-Caveat Lector-
Hmmm...
What about a malfunctioned naval missile? (or a failed test exercise off
coastal waters?) I am sure the military has plenty of countermeasures and
procedural protocol to safeguard against this sort of thing, but couldnt it
be possible?
-----Original Message-----
From: Conspiracy Theory Research List [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On
Behalf Of Hilary A. Thomas
Sent: Wednesday, July 14, 1999 12:45 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [CTRL] Fw: [InTheShadows] The FBI and Flight 800 A Missile
Expert Cries Cover-Up
-Caveat Lector-
----------
> From: Hilary A. Thomas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: [InTheShadows] The FBI and Flight 800 A Missile Expert Cries
Cover-Up
> Date: Wednesday, July 14, 1999 10:37 AM
>
> From: "Hilary A. Thomas" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
>
> July 14 - 20, 1999
> The FBI and Flight 800 A Missile Expert Cries Cover-Up
> by robert davey
>
> The Flight 800 investigation, still at a loss to explain the tragedy, has
> the right stuff for a thrilling spy novel. Government flacks easily spin
> the lazy mainstream media to sedate the nervous public. Meanwhile, a band
> of military insiders heads for the Internet (http://twa800.com) and
reaches
> out to a few sympathetic independent journalists to convince readers that
> the truth is being hidden. For some reason—at this point only a fiction
> writer could provide one—many observers believe that the government is
> covering up the disaster's most likely explanation: it was a missile that
> three years ago this week, 10 miles south of Long Island, brought down
the
> Paris-bound 747, killing all 230 aboard.
>
> As the investigation's third anniversary passes, the mystery is
deepening.
> A few months ago, a retired army officer bearing impressive credentials
> approached the Voice as an intermediary for a missile expert with a story
> to tell. This expert is extremely fearful of losing his job—for more than
> 20 years he's been a military engineer who specializes in infrared
missile
> technology. Assured of anonymity, he submitted to lengthy interviews by
> telephone and e-mail, detailing why he believes the investigation of TWA
> Flight 800 is a cover-up.
>
> After spending more than $40 million on the investigation, the FBI and
the
> National Transportation Safety Board have not found a definitive answer
for
> why the center fuel tank exploded. Yet they have ruled out a missile as
the
> cause. The NTSB believes an undetermined system flaw produced an
electrical
> spark that ignited jet fuel vapors in the tank.
>
> Prior to the official embrace of this mechanical explanation, the missile
> expert was among several scientists invited by FBI agents to explore the
> missile theory. He was made privy to evidence suggesting that TWA 800
could
> have been shot down, consisting of eyewitness accounts of a "flare-like
> object" shooting skyward moments before the plane exploded. Later he
> examined the debris in the Calverton hangar.
>
> The missile expert has also been in contact with military labs where, he
> says, the chemists have been unable to make jet fuel vapor explode as the
> NTSB says it did in TWA 800's center fuel tank. "The labs told the NTSB
> there's a big problem—it can't happen." The NTSB wouldn't listen. He
says,
> "They were adamant that [the labs] had to find something."
>
> The evidence adds up, the missile expert believes, to a "70 percent
chance"
> that TWA 800 was downed by a shoulder-launched missile. Like others who
> have spoken to the Voice, the expert is exasperated with what he sees as
a
> corrupted investigation. Asked why he is speaking up now, he says, "I
> wanted someone to look at the truth, not whitewash it away."
>
> The missile expert says his unit was summoned by the FBI quite early in
the
> investigation and asked to review the eyewitness accounts and check out
the
> potential for a successful missile hit. "We talked to Ted Otto and Steve
> Bongardt"—two agents assigned by FBI assistant director James Kallstrom
to
> examine the missile theory. "We picked missiles and ran computer
> simulations and shipped the data to Bongardt," the Voice source says. The
> data showed that virtually any post–Vietnam era shoulder-launched missile
> would have had the range and infrared seeker capability to reach the
plane
> at 13,700 feet, he says.
