did an electrical short really do in TWA 800?

I Scanned through a couple of those, and I have to say I find the cedibility of some of them to be somewhat lacking.

I wonder how many phony witnesses you can expect to get for an event like this?

Seriously. I would assume that when you put out an open call for witnesses, you are going to get a certain percentage of cranks.

For instance, can you spot the problem with this account?

I recall listening to the reports on the radio the day it happened, and heard someone say they say something flying up towards the plane just before it blew up. For someone to be so lucky as to concoct a scenario that so closely fits those of so many others, without knowing that the navy was doing missile exercises right below the plane that day, is quite a coincidence. I guess that is why the official account is so acceptable.

Well, clearly it's not 0% either.

If you want me to consider your theory, and I will if you can at least make an effort to separate the wheat from the chaff.

[edit on 24-1-2006 by HowardRoark]

I appreciate the admission that it is unlikely all of the eyewitnesses coincidentally, simultaneously, and immediately concocted such consistent stories about what they saw. In my opinion, the single account I heard on the radio that day was enough to make me take notice when, much later, the official findings contradicted it. Whether you look into the validity of the alternate explanations of the event is totally your choice. I don't want you to, on my account, and it doesn't matter to me either way. Therefore I see little reason to find out exactly what you mean by 'separate the wheat from the chaff', and then spend time doing so. If you do so, let me know what you discover, if you wish.

I am not convinced that the official theories are wrong.

Not to beat a dead horse any more Like I said, I’m sure that the FBI has people that are trained to discriminate the bone fide witnesses from the pathological copycats. I’m also sure that they have a pretty good idea just how much of that behavior they can expect for a given situation.

You made a point that there were 150 eye witnesses that support your theory. Yet the first claim that I looked at (the link above) is so obviously fake, that I think it reasonable to ask that a more discriminating criteria be applied to validate the accounts.

One other item bothers me about those accounts.

Now I’ve never personally witnessed the launch of a surface to air missile, in daylight or dark. I’ve have seen footage of cruise missiles blasting off of warships at night., and I am willing to concede that video footage under those circumstances may not be all that comparable to a surface to air missile launch. That being said, however, I find it hard to believe that

1. a missile motor would have a reddish to orange glow. To my mind, a whitish exhaust would be more indicative of the type of thrust necessary to propel a missile.
   
   
2. The missile exhaust would be readily visible. It seems to me that it would be poor weapons system design if the exhaust was easily spotted, thus giving away the position of the launch point. Think of an ordinary fireworks show. Do you see the rockets going up? Sometimes, faintly, but most of the time, no.
   
   
   
   In other words, I think that to the degree that it is visible, I suspect that the exhaust would be white, rather then red/orange.

What do you make of the lab results that I refer to in post 1939475 above?

I found a story about lab results, but I didn't see any actual results themselves.

When I read the original account by the fellow who spirited the sample off the site and had it looked at, it appeared that the test was totally unofficial and done by a friend as a favour, to satisfy the curiosity of the person who brought it in. So, it may be fabricated, yes, and even the red vs. green discovery that he later claimed may be false too. But I am not as skeptical I guess. The confiscation and dismissal that followed is, if true, a very suspect action by the authorities.
This is but one piece of evidence either way. It just adds one piece to the case built around the initial account of the event being contradicted by the later findings.

There were several interesting things going on in the plane.

After the reconstruction, an OUTWARD blast was found INSIDE the Center Wing Tank. Several damaged wires were found near the tank, including one high voltage wire that would have let a short get into the fuel probes.
The blast point on Jet A-1 is quite low. There is an airconditioning pack right under the CWFT that exhausts under the plane, that causes the vapor in the tank to heat to dangerously high levels, well above the danger point. All it would take at that point is a spark to set it off.


