TWA Flight 800: A Missile Shootdown

mikegriffith1

Mike Griffith
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Oct 23, 2012
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I've had a casual interest in the case of TWA Flight 800 since the late 1990s, a few years after it occurred in July 1996, but recently I began to seriously study the case. Of all the flimsy government explanations for controversial incidents, the government version of TWA 800's crash may be the most absurd of all. I've created a website on the subject:


Over 100 credible witnesses saw an object with an exhaust trail streaking upward toward TWA 800 before it exploded and crashed into the sea off the coast of Long Island. These witnesses were located on boats at sea, in aircraft near the explosion, and on land. A number of them were ex-military personnel.

The FBI-NTSB-CIA claimed that the "streak of light" that over 100 witnesses saw heading upward toward TWA 800 was really just the burning fuselage flying upward after it separated from the nose of the plane. Not only does this theory defy the laws of physics, but it is refuted by the radar data, which show that the aircraft did not fly 1,500 to 3,000 feet upward. The radar data show that the fuselage did not even fly 300 feet upward, much less 3,000 feet. Instead, the radar data show that the plane traveled a very short distance, then began to turn, and then literally dropped out of the sky, which is also what the witnesses described seeing.

The FBI and the NTSB claimed that the explosive residue that was detected inside and outside the plane was residue left over from a training exercise six weeks earlier in which explosive packages were placed in the plane to train bomb-sniffing dogs in St. Louis. This explanation was proved false. Private researchers interviewed the police officer who conducted the training and learned that he did the training on a different plane. They also learned that the TWA 800 plane was boarding passengers in preparation for a flight at the same time the bomb-sniffing training was being conducted, so on that basis alone the training could not have been done on the TWA 800 aircraft.

Government investigators claimed that the red residue that was visible in a distinct horizontal pattern on some of the seats in the plane was just 3M glue, but when Dr. C. W. Bassett at NASA tested the residue, he found that the residue was not 3M glue. When one of the TWA investigators gave a sample of the red residue to a journalist to have it tested, the testing, done by a recognized lab in California, found that the residue contained a high concentration of metals, indicating that it was residue from explosive material.

The government's theory that a spark in the center fuel tank caused the tank to explode is implausible and impossible. Private scientists have noted that this theory is a physical impossibility because TWA 800 never reached the altitude that would even allow jet fuel to get hot enough to explode even if it had been exposed to a spark. Private experts have also noted that never before or since in the history of aviation has a center fuel tank exploded due to a spark from faulty wiring.
 
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I've had a casual interest in the case of TWA Flight 800 since the late 1990s, a few years after it occurred in July 1996, but recently I began to seriously study the case. Of all the flimsy government explanations for controversial incidents, the government version of TWA 800's crash may be the most absurd of all. I've created a website on the subject:
This is one conspiracy theory I actually believe. I was in junior high school when this happened, but I remember witnesses on the news saying they saw something fly towards the plane before it blew up and the "experts" were saying it just looked that way from the ground. They were really seeing the aftermath of the explosion, but somehow before it exploded. LOL
 
This is one conspiracy theory I actually believe.

It's not so much a conspiracy theory as a cover-up theory. I guess you could call any cover-up a conspiracy, technically speaking, but a conspiracy theory usually refers to the main act itself, not its cover-up. In the case of TWA 800, skeptics are divided between three explanations for the attack: a terrorist missile attack, a U.S. Navy missile test gone horribly wrong, a terrorist attack using a small plane that the U.S. Navy tried to shoot down but ended up hitting the airliner instead.

It's interesting that skeptics of the government's explanation range from radical liberals (including Democracy Now) to staunch conservatives (such as Jack Cashill) to libertarians (including lewrockwell.com).
 
It's not so much a conspiracy theory as a cover-up theory. I guess you could call any cover-up a conspiracy, technically speaking, but a conspiracy theory usually refers to the main act itself, not its cover-up. In the case of TWA 800, skeptics are divided between three explanations for the attack: a terrorist missile attack, a U.S. Navy missile test gone horribly wrong, a terrorist attack using a small plane that the U.S. Navy tried to shoot down but ended up hitting the airliner instead.

It's interesting that skeptics of the government's explanation range from radical liberals (including Democracy Now) to staunch conservatives (such as Jack Cashill) to libertarians.

I've always leaned towards an accidental shoot down by our own military, which is why they wouldn't come clean.
 
I've always leaned towards an accidental shoot down by our own military, which is why they wouldn't come clean.

