TWA Flight 800 investigators break silence in new documentary, claim original conclusion about caus

On a warm June evening in Kansas City, the historic home of TWA and the current site of its huge overhaul base, a group of 75 or so airline pilots watched the documentary Silenced : Flight 800 and the Subversion of Justice in stunned horror.

Afterwards, not a one among them, either publicly or privately, challenged the video's thesis that TWA Flight 800 had indeed been shot down. Offered instead were corroborating details, particularly from angry TWA pilots, about the money trail and the inexplicable Pentagon visits of then TWA CEO, Jeff Erickson. Said one TWA pilot. "90% of us believe there was a government cover-up."

I watched this doc a few years ago,

Anyone turn up a copy of the original censored footage?

Some points in the documentary really stand out:


1) FBI threatening multiple witnesses -- "you didn't see anything".

2) Three distinct debris fields and the wreck pieces were labelled where they were found. Why were top-dogs allowed to change the location data on a number of pieces? Why were FBI agents videoed entering the accident hanger at odd hours?

3) Why were the NTSB investigators prohibited from taking pictures?

4) Why were NTSB investigators shown edited underwater video of the crash site but refused access to the unedited video?

5) molten spray pattern on center fuel tank prior to explosion.

6) radar data showing high velocity (mach 4?) missile parts after detonation.



This sounds a lot like the shenanigans surrounding the Kennedy assassination, Gulf of Tonkin non-attack, Oklahoma City bombing or 9/11. Amazing. It's hard to believe a government can deteriorate to this level.

reply to post by Aloysius the Gaul


So we're told, however..those witnesses were not permitted to testify at hearing for investigation (from what I read).

reply to post by RobinB022


But if you read the statements they gave, only a very small handful of people (like one or two) saw anything that could even be remotely interpreted as a launch signature, and just about everyone said they saw the streak as it was approaching the aircraft. There was nothing in between, not even from pilots in the area.

Originally posted by elouina

Is that an image of the Loch Ness Monster?

(I'm just being silly and not questioning the images; the famous Loch Ness Monster image is what I thought of when I saw the image above and it made me giggle.)

The aircraft was two and a half miles up, and about nine miles offshore, when it exploded. That puts the coastline just about exactly one minute away at the speed of sound. The vast majority of the eyewitnesses were between one minute and two minutes away, as sound travels. The majority of the 38 eyewitnesses who reported a skybound streak that's been described as a missile trail only turned to look after they heard the explosion. This means that for at least two minutes after the plane exploded, something happened that looked to many eyewitnesses like a missile going up. Remember, the majority of people who reported that it looked like a missile struck the aircraft, did not start watching until at least one minute after the explosion happened. Therefore, in most cases of people who said it was absolutely a missile, the laws of physics make it impossible that they could have seen such a missile. We know for a fact that what the aircraft did one minute after it exploded, looked enough like a missile to convince many eyewitnesses that it couldn't possibly have been anything else. In all of these cases, whatever they saw happened after any theorized missile would have detonated.

This is the main problem about all the eyewitness reports.

Witness 145: ...She saw a plane and noticed an object spiraling towards the plane. The object which she saw for about one second, had a glow at the end of it and a gray/white smoke trail... She heard a loud noise and saw an explosion just as the object hit the plane. The plane dropped towards the water and appeared to split in two pieces. A few seconds later, she heard another explosion.

That interpretation is impossible due to the laws pf physics. This illustrates why the witness testimony, while still valuable, cannot be relied on as the definitive explanation for what happened.

Anyway, who could have fired a missile? The FBI did identify some military assets that were in the area at the time, including a US Navy P3 Orion aircraft, and a US Coast Guard cutter. Neither asset has an anti-aircraft or missile capability. Radar data from four different sites also found four unidentified boats within 6nm of Flight 800, all but one of which responded to assist in search and rescue. Shoulder launched weapons do not have anything like the range required to reach the aircraft from the shore.