>
> But it was the eyewitness accounts that most impressed the expert—the
> investigation has compiled more than 100 eyewitness interviews reporting
a
> streak of light ending in a flash or explosion, apparently contradicting
> the official scenario. "When we discussed this with the FBI, they said
some
> of these people were very credible," he recalls.
>
> "The most compelling account was from a female witness, as I remember,
who
> reported something with a small flame rising from the ocean trailing a
> faint smoke trail. The flame was reported to have burned out after about
> six or seven seconds with a puff that was seen when it hit the aircraft
at
> about 10 seconds. I can tell you that this testimony, if the recounting
is
> accurate, is about as precise as you can get on what you would see from a
> shoulder-fired infrared SAM [surface-to-air missile]."
>
> The accounts were so persuasive, he says, that Otto and Bongardt arranged
a
> meeting in Washington, D.C., in late '96 to discuss them and other data.
A
> high-powered group convened around the table—the CIA and other military
and
> intelligence agencies were represented but not the NTSB. "We took a vote,
> and almost everyone said the plane was shot down," the expert says. Only
> the CIA remained silent. "The CIA was very quiet." Someone asked if there
> was a warning prior to the disaster of a terrorist attack. "The CIA
> wouldn't say," he recalls.
>
> Asked about this meeting, the FBI's Kallstrom says, "It never happened,"
> though he allows, "There might have been a meeting where underlings were
> speculating, but I don't have any knowledge of it."
>
> The CIA at the time was developing its theory that eyewitnesses to the
> crash saw not a missile but the burning plane itself as it reared up and
> climbed several thousand feet after the explosion. The Voice missile
expert
> source has no patience with the CIA's point of view. He insists that the
> eyewitness accounts "are information that cannot be denied."
>
> And there was more—the expert mentioned a videotape shot by a man on Long
> Island one night during the weeks preceding the crash, which appeared to
> show a rocket trail rising skyward. "The FBI showed it to us as
interesting
> evidence," the expert says. It looked like the trail of a missile, he
adds.
> FBI assistant director Kallstrom, now retired from the agency, says he
> doesn't recall any such video.
>
> Later in the investigation, only a month or so before Kallstrom shut down
> the criminal investigation in late '97 for lack of evidence, Bongardt
> called the missile expert and invited him to Calverton to view the
> wreckage. What he saw there hardened his suspicions.
>
> "The left wing root near the center fuel tank was clearly a potential
> impact point, since much of it was missing or badly damaged," he wrote in
> an e-mail. In an interview he added that together with the left-side wall
> of the center fuel tank and the left wing, these areas exhibited "a lot
of
> damage which was not well explained, as far as we were concerned....The
> metal there looked like something very violent happened."
>
> The NTSB's reports confirm the view that the damage on the left side of
the
> plane was of a different order from the damage on the right side. While
the
> left wing upper skin, for example, was shattered into many small
fragments,
> most of the right wing was recovered in one large chunk that had to be
cut
> up into several pieces before it would fit onto a flatbed truck for the
> journey from East Moriches to Calverton. In its Sequencing Report the
NTSB
> says that the left wing damage is consistent with "extremely high-strain
> energy release associated with water impact," but does not suggest why
the
> right wing should have escaped similar damage.
>
> The missile expert interviewed by the Voice says that part of the problem
> was a lack of time to thoroughly examine the debris for clues. In fact,
he
> says his group proposed that the FBI extend its investigation to evaluate
> the left-side damage. "The recommendation was verbal and in a letter that
> we sent the FBI looking to do some additional work on the case with
funding
> from the FBI," he says. "They never replied." Bongardt asked him for a
> formal report, he says, but before he could write it, Kallstrom ended the
> criminal probe.
