillance
aircraft. However, to the horror of the Navy personnel involved
with the test and senior White House staff gathered to witness
the missile's successful launching, it veered off course and
intercepted the TWA 800 Boeing 747, killing the 230 passengers
and crew on board the aircraft.
ABC News Paris correspondent and former John F. Kennedy Press
Secretary and U.S. Senator Pierre Salinger reported that a U.S.
Navy missile, according to his sources, had downed TWA 800. A
vicious smear campaign was launched against Salinger and he was
eventually fired by ABC. This editor subsequently spoke at
length with Salinger about both TWA 800 and Pan Am 103. We
agreed that the investigations of both involved U.S. government
cover-ups.
The Seawolf, which had recently completed sea trials but had not
yet been fully commissioned into service, was participating in a
major Navy exercise off Long Island in exercise area W-105. The
exercise was dubbed GLOBAL YANKEE '96. Ironically, the Seawolf
was to be commissioned in Groton , Connecticut on July 17, 1997,
the anniversary of the shooting down of TWA 800, but the Navy,
sensitive to the date, altered the commissioning to July 19, two
days later. Margaret Dalton, the wife of Navy Secretary John
Dalton, carried out the submarine's commissioning sponsorship in
Groton .
The FBI initially believed that terrorism was the cause of the
crash of TWA 800 and it ran a criminal investigation parallel to
that of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).
However, as the need to cover-up the missile angle became
paramount, the FBI changed modes and began harassing witnesses
who clearly saw a bright streak or arc in the sky moments before
the massive explosion tore apart the Boeing 747 sending bodies
and debris into the Atlantic Ocean . Two Air National Guard
Blackhawk helicopter pilots saw an orange-red streak prior to
the fireball while conducting helicopter training approaches at
nearby Gabreski Field.
But the missile theory never could be put to rest. Senator
Alphonse d'Amato (R-NY) said he believed a missile struck TWA
800, as did a number of individuals with military and flight
experience. D'Amato served on the President's Commission on
Aviation Security and Terrorism (PCAST), which was set up in
September 1989 to make aviation security recommendations after
the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie , Scotland . In 1993,
D'Amato opposed funding any more Seawolf submarines, however, as
they were built by the Groton, Connecticut-based Electric Boat
Division of General Dynamics, the two Connecticut senators,
Joseph Lieberman and Christopher Dodd, were strong proponents of
the submarines the Navy said they did not even need in the
post-Cold War era.
The unfolding events surrounding the Seawolf's missile impact on
TWA 800 was witnessed in real-time in the White House Situation
Room by startled officials who were viewing what was suppose
have been a successful intercept of a drone. However, according
to our Secretary of the Navy senior staff source, as the impact
of what transpired dawned on White House officials, the director
of the White House Situation Room, Vice Admiral Kevin Cosgriff,
immediately ordered the mobilization of Navy and other military
assets to cover up the Navy's role in the disaster. As the
National Security Council's director of Systems and Planning,
Cosgriff was partly responsible for obtaining the White House
Situation Room to show-off the Navy's latest missile
capabilities to gathered civilian and military officials.
The crew of the P-3 that was towing the drone was immediately
transferred to new assignments. The P-3's number 3 engine showed
signs of damage from the explosion of TWA 800 and maintenance
records on the engine were suppressed by the Navy. Three other
submarines participating in GLOBAL YANKEE '96 were also ordered
out of the area. They were the USS Albuquerque, the USS Augusta,
and the USS Trepang. The FBI accounted for all missiles aboard
the three submarines but not those on board the Seawolf, which
was not yet officially commissioned into service and which had
just completed it sea trials a little over a week earlier.
Our source confirmed that US Navy SEAL team members were
dispatched to recover TWA 800 wreckage with the sole intent
being the alteration of the debris to fit the story of a
defective fuel tank explosion. Two U.S. Navy salvage ships, the
USS Grasp and USS Grapple, were sent to Long Island waters to
recover TWA wreckage.
In 2000, conservative pundit Reed Irvine confirmed what Salinger
had reported four years earlier. Irvine reported that he
recorded an interview with a Navy petty officer who was on the
deck of a submarine near where TWA 800 was hit by the missile.
