TWA 800: Any new news or theories?

Nine years ago this month I remember turning on the news and seeing the firey wreckage of TWA Flight 800. It was right before the Olympics, and speculation ran wild. Right away, a flurry of witnesses on tv were saying a missle brought it down. I actually wanst that surprised. On all the cable political news shows, they were talking about a terrorist attack with shoulder fired missles. I thought, well that sucks. I mean, well ok terrorists got the plane. They got WTC 93' and OK fed building the year prior, lets just hope Clinton doesnt invade a country.

Then the FBI took over the NTSB investigation. Whoah, hold the phone. This was very odd. What followed was disinformation after disinformation, and this is really when I started researching and being interested in conspiracy theories.

So nine years later, and has there been any new revelations, any former US intel or navy coming forward, etc?

There is two main theories:

1) That Islamic terrorists, possibly al Qaida or from Iran used a surface to air missle from the shore or from a boat, and brought the plane down. Richard Clark advised Clinton to cover it up, to avoid any harm in the reelection and to avoid a possible conflict. Clark would later crypticly reference a coverup of TWA 800 in his book.

Theory#2, and the one that is even more heart breaking, upsetting, yet less
dramatic. That quite simply, as the US Navy did in 2002 with a japanese fishing boat in hawaii, or Ukrane did with a jumbo jet in 2001; accidentally shot the plane down in a training exercise...then covered it up. This is actually more sinister than theory 1, given its implications...yet is less epic in nature.
The US did something similair during WW2 involving a US ship(oriignally blamed on the enemy)

So, we have a ton of people who all saw a flash of light go from the ground or sea and hit the plane.

we have supposedly a radar map that shots a dot coming up to meet the blip of twa flight 800.

We have former Navy personal who have candidly spoke of the tragic mistake, yet supposedly there is officials who candidly admit it was a terrorist strike the US was unprepared or unwilling to deal with.

So just what the heck is going on? The media kep tchanging the sotry....oh it was a SAM missle, oh it was an accidental crash, oh it was a bomb, no wait it was an accident.

What do you guys honestly think? To me a terrorist attack is more plausible than either the internal implosion idea or the Navy missle hit.

To me TWA 800 is right up there with 9/11, JFK, Di, Franklin Coverup, AIDS, Iran Hostage October Surprise, and CIA/Drugs as some of the most fascinating conspiracy theories.

This is a little far fetched but some people believe it was brought down by a US secret weapon ,either by accident trying to bring down a UFO ,or intentually to silence a passenger onboard.

"the United States brought down an alien craft in 1989, and Moriches Bay is where TWA flight 800 mysteriously crashed in August. The cause of that crash, readers are aware, has so far eluded federal investigators, and in particular investigators are unable to explain the reports of more than 20 persons who say they saw an unaccountable light streaking toward flight 800 before it went down.
www.20kweb.com...

One of the problems I have with the missile theory is that the missile supposedly penetrated into the fuselage, and left residue on the seats. If the missile had tracked in on the center fuel tank, which was filled with vapor, as this former Navy Commander claims, it would have punched into the tank, and instead of breaking the plane in two, it would have blown it apart into little pieces, and never made it into the fuselage where the seats were. The Stinger has a penetration warhead, but the act of penetrating the fuselage would have probably cause the fuel vapor to explode. If not the initial penetration, the rocket motor for sure would have. The Air Force had a problem with the fuel pump in the center tank on three KC-135s, two in flight, one on the ground. The one on the ground, the techs were doing some routine work on the plane, one of them turned on the fuel pump, and the plane exploded. The two in flight just disintigrated. There was no evidence of the fuselage breaking in two like TWA 800 did. If it didn't track on the center fuel tank it would have tracked on an engine. A radar missile generally has a proximity warhead that detonates before impact and throws shrapnel out, so again, you wouldn't have the missile penetrate the fuselage.

"even though investigators at Calverton were using the highly sensitive and accurate EGIS detection system."

*snort* That's one of the funnier things I've read in awhile. When I did my training on those machines, in case we ever got any out here they were the biggest pain to work on, hard to calibrate, and hard to just keep running, let alone detect accurately.

Just my $0.02

[edit on 2-7-2005 by Zaphod58]

I saw a documentary on Discovery (I think) a few months ago about plane crashes and TWA 800 was featured. The program said a short circuit somewhere else within the fuselage caused a spark to be generated within the central fuel tank which, as has been mentioned, was filled with vapour.