Witness 88: ...All of a sudden he heard an explosion. He glanced over to the southeast and observed what he thought was a firework ascending into the sky. All of a sudden, it apparently reached the top of its flight... At this point he observed an AIRPLANE COMING INTO THE FIELD OF VIEW. He stated that the bright red object ran into the airplane and upon doing so both the plane and the object turned a real bright red then exploded into a huge plume of flame.

Until someone can explain how sound travels twice the speed of light then the mystery continues.

Originally posted by EViLKoNCEPTz
reply to post by Arbitrageur

 

The radar only showed the explosion(s) but no missile(s) on the intercept course. Missle's don't just appear from nowhere it would be seen heading in to intercept the plane. Especially given they were close enough to the airport airspace for low altitude radar to be able to pick up anything from almost sea level, due to it needing to track inbound and outbound flights during landing and take off.

Well that brings up another possibility.

Stealth missiles.

A misfiring of an in development stealth missile (cruise or SAM) from a sub in the area would be two good reasons for the FBI to bury this.

1. The missile, fired accidentally by American sub brought down a passenger jet

2. The technology that brought it down, was / is classified.

The clues are all there...a video that multiple people saw, broadcast from a new MSM channel showed a missile 'coming from the ocean' and taking out the jet.

The FBI rushing to MSNBC to get their hands on the video and bury it.

The FBI claimed the plane was NOT brought down by criminal activity NOR did they mention the 'T' word.

An accidental missile launch is not part of a criminal activity..it was a terrible accident, so the FBI told the truth.

reply to post by spooky24


You said ALL witnesses but you cited only two witnesses that may not be that articulate to describe the sequence of event they witnessed. Does that mean just because 2 of these witnesses were inarticulate everyone of them is all wrong?

Still defies logic.

reply to post by NickDC202


Yes, I recall seeing it once. Then never again. I was also told by someone close to me in the Air Force, that it was an accident by the Navy.

Originally posted by markymint
Noteworthy is this ATC line that wasn't touched on in the documentary:

"Ah yes sir, it blew up in the air and then we saw two fireballs coming out of the water, there's a big smoke plume coming up from that. Also, there seemed to be a light, I thought it was a landing light [inaudible] it was coming right at us at 15,000 or something like that, so I put on my landing lights so [inaudible] but then it blew!"

It's the second recording in this video: www.youtube.com...

If anyone knows what the inaudible words are?

Good question. This may be good evidence that some kind of light was seen before the explosion, and I don't know what it could be. Here's what it sounds like to me though I can't be certain of the parts you cited as inaudible, but I am certain he said the fireballs went down to the water, and didn't come out of the water as you cited in your quote:

"Ah yes sir, it blew up in the air and then we saw two fireballs go down to the water, there was a big smoke plume coming up from that. Also, there seemed to be a light, I thought it was a landing light, [I don't know], it was coming right at us at 15,000 feet or something like that, so I put on my landing lights, uh (short pause) so [I saw him] and then it blew!"

reply to post by MysterX


That stealth missile idea could explain a lot, like why the FBI wouldn't allow the NTSB to take some pictures, why they didn't reveal the unedited footage of the salvage, etc. If they weren't hiding something I don't know why they would do those things.

We know the technology exists to make aircraft stealthy to radar, so that could be applied to missiles to make them not show up on radar. But how would you hide the visible launch signature even if it's stealthy to radar? I don't know of technology to do that, though I don't presume that means it's impossible, but neither do I presume it's possible. I don't really know.

Originally posted by juspassinthru
3) Why were the NTSB investigators prohibited from taking pictures?

4) Why were NTSB investigators shown edited underwater video of the crash site but refused access to the unedited video?

I'd like to know the answer to those questions myself. If there was no criminal activity I don't see why this took place.

Originally posted by Zaphod58
reply to post by GArnold

 

Stop putting words I'm my mouth. You don't have to be lying to be wrong.