>
> Kallstrom told the Voice he doesn't recall any military experts
> recommending an extension of the investigation. Kallstrom insists, "It
was
> unanimous among all the experts" that nothing was seen in the damaged
metal
> to warrant further scrutiny.
>
> Kallstrom's "unanimous" claim is open to dispute. Richard Bott, of the
> China Lake Naval Air Warfare Center, testified at a Baltimore hearing
> during the investigation that he had seen no evidence of a missile on any
> of the debris. But just a few days earlier he had signed off on a report,
> called "TWA Flight 800 Missile Impact Analysis," in which he drew
attention
> to what he called "unexplained damage characteristics" that "puzzled"
> investigators. He recommended further tests before conclusively ruling
out
> a missile as the cause of this damage to the left wing upper skin, the
left
> wing front spar, and the left side of the center fuel tank. Bott did not
> return repeated phone messages left by the Voice.
>
> The missile expert the Voice interviewed says of the Bott report, "Much
of
> what he states was brought up in discussions of our people." The expert
> insists that those discussions took place over a year before he first
heard
> of Bott and read his report.
>
> Kallstrom is apparently indifferent to Bott's concerns. He says, "I
> wouldn't put much credence in that—I've got a huge pile of expert opinion
> to the contrary." The missile expert the Voice interviewed still insists
> that a forensic team should "take a real hard look" at the left side, and
> rule in or rule out a missile. But he also admits that the region of
damage
> that would bear clues of the explosion of a shoulder-launched
missile—which
> has a small warhead—would be quite small, and could easily be among the
> large areas of the left wing front spar and left side of the center fuel
> tank that are among the 5 percent of the plane that was never recovered.
>
> Voice interviews with a number of metallurgists and experts in explosives
> confirmed that unless investigators are able to identify the area—perhaps
> only a few inches across—where the explosion first impinged on the metal,
> it's impossible to tell what caused the structure to fail. One author of
a
> book on explosives who has worked on government projects told the Voice,
> "You're looking at something bent and fractured, but to tie it to a
> pressure source is very difficult."
>
> Several metallurgists suggested that explosive residue on the debris
would
> point unambiguously to a high explosion. In August '96, traces of PETN
and
> RDX, both ingredients of the plastic explosive also found in some missile
> warheads, were indeed detected in recovered debris from Flight 800's
> passenger cabin.
>
> It seemed as if at last evidence had been found proving that a terrorist
> bomb or a missile had downed the aircraft. But shortly afterward it was
> claimed that a month before the crash the same 747 was used for a
> bomb-sniffing-dog exercise. Some of the explosives used, according to
this
> account from the FBI, were apparently in poor condition and could easily
> have spilled.
>
> This explanation was itself recently thrown into doubt by Victoria
Cummock,
> a member of the White House Commission on Aviation Safety and Security,
> established by President Clinton in the wake of the ValuJet and TWA 800
> disasters and chaired by Vice President Al Gore. Cummock, an advocate for
> victims' families since her husband was killed on PanAm Flight 103 over
> Lockerbie, Scotland, told the Voice that when she asked at an FBI
briefing
> to see the FAA log for the training exercise, "they said, 'It's not
> conclusive this particular plane was involved.' They couldn't produce the
> log."
>
> Nevertheless, Kallstrom says, "It's absolutely confirmed that it was that
> plane."
>
> And there, with the dog-sniffing dispute between Cummock and the FBI, we
> have another juicy subplot within the larger enigma of the TWA Flight 800
> story, which like any good spy novel should continue to tantalize until
the
> final chapter.
>
> Related Articles: Scattered Clues: New Shadows Darken the TWA Flight 800
> Probe High-ranking Military Officers, Independent Investigators, Pilots,
> and Eyewitnesses Believe a Missle Destroyed TWA Flight 800 Tell us what
> you think. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> http://www.villagevoice.com/features/9928/davey.shtml
>
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screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! These are sordid matters
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spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL
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Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
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