A missile strike would have left INWARD damage. While POSSIBLE a heat seeking missile would have hit the CWFT, it's a LOT more likely that it would have hit an engine. Especially on climb out the engines are by far the hottest portion of the plane. The CWFT runs a lot hotter than they realized, but not hot enough to cause a heat seeker to track on it.

The USAF lost at least three KC-135s to very similar circumstances. The CWFT pump sparked causing the tank to explode.

The week before the accident the plane was used for explosives training, while it was down for a routine check. IIRC, they used Semtex, in the cabin, and some of it was misplaced and not found. Not NEARLY enough to bring the plane down, but enough to leave a residue.

The information you have shared regarding the Semtex is a very welcome addition to this thread. I really appreciate it. Anything else you have to offer that is relevent and has not yet been mentioned is very welcome.

I hope you do not mind me asking on this thread, it seemed the only recent active thread re flight 800, can anyone remember ever seeing the video clip that still bothers me after all this time, I have only ever seen this clip aired once, and only once in the UK, footage was taken on that fateful night at a barbeque, time frame was bang on, guests were on the patio with the ocean as a back drop, like a family get together, camera man was filming family members and with this perfect ocean backdrop unintentionally captured what to all intents and purposes can only be described as a missile going right to left and climbing, it must be eight years since this clip was shown, I cannot find any reference to it anywhere, and I mean anywhere , does anyone here remember seeing this ? thankyou

In order for a spark to have caused that there would have had to have been fuel VAPORS to ignite. Jet Fuel itself will not explode like that. The fuel will BURN but not EXPLODE. I was a jet mech in the Marine Corps and at our A School the instructor literally tossed a llit match into a can of JP-5 and the match went out. He then took a glass JAR of JP-4 (JP-5 is used in Naval air because it is not as voliltile as JP-4 which is used in the Air Force) about half full and put it outside in the sunlight, within 10 mins it exploded from the sunlight heating the fuel enough to cause the vapors to explode.

I wish you luck finding documentation to prove this, but I was home from work that day and clearly remember watching a report on CNN just after the incident, where a Major or Lieutenant Colonel (based on USAF rank insignia - it was definitely a cluster, but hard to say which color) wearing a flight suit was interviewed and described seeing a contrail and bright light going up towards the aircraft.

I never saw that interview again and have never heard any mention of it since.

I'm sure some here will blow this off as pure garbage/lies/fantasies, but I simply provide it in case you can find some other accounts of this, possibly from someone who actually knows who that was they interviewed.

Originally posted by Striker8441
In order for a spark to have caused that there would have had to have been fuel VAPORS to ignite. Jet Fuel itself will not explode like that. The fuel will BURN but not EXPLODE. I was a jet mech in the Marine Corps and at our A School the instructor literally tossed a llit match into a can of JP-5 and the match went out. He then took a glass JAR of JP-4 (JP-5 is used in Naval air because it is not as voliltile as JP-4 which is used in the Air Force) about half full and put it outside in the sunlight, within 10 mins it exploded from the sunlight heating the fuel enough to cause the vapors to explode.

The center wing fuel tank had 50 gallons in it at take off. The flash point of the fuel was 98 degrees or so. During the test hop they did wth an Evergreen 747, when they reached the alttude that the TWA flight exploded at the temperature in the fuel tank was 217 degrees. Most airlines fly transatlantic with the center wing fuel tank almost empty.

Originally posted by Jaryn
I wish you luck finding documentation to prove this, but I was home from work that day and clearly remember watching a report on CNN just after the incident, where a Major or Lieutenant Colonel (based on USAF rank insignia - it was definitely a cluster, but hard to say which color) wearing a flight suit was interviewed and described seeing a contrail and bright light going up towards the aircraft.

I never saw that interview again and have never heard any mention of it since.