Something is either right or wrong. Either it is the truth or it is a lie. A coin is either heads or tails. Your saying these 183 people are wrong implying that they lied in sworn testimony to investigators. You pulled the lying stuff out of my post but then did not answer a single other question I asked you. I am not trying to put words in your mouth honestly. To me it is black and white. Either something is the truth or it is a lie. You still have not discussed your research into this or what exactly you did to research. You have not debunked a single claim John Leer made.

In fact your only weapon in this seems to be you think you are smarter than everyone else including 6 investigators with over 100 years of experience. You present no evidence to support any of your claims other than "it does not make sense so the Govts story has to be right".

3 words for you. If you think the Govt is incapable of lying to the public. Gulf of Tonkin.

Various news sources, including Time, Life and Newsweek, ran articles throughout August on the Tonkin Gulf incident.[29]Time reported: "Through the darkness, from the West and south…intruders boldly sped…at least six of them… they opened fire on the destroyers with automatic weapons, this time from as close as 2,000 yards."[30]Time stated that there was "no doubt in Sharp’s mind that the U.S. would now have to answer this attack", and that there was no debate or confusion within the administration regarding the incident.[30] The use of the set of incidents as a pretext for escalation of U.S. involvement follows the issuance of public threats against North Vietnam, as well as calls from American politicians in favor of escalating the war.[31] On May 4, 1964, William Bundy called for the U.S. to "drive the Communists out of South Vietnam", even if that meant attacking both North Vietnam and Communist China.[31] Even so, the Johnson administration in the second half of 1964 focused on convincing the American public that there was no chance of war between North Vietnam and the U.S.[31

en.m.wikipedia.org...

Originally posted by juspassinthru
Anyone turn up a copy of the original censored footage?

Some points in the documentary really stand out:


1) FBI threatening multiple witnesses -- "you didn't see anything".

2) Three distinct debris fields and the wreck pieces were labelled where they were found. Why were top-dogs allowed to change the location data on a number of pieces? Why were FBI agents videoed entering the accident hanger at odd hours?

3) Why were the NTSB investigators prohibited from taking pictures?

4) Why were NTSB investigators shown edited underwater video of the crash site but refused access to the unedited video?

It's very clear evidence of a coverup and all coming from reliable sources. Even if you ignore everything else in the documentary (and you shouldn't) the indications of evidence tampering and witness intimidation provide sufficient cause for a reopening of the investigation.

Pet theories from armchair investigators are all well and good. But they don't counter the above statements.

Originally posted by Zaphod58
reply to post by smurfy

 

There were a number of things said after 800 went down that were later changed. Maybe they saw one of the other tanks and mistook it for the CWT. Every investigation has things said that change over the weeks and months afterwards.

Just getting back to that, the man was James Sanders an investigative reporter, you can see him in this 15min video which has some salient points, and archive material. Listen also to the guy at the start who is talking about Timothy McVeigh, and a guy who filed a law suit against McVeigh, in a bid to force the agencies to reveal the evidence they had on that bombing.

It'll be just as relevant today, as a method bringing out evidence that otherwise would not be forthcoming, in fact the NSA/NCTC is up against it right now in a unrelated court case. Anyway, here's the video,

www.youtube.com...

reply to post by marhaba


Good point

I was just making an observation from some of the source material I have. I have an enormous hard file from TWA Flight 800 however none of it is my work. I'm just keeping the material in a safe, controlled environment. I don't know what happened and really have never studied much of this enormous file. I was just reading one of the outlines about the science of some of the statements.

After watching the FOX interview moments ago of one of the former investigators who are bringing this forward I get the feeling this is going to get buried by all the media. Complicity of President Clinton in any 'conspiracy' type discussion about Flight 800 will quickly find a very dark deep hole. That not withstanding the timing of this is in question as why bring this up now with such a complete media saturation on a cavalcade of other national and international issues.

Right now I'm watching my Gold fall of the planet and some of the short trading positions taken up is downright criminal. That has me worried along with the credit issues in China that could impact all currency's and propel a huge loss for myself and millions of others in the next few hours.