One disappeared piece of evidence that could shed light on the issue is the home video that captured a missile streaking upward toward the airliner. MSNBC played the video several times, and it was seen by hundreds of thousands of viewers (even in Hong Kong), but then three federal agents quickly showed up and confiscated the video, and it has never been seen again.
 
I've had a casual interest in the case of TWA Flight 800 since the late 1990s, a few years after it occurred in July 1996, but recently I've so thoroughly radicalized in my anti-government obsession that I'm investing time into creating websites detailing my fanaticism that I spread around the corners of the web. I am in the sane one.
 
This is one conspiracy theory I actually believe. I was in junior high school when this happened, but I remember witnesses on the news saying they saw something fly towards the plane before it blew up and the "experts" were saying it just looked that way from the ground. They were really seeing the aftermath of the explosion, but somehow before it exploded. LOL
Yea, and I can see the desire to believe in this too, but they recovered much of the aircraft, right? Were all the inspectors, metallurgists, forensic examiners from the FBI and FAA sworn to silence? You can tell pretty well when a missile strike occurs on a civilian airliner.
 
Yea, and I can see the desire to believe in this too, but they recovered much of the aircraft, right? Were all the inspectors, metallurgists, forensic examiners from the FBI and FAA sworn to silence? You can tell pretty well when a missile strike occurs on a civilian airliner.

Yes, you can tell pretty well when a missile strike occur on a civilian airliner, and plenty of evidence was found that a missile struck the airliner, including high-velocity punctures inside and outside, residue from explosive material on the seats, hydraulic damage to the top of the left wing, radar data indicating high-velocity ejecta coming from the aircraft far too rapidly to have been propelled by the fuel tank explosion posited by government officials, etc., etc.

No, I had no desire to disbelieve the government's version of the incident. In fact, only recently did I become interested enough in the case to seriously study it.

If anyone desires to believe anything, it is you. You seem determined to believe that everything is a coincidence, that governments never lie or cover-up, etc., etc.
 
I've had a casual interest in the case of TWA Flight 800 since the late 1990s, a few years after it occurred in July 1996, but recently I've so thoroughly radicalized in my anti-government obsession that I'm investing time into creating websites detailing my fanaticism that I spread around the corners of the web. I am in the sane one.

You didn't address a single point in my OP but instead made this silly ad hominem attack based on your own warped view of anyone who engages in critical thinking and objectivity about controversial cases.

You obviously know nothing about the case and appear to have no interest in reading anything that might contradict what you want to believe.

"Radicalized in my anti-government obsession"??? You clearly know nothing about my politics.

Just FYI, skeptics of the government's ridiculous TWA 800 explanation come from all across the political spectrum, from radical liberals to mainstream liberals to centrists to mainstream conservatives to libertarians.
 
You didn't address a single point in my OP but instead made this silly ad hominem attack based on your own warped view of anyone who engages in critical thinking and objectivity about controversial cases.

You obviously know nothing about the case and appear to have no interest in reading anything that might contradict what you want to believe.

"Radicalized in my anti-government obsession"??? You clearly know nothing about my politics.

Just FYI, skeptics of the government's ridiculous TWA 800 explanation come from all across the political spectrum, from radical liberals to mainstream liberals to centrists to mainstream conservatives to libertarians.

imagine being so deluded to believe peddling an unoriginal debunked conspiracy theory off as one's own critical thinking jfc. lmao that anyone has a requirement or even a contribution to make towards a random unoriginal post on a dusty corner of the web on a topic that has been addressed by actual experts that conducted the investigation ok. shocking that anti-gov types come from all political stripes what an earthshaking revelation. who knew? lol.
 
imagine being so deluded to believe peddling an unoriginal debunked conspiracy theory off as one's own critical thinking jfc. lmao that anyone has a requirement or even a contribution to make towards a random unoriginal post on a dusty corner of the web on a topic that has been addressed by actual experts that conducted the investigation ok. shocking that anti-gov types come from all political stripes what an earthshaking revelation. who knew? lol.

LOL. Wow. You obviously have no idea how many experts, including several who took part in the FBI-NTSB investigation, have rejected the FBI-NTSB-CIA version as absurd and impossible. It would take pages to list all of them.