You arent alone. I live in the NYC area and I saw something very similar on the local news channel. They were interviewing some sort of military pilot (assuming military because of the clothes he was wearing. He was a pilot nonetheless because the shot they hand showed his helicopter like plane in the backgrnd) and he was mentioning how they were up in the air when the plane exploded doing manuvers but he didnt see anything. I was suprised at this kind of admission and just when I thought that someone else in another uniform yanked the guy from in front of the camera and escorted him away. I'll never forget it because i laughed out loud and told my mom that if something did happen and they were to try to cover it up this guy just blew their chances.

Also remember how they first denied that there were any exercises going on that night then slowly they started to release the number of subs that were in the area and the number kept increasing with time.

To me 800 is a classic coverup

He was a UH-60 Blackhawk pilot from the ANG. He and an HC-130 crew were on a training flight and saw the crash, and were first on the scene to look for survivors. He was probably yanked from the camera because he hadn't debriefed after landing. They're supposed to talk to the NTSB/FBI after landing FIRST if they witness a crash.

I watched a crash analysis the other day of it, and the evidence that it WAS an accident is almost overwhelming. They found the short in the high voltage wire, all the damage in the fuel tank shows an OUTWARD explosion, the fuel flash point was well under what the temperature in the tank was at, etc.

[edit on 4/7/2006 by Zaphod58]

If the evidence was so overwhelming, why did 150 separate witnesses all describe seeing the same thing? They all saw something similar to the above testimony, and I remember that day as well. I heard an initial radio news report from a witness seeing something ascending towards the plane just prior to the 'electrical short'. Also, there is the business of the lab test that was done on some residue on a seat cushion. This was found to be rocket fuel??? The evidence was all later seized. There are links at the top of this thread which detail the navy's missile/drone exercises that day directly below the explosion.
It is very interesting, and highly coincidental, that the 150 people who claim to have seen the impact of an ascending 'missile' type object would all have imagined or concocted identical scenarios. How could that be? Also, one of the links is dedicated to explaining just how implausible the 'electrical short' excuse really is. The decriers are no amateurs either, they are all retired aviation professionals.
I still find the supporters of the missile cause to be far more credible. Of course I may be biased considering I did hear that same day eyewitness description personally.

Originally posted by BlackGuardXIII
If the evidence was so overwhelming, why did 150 separate witnesses all describe seeing the same thing? They all saw something similar to the above testimony,

150, huh?

At the top of this page is a link to a bunch of redacted FBI interview reports dealing with these so-called eye-witnesses.

They all read like a bunch of wacko's calling up days later with stories that made no sense, and had no collaboration.

Phoney witness report



[edit on 12-4-2006 by HowardRoark]

Originally posted by HowardRoark
150, huh?

At the top of this page is a link to a bunch of redacted FBI interview reports dealing with these so-called eye-witnesses.
They all read like a bunch of wacko\'s calling up days later with stories that made no sense, and had no collaboration.
Phoney witness report
[edit on 12-4-2006 by HowardRoark]

So the FBI has released a bunch of phoney witness reports... and they make the witnesses sound like wackos. Why am I not surprised? Maybe the FBI put the rocket fuel on the seat cushions too. And maybe they made up the documentation stating the navy was doing the drone/missile exercises directly below there too... What is your opinion on that stuff? And how about the information on how unlikely the spark/fuel tank explosion scenario is, according to the retired aviation professionals? You didn't give your views on those points, leaving me curious as to what they are.
As well, the eyewitness report that I heard on the radio on the actual day that it happened obviously could not have been made up days later, and it described an object ascending towards the plane. It did not sound wacko.
If you want to buy the fuel tank/electrical spark story, that is your business, I find it to be the wackier of the two. To each his own.

How unlikely it is? Tell that to the three KC-135 crew and one maintenance team family members. The USAF lost FOUR KC-135s to fuel tank explosions. It's not very unlikely at all. Did you know that the wiring used in commercial airplanes has been banned by the military? It chafes, and in the case of a fire it burns and is rather unsafe. The military retired every plane that they couldn't rewire because it was so unsafe.