What in the world is going on? Nobody-I mean nobody-said anything about the metal market collapsing today. If you want a real conspiracy this is where too look!

That is the issue for the moment and I just don't see this 17 year old mystery going anywhere anywhere soon.

Again, the timing of this seems strange to me? Does it to anyone else?

reply to post by GArnold


Honestly mistaken doesn't mean lying. It means you saw something, and you were wrong in what you saw, but you tell what you think is the truth. That's not a lie.

It has nothing to do with thinking I'm smarter than anyone. It has to do with looking at the evidence out there, and putting everything together. A small missile (even three of them) doesn't make sense in blowing apart an aircraft that size. There was one witness to what might have been a launch signature (despite there being 200 that say they saw what appeared to be a missile, including people in flight that should have seen the launch). One of the experts coming forward had nothing to do with the fuel system, but says that despite evidence that by take off the fuel was already over the flashpoint, there was no way a short circuit could have pushed the fuel temperature over the point where it would have exploded.... I'm open to a shootdown, but the evidence I've seen to date doesn't add up to one.

Here is a photo of a 747 in thermal bands.

twa800.com...

This photo was supplied by Military experts to the FBI "missle team" investigating the possibility of a missle strike. These experts informed the FBI team that given multiple heat signatures typical MANPADS will lock on the central signature. As you can see form the photo the AC units under the CWT are fairly hot sources that could attract the missle. The TWA800 site does a very nice job of plotting the direct witnesses (who actually saw the streak of light PRIOR to hearing the sound of the explosions!) they pinpoint two launch locations and indicate two missle shots. One is a head on shot and the other is a tail on shot but both would give the seekerhead a lateral profile of the 747 to lock onto the CWT.

As I have stated before I do not believe this was an accidental Navy shoot down. This was terrorists utilizing anti aircraft missiles. The missles hit the aircraft and caused the wings to fragment. The large quantity of fuel on board began to mist out of the ruptures in the wings and then ignited in a low order explosion that tore the aircraft apart and sent it down. Just because that exact scenario has not occured with other large aircraft stuck by AA missiles does not mean it is impossible.

reply to post by Arbitrageur

That stealth missile idea could explain a lot, like why the FBI wouldn't allow the NTSB to take some pictures, why they didn't reveal the unedited footage of the salvage, etc.

If they weren't hiding something I don't know why they would do those things.

We know the technology exists to make aircraft stealthy to radar, so that could be applied to missiles to make them not show up on radar. But how would you hide the visible launch signature even if it's stealthy to radar? I don't know of technology to do that, though I don't presume that means it's impossible, but neither do I presume it's possible. I don't really know.

3) Why were the NTSB investigators prohibited from taking pictures?
4) Why were NTSB investigators shown edited underwater video of the crash site but refused access to the unedited video?

I'd like to know the answer to those questions myself. If there was no criminal activity I don't see why this took place.

I'd like to know those answers too, and agree there is most certainly something unique to this case that is actively being swept under the rug by the FBI.
Since they claim 'No criminal activity', the 'something' must be domestic and state originated...a state secret.

Perhaps the launch detection aspect is what caused the event to be covered up (and still covered up)..a submerged missile launch capability with a very low or non-existent launch signature is a handy technological development worth protecting even if it was responsible for accidentally downing an airliner.

If not a traditional missile, perhaps some other exotic submarine specific weapons system was being experimentally trialled and went awry...perhaps an energy or beam based platform.

Apart from other subs, the biggest threat to a sub is detection by dedicated and low flying aircraft..usually helicopters or small fixed wing aircraft...they detect and then kill the sub by flying over and above it and deploy anti-sub weapons to sink it...to do this, they come in quite low...if the Navy has developed a weapon which can take these out while submerged and do it without a launch signature and leaving their position wide open...i can see why this would all have been hushed up as tight as it has.