You also obviously have no clue about the evidence that was obtained via FOIA requests after the feds closed the investigation, such as internal CIA memos on the mythical "zoom climb," proof that the top of the center fuel tank was damaged before the tank exploded, and the suppressed radar data that prove the fuselage never veered more than a few feet upward after it separated from the nose and that prove that material was blasted from the plane at Mach 4, which was far, far too fast to have been caused by exploding vapors and fuel in the center fuel tank.

You know that the pilots union investigation team rejected the FBI-NTSB-CIA findings, right? You knew that, right? The lead investigator of the union's investigation team appeared in the 2013 documentary TWA Flight 800.

And you know that the senior NTSB investigator who oversaw the reassembly of the cockpit, the passenger area, and the cargo bays, Henry ("Hank") Hughes, stridently rejected the FBI-NTSB-CIA findings, right? You knew that, right? My website includes a link to a lengthy interview with Hughes. You should watch it and educate yourself.
 
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A short circuit in a full gas tank that never happened before or since? Is it even possible for a spark to ignite a gas tank in a plane? Everyone worries about a nuclear weapon smuggled into the U.S. but a missile may have been relatively easy to smuggle in parts and assemble or it could have ben a bomb. The Klinton administration didn't want to deal with either scenario. It's possible that terrorists hoped the plane would crash in Manhattan and they refined their tactics a couple of years later in 2001 for a bigger attack.
 
A short circuit in a full gas tank that never happened before or since? Is it even possible for a spark to ignite a gas tank in a plane?

Oh, it's possible, but only under certain conditions. TWA 800 never even reached the altitude that would have enabled a spark to have ignited vapors and fuel in the center fuel tank. The jet fuel has to reach a temp of at least 112 degrees, bare minimum, after the plane reaches 14,000 feet. TWA 800 never got above 13,800, per the radar data.

Prior to and after TWA 800, no 737's center fuel tank had ever exploded in mid-air from any kind of internal ignition event. Never. Not once before, and not once since. Perhaps this is because jet fuel is extremely hard to ignite--by design, for obvious reasons.

The center fuel tank did explode, but only after it was blasted by an external explosion. It was not the first thing to explode. One way we know this is that there was debris damage on top of the fractures at the top of the center fuel tank--this would have been impossible if that fuel tank had been the first thing to explode.

And then there are the 100-plus witnesses who saw an object streaking upward toward TWA 800. The official NTSB explanation was that all of those witnesses experienced the same misperception, even the ones who were ex-military and had seen military ordnance explosions before. They all made the same "mistake," even though they independently told virtually the same story, and even though they were positioned in a wide range of locations: some on boats near the coast, some in the air in a plane or helicopter, some on elevations (such as a bridge), some on the beach, and some inland.
 
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I knew someone who lost a parent on that flight. I just recall them saying that bright and early the next morning, lawyers galore were calling and some came to their house trying to get them to hire them to file the wrongful death lawsuit.
 
some people involved in the investigation had a competing theory. that never happens! because they stubbornly stick to their guns and are in the minority that makes them right. makes total sense. case closed! check out Loose Change for the real deal on what went down on 9/11.
 
. . . shocking that anti-gov types come from all political stripes. what an earthshaking revelation. who knew? lol.

"Anti-government types"??? So if someone disagrees with three government agencies' version of an airplane crash, they are "anti-government"? Wow. That's a rather chilling, fascist mindset, wouldn't you say?

. .check out Loose Change for the real deal on what went down on 9/11.

Oh, of course. What a ridiculous comparison. And actually, the FBI-NTSB-CIA version of TWA 800's destruction includes claims that are just as whacky and absurd as the claims made by the 9/11 Truthers.

Do you not grasp the essential point that the theory that the FBI-NTSB-CIA floated to explain the upward-streaking object that over 100 witnesses described has been demolished by the radar data alone? Those data prove, beyond any possible doubt, that the fuselage did not zoom upward, not by 500 feet, not by 1,500 feet, not by 3,000 feet. This did not happen.

So how do you explain the 100-plus eyewitness accounts of an object streaking upward from ground/sea level with a flame or exhaust trailing behind it? Since there was no fuselage climb for the witnesses to "misperceive" as a missile, what, then, did they see?
 
In 2009, the Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center (EMRTC) in New Mexico conducted an experiment with a center fuel tank in an attempt to validate the FBI-NTSB theory that a spark from faulty wiring ignited vapors in TWA 800’s center fuel tank, caused the fuel tank to explode, and blew up the airliner. The experiment actually provided powerful evidence against the theory, even though defenders of the government version claimed the opposite.