I don't know if this explanation is true, but the description of what subsequently occured was what fascinated and scared me most.
Apparently the explosion blew the nose off, leaving the remainder of the plane to fly on for a further 30 seconds before a stall occured causing the remainder of the craft to fall to earth.
If this is really what happened, can you imagine being on that plane!

There was another theory here on ATS that surfaced saying that billions of dollars of counterfeit money were aboard the plane and that blowing it out of the sky was an easy way of dealing with the problem.

Originally posted by Zaphod58
One of the problems I have with the missile theory is that the missile supposedly penetrated into the fuselage, and left residue on the seats. If the missile had tracked in on the center fuel tank, which was filled with vapor, as this former Navy Commander claims, it would have punched into the tank, and instead of breaking the plane in two, it would have blown it apart into little pieces, and never made it into the fuselage where the seats were. The Stinger has a penetration warhead, but the act of penetrating the fuselage would have probably cause the fuel vapor to explode.

Well the theory is that a test missle, without a warhead,(used for Navy training exercises) was the culprit. Noone has been able to explain how hundreds of witnesses saw a streak of light go from the sea to the plane. Not a little trail of fuel igniting, but a flare all the way from sea level to the plane.

And ugh...see, the government and skeptics LOVE it when people use their tinfoil hats and think of reptillians, ufos, freemasons, etc along with sentient robot programs in conspiracy theories. It helps make all credible theories sound like crap to the mainstream.

The funny part is that the animation which the government released to explain the streak heading towards the plane that people saw was produced by the C.I.A.!!!

They claimed the "missile" was really the remainder of the plane gaining altitude without the cockpit and part of the front attached, as was mentioned above. The sad part is that the media just swallows whatever pill the government gives them, and we never really hear about it again.

The center fuel tank short is what happened to the three KC-135s in the Air Force. The fuel pump is supposed to have a small amount of fuel that is uses to lubricate the pump, but in this case the pump was using that fuel for the plane, instead of keeping it in the pump. After it was gone, metal hit metal, which caused sparking in the fuel tank. When it sparked, the tiny amount of vapor in the pump caused the pump to blow apart, which in turn blew the tank apart taking the plane with it.

The center fuel tank short is what happened to the three KC-135s in the Air Force. The fuel pump is supposed to have a small amount of fuel that is uses to lubricate the pump, but in this case the pump was using that fuel for the plane, instead of keeping it in the pump. After it was gone, metal hit metal, which caused sparking in the fuel tank. When it sparked, the tiny amount of vapor in the pump caused the pump to blow apart, which in turn blew the tank apart taking the plane with it.

Allegedly...

No. Proven. After they pulled the three bodies off the plane blew apart on the ground, three that were standing over the fuel tank, and the one out of the cockpit, and looked at the one in the cockpit with his hand on the fuel pump switch, they found the fuel pump with the top portion missing, the top of the fuel tank with a hole in it, and evidence of metal hitting metal in what was left of the pump. There was also evidence with the two in midair that it was a fuel tank explosion. I read the accident report of the one on the ground. It was proven with very little doubt that the fuel pump was the cause. When they tested one of these fuel pumps outside of a tank, it later ran scavenged the fuel it was supposed to be using as lubrication.

Originally posted by Zaphod58
The center fuel tank short is what happened to the three KC-135s in the Air Force. The fuel pump is supposed to have a small amount of fuel that is uses to lubricate the pump, but in this case the pump was using that fuel for the plane, instead of keeping it in the pump. After it was gone, metal hit metal, which caused sparking in the fuel tank. When it sparked, the tiny amount of vapor in the pump caused the pump to blow apart, which in turn blew the tank apart taking the plane with it.

But that was the airforce, what about TWA 800? Has anyone poured over the final report?

Yeah, I know that was the Air Force, I was just explaining what COULD have happened in TWA 800s fuel tank. I haven't read the official report, but the official cause is listed as the center wing fuel tank exploding.

"The probable cause of the TWA Flight 800 accident was an explosion of the center wing fuel tank (CWT) [...] neither the energy release mechanism nor the location of the ignition inside the CWT could be determined from the available evidence." NTSB - 2000