Whatever the case of that, it's fairly obvious to pretty much anyone that there is much for the US authorities to keep quiet about, the only question is exactly what?

Here are the details of other fuel tank explosions on asimilar aircraft.

"-- On Dec. 10, 1993, a Wisconsin Air National Guard KC-135 blew up on the ground at Gen. Billy Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee. Six maintenance personnel died.

An investigative board found "clear and convincing evidence" that an explosion in the plane's center fuel tank was triggered by sparking in a wire within the housing of a fuel pump. The electrical arc managed to enlarge a tiny vent hole in the housing, sending molten copper from the wire into the tank. Fuel vapors quickly ignited.

-- On Sept. 17, 1987, a KC-10 exploded at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. Again, the cause was attributed to a fuel vapor explosion in the center fuel tank. One mechanic died.

Investigators found that fuel had leaked, and vapors probably had been ignited by arcing from a battery near the pump area for the tank.

Shortly after the incident, the Air Force ordered checks of all KC-10s and found a dozen similar leaks.

-- On July 24, 1989, at Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, an Air Force B-52 bomber went up in flames, killing one person, after a refueling team mistakenly left a vent plug in the plane's center fuel tank. The plug caused too much vapor pressure to build. The tank ruptured, spilling 2,600 gallons of fuel onto the tarmac. Air Force investigators were unable to determine the ignition source.

-- On Oct. 4, 1990, an Air Force KC-135 tanker exploded during approach to Loring Air Force Base in Maine. That incident involved a rear aerial-refueling storage tank rather than the central fuel tank. Witnesses said they saw two explosions on the plane and then saw the tail section separate from the aircraft. Investigators blamed the accident, which killed all four crew members, on a fuel pump that overheated to at least 1,400 degrees.

-- In another rear-tank incident, on Sept. 20, 1989, a KC-135 assigned to the Alaska Air National Guard exploded on the ground at Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska. Two people died. The accident was attributed to a malfunction of a refueling pump, which set off vapors in a rear tank."

This is from an article in 1996 that related to TWA 800.
Notice that almost all of these military fuel tank explosions happened on the ground during maintenance (killing ground crew) all involved sparks and some form of penetration into the fuel tank or rupture of the tank. In other words not sparks or arcing INSIDE of the fuel tank. These pumps and their wiring are not housed inside of the tanks they are external. The descriptions of these explosions lead me to believe that the maintenace being performed was the probable cause of the conditions that lead to the explosions. The only one that sounds similar to TWA 800 are the last two in the list however these aircraft being tankers have additional fuel capacity and systems to pump fuel to other aircraft while in flight the "refueling pump" that caused this explosion would not have been present on TWA 800 so it is not really analogus at all. So in point of fact NONE of these military fuel explosions replicate the conditions of TWA 800 ie A large 747 in flight simply exploding shortly after take off.



EDIT** let me add the two tankers that did explode while in flight presumably had pumped off their fuel in tanker missions that would have left larger quantities of fuel vapor in their storage tanks than TWA would have had present in its CWT

reply to post by Dragoon01


From what research I did on the internet. They were designed different in regards to the tanks and filled with JP4 fuel which is alot more volitale than what fuel was in flight 800. They no longer use JP4 in KC 135;s and since have not had a problem. I am no a expert and not sure if this is true but It is what I read on internet, I am sure someone here on the forum has more info than me, And the is a poster from some other post named Boomer that served on a refueling plane that may be able to lend some info to this post.

Originally posted by MysterX


I'd like to know those answers too, and agree there is most certainly something unique to this case that is actively being swept under the rug by the FBI.
Since they claim 'No criminal activity', the 'something' must be domestic and state originated...a state secret.

There was the Iranian aircraft shot down in 1988, there was no cover-up there though, (cough) could that have been because there was a film crew on board. It's funny how the legalities of that incident left Iran without an apology, or even the USG accepting responsibility. So what about TWA 800 when there was no criminal activity, what if the plane was targeted? A most incredible scenario, yet that's about all that's left.