In the EMRTC experiment, the engineers were eventually able to get the fuel tank to explode from a spark they generated inside the tank. Defenders of the FBI-NTSB theory hailed the experiment as proof of the theory. However, even a cursory analysis of the video of the experiment proves it strongly refuted the FBI-NTSB theory. Consider the following facts:

-- The center fuel tank in the EMRTC experiment was from a Boeing 737, not a Boeing 747, and it was only one-fourth the size of TWA 800’s center fuel tank, as the chief engineer admits in the video.

-- The EMRTC experiment heated the fuel tank to 112 degrees because the FBI-NTSB theory is that running the A/C units under TWA 800’s center fuel tank while the plane was delayed caused the tank to heat up to 112 degrees, which in turn produced enough explosive vapors to cause the alleged spark-induced explosion.

However, we see in the video that it took the EMRTC engineers nearly three hours to heat the undersized center fuel tank to 112 degrees, even though they were using a high-powered industrial heater. However, TWA 800 was only delayed for just over an hour--no more than 74 minutes. Since it took nearly three hours to heat the smaller fuel tank to 112 degrees, this proves that operating the A/C units under TWA 800’s center fuel tank for 74 minutes could not have heated the tank to 112 degrees.

In fact, in the video, the chief engineer says, “we've been heating this now for about three hours and we're finally approaching the temperature that we need for testing.” In other words, even after about three hours of heating the fuel tank with an industrial-grade heater, the fuel tank was only “approaching” the needed temperature of 112 degrees.

-- The video narrator says that the engineers sought to set the conditions “to mimic that hot summer day in 1996.” “Hot summer day”? TWA 800 took off at 8:19 p.m. When TWA 800’s delay began at 7:00 p.m., the temperature at JFK International Airport was 82 degrees. 51 minutes later, 20 minutes before takeoff, the temperature had dropped to 80 degrees. This was hardly sweltering heat. As William Donaldson, a retired U.S. Navy Commander said,

"The NTSB would have you believe that Jet A fuel vapors are a virtual bomb waiting to go off, yet every day hundreds of 747s are sitting on hot runways in places like Saudi Arabia, India, etc., with empty center tanks and none have ever exploded. Every day aircraft with empty fuel tanks are hit by lightning, a spark thousands of times greater than necessary to ignite this vapor, yet these aircraft do not explode. (The Flight 800 Investigation)"

-- The EMRTC engineers had to increase the electrical spark to 75 millijoules to get the tank to explode. They started with 4 millijoules, then 8, then 32, then 50. No explosion. The undersized fuel tank did not explode until they increased the charge to 75 millijoules. This was at the upper end of the range theorized by the NTSB, which was 5 to 100 millijoules.

Furthermore, a key point to note is that in the EMRTC test, the charge was not introduced through faulty wiring but from a charging probe placed in the fuel tank.

Boeing engineers designed their tanks with the assumption that the vapors were always flammable; therefore, they took steps to prevent any energy from entering the tank through wiring to ignite these vapors. To do this, they added extra protection to fuel gauge wiring by adding a nylon sheath; they also included proper surge protection. Although only 120 volts were available on a Boeing plane to short into these wires, Boeing engineers tested their wiring up to 3,000 volts on new airplanes; they also did wiring testing after the crash of TWA 800 on many older airplanes still in service. No electricity ever escaped from the wiring in fuel tanks in any of these tests.

Perhaps this is why there was never an in-flight fuel tank explosion from an internal cause in any Boeing airliner before TWA 800 and why there has never been one since. The EMRTC experiment is powerful evidence that TWA 800’s center fuel tank did not explode from a spark from faulty wiring.

-- The EMRTC test made no effort to simulate the cooling effect that would have been produced when TWA 800 took off, increased speed, and gained altitude. As many experts have pointed out, when an airliner climbs, the air temperature outside the plane decreases. The higher the altitude, the colder the air gets. Plus, the effect of cool air blowing rapidly under the center fuel tank would have helped to decrease the tank’s temperature. In short, TWA 800’s center fuel tank would have experienced substantial cooling as the plane increased speed and gained altitude in the 12 minutes between takeoff and destruction.
 
I just found out that a few months a major TWA 800 lawsuit was filed by the Boston law firm of Bailey and Glasser against several federal agencies on behalf of numerous family members of those killed on the flight. Bailey Glasser is a large law firm with offices in 14 states. Here's an article about the lawsuit:

Could the TWA 800 Cover-Up Finally Come Undone?
 
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