The petty officer told Irvine that he was "underneath TWA 800
when he saw a missile hit it and the 747 explode overhead."
Irvine also wrote, "There are hundreds of Navy and Coast Guard
personnel, as well as some FBI, CIA, FAA, NTSB and former White
House employees who know that the real cause of the crash of TWA
800 was papered over with a tissue of lies. Two of them, James
Kallstrom and George Stephanopoulos, have made statements that
indicate an official cover-up. Stephanopoulos, a Clinton adviser
who is now an ABC News correspondent, mentioned on the air a
secret meeting in the White House situation room 'in the
aftermath of the TWA 800 bombing.' Kallstrom, who headed the
FBI's TWA 800 investigation, told me – and I have this on tape –
that three radar targets close to the crash site were Navy
vessels on a classified maneuver. We know they were submarines
because the radar tracks disappeared when TWA 800 crashed."
One of the submarine's that was ordered to immediately leave the
area of the TWA crash was the Seawolf. The Seawolf was testing a
missile that could be fired on an enemy aircraft while the
submarine was fully submerged. The Navy ordered all radar data
of the incident seized. The Navy and other U.S. agencies
subsequently altered data tapes to be consistent with the NTSB's
contrived conclusion that TWA 800 was brought down by a
spontaneous explosion in the center wing fuel tank. Radar tapes
showing the P-3 at 20,000 feet and a towed drone at 17,600 feet
at about a mile behind the P-3 were erased.
The CIA developed an animation to bolster the center wing fuel
tank explosion explanation.
The Seawolf's Cooperative Engagement Capability, which linked
its weapon systems with the Aegis radar systems installed on
other Navy ships participating in the exercise, also saw its
data purged. Once the subsurface missile was launched, the
Seawolf's combat software no longer had control over the
missile.
The Navy's Aegis training platform, the Combat System
Engineering Development Site (CSEDS), located in the middle of a
cornfield in Moorestown, New Jersey, off of the New Jersey
Turnpike, which had a AEGIS SPY-1 radar window off Long Island,
also saw its data tapes confiscated as did the Federal Aviation
Administration control center in Islip, Long Island and the FAA
technical center in Atlantic City, New Jersey. A Lockheed-Martin
engineer who worked at CSEDS in Moorestown said the SPY-1 radar
was reported to be "down for maintenance" during the exercise,
an exercise in which it was to have been a participant.
The NTSB falsified data in their cover-up, billed as an
investigation. The Flight Data Recorder's indication that
something struck the Boeing 747 was brushed aside.
Hank Hughes, a former senior NTSB accident investigator,
revealed in 2013 that evidence that a "high-velocity debris
exiting the right side of the aircraft." Hughes said evidence
was tampered with. Other NTSB investigators joined Hughes in
criticizing the NTSB's "accident" report. Testing done by the
Brookhaven and Sandia National Laboratories could yield no
evidence that TWA 800 was brought down as the result of a
mechanical failure.
Researchers were able to piece together the following timeline
of events from open source information:
20:31:11 Intact and climbing 747 approaches 13,800 feet.
20:31:12 U.S. Navy subsurface-launched missile impacts TWA 800
at 13,800 feet. Beginning of decapitation process.
20:31:47 Massive fireball explodes in the falling wreckage at
7500 feet.
20:31:43 Wreckage begins hitting the water's surface.
20:31:55-20:31:57 splashdown of the massive fireball flames.
A number of observers witnessed a subsurface wake after the
explosion of TWA 800. The Seawolf, if ordered out of the area at
maximum speed, is capable of doing over 35 knots submerged. At
such a speed, a visible surface wake is very possible. The pilot
of a Cessna reported seeing a distinct subsurface wake in
addition to a passenger on board US Air flight 277.
The Navy continues to classify a "design deficiency" discovered
during the Seawolf's Weapons Systems Accuracy Trials (WSAT)
conducted in 1998. In addition, the November 1999 Operational
Assessment report cited six critical operational issues as high
risk for Seawolf. The second issue on the Navy's list was the
submarine's "weapon launch, handling, and stowage."*