TWA Flight 800: A Missile Shootdown

Let's review facts about TWA 800 and the NTSB investigation that are established by hard/physical evidence and/or that are too well documented to be credibly denied:

-- The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAMAW) investigative team rejected the NTSB’s theory about the crash and concluded (1) that the center wing tank explosion was not the initiating event, (2) that the initiating event was a “high-pressure event” that breached the fuselage, (3) that this high-pressure event caused a structural failure in the area of Flight Station 854 to 860 on the lower left side of the aircraft, and (4) that this high-pressure event also caused the center wing tank explosion (IAMAW, Analysis and Recommendations Regarding TWA Flight 800, p. 9, https://twa800.com/iamaw/iamaw.pdf).

-- Early photos of the center wing tank's floor and later photos of the floor prove that someone markedly altered the floor's appearance. The early photos show a large section of the floor bent severely upward/inward. In later photos, this large upward/inward-bent section is gone. The photos are presented in Jack Cashill’s documentary Silenced, among other sources.

-- 116 pieces of wreckage tested positive for explosive residue when tested by the sophisticated, highly-sensitive EGIS 3000 explosive residue detection machines at the Calverton hangar. False positives are very rare with EGIS. Yet, the FBI claimed that only a few of the 116 EGIS detections proved to be valid when tested at the FBI Lab, a preposterous proposition.

On May 10, 1999, Assistant FBI Director Donald Kerr, head of the FBI Lab Division, testified to a Senate subcommittee that those 116 pieces from the Calverton hangar were forwarded to the FBI Lab for further testing, and that only a few of those pieces once again tested positive for explosive residue (Administrative Oversight Hearing of the Investigation of TWA Flight 800, Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight, Senate Judiciary Committee, May 10, 1999, pp. 50-51, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-106shrg65055/pdf/CHRG-106shrg65055.pdf). William Tobin, the FBI's chief metallurgist, told the subcommittee that in the FBI Lab testing, "there were three separate incidents, or instances, of the finding of high-explosive residues on various parts" (p. 23). The NTSB report likewise says that only three pieces tested positive for explosive residue when examined by the FBI Lab, and that one piece contained RDX, one contained NTG, and one contained both RDX and PETN:

Examination of recovered wreckage revealed trace amounts of explosive residue on three samples of material from three separate locations in the airplane wreckage. These material samples were submitted to the FBI’s laboratory in Washington, D.C., with many other material samples for analysis. The pieces on which these traces were found were described by the FBI as a piece of canvas-like material and two pieces of floor panel; however, the exact locations of the traces were not documented. According to the FBI's laboratory report, analysis of each of the three material samples revealed that they contained traces of different explosives: one contained cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine (RDX), one contained nitroglycerin, and one contained a combination of RDX and pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN). (NTSB report, p. 118)

The idea that the EGIS machines at the Calverton hangar suffered a false-positive rate of 115 out of 118 is beyond absurd. The EGIS 3000's rate for false positives when testing bare metal is approximately 1 in 10,000 (ARAP report, p. 35, https://twa800.com/report/final.pdf).

In his book on criminal forensics, Dr. Harold Trimm calls EGIS "the ultimate in speed, accuracy, and sensitivity" (Forensics the Easy Way, New York: Barron's Educational Series, 2005, p. 151).

A 1999 U.S. Department of Justice guide on selecting commercial explosives detection systems praised the EGIS system:

The best-known GC/chemiluminescence system is the Thermedics EGIS. It is capable of analyzing samples in 18 seconds, and because of its high sensitivity and excellent selectivity, it is a popular system with laboratory researchers and forensic analysts. (Guide for the Selection of Commercial Explosives Detection Systems for Law Enforcement Applications, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, 1999, p. 18)

In early 1990s, Germany's Ministry of Interior selected the EGIS 3000 system for use in all German airports (German Government Selects Thermo Electron Explosives Trace Detector as Standard for Airport Security After Competitive Performance Test).

In any other case, an allegation that two EGIS 3000 machines experienced a false-positive rate of 30% would be viewed as highly doubtful, if not impossible. Yet, the FBI and the NTSB would have us believe that the EGIS 3000 machines in the Calverton hangar experienced an astonishing false-positive rate of 98% (115 out of 118).

It is worth mentioning that the same FBI Lab that repeatedly declared that most of the Calverton EGIS detections were false positives was, during this same period, beset with accusations of fraud, evidence-tampering, and incompetence. The FBI's own Inspector General issued a report on the FBI Lab that documented numerous cases of inaccurate and scientifically flawed analysis, evidence mishandling, and evidence contamination.

The chief of the Explosives Unit at the FBI Lab during the TWA 800 investigation was J. Thomas Thurston. In a 1997 Senate hearing on problems with the FBI Lab, former Crime Lab Unit chief James Corby singled out Thurston as a problem and said Thurston "did alter reports intentionally" (The Flight 800 Investigation).

Incidentally, the NTSB report does not even mention the 116 EGIS detections of explosive residue. Perhaps the authors of the report feared that even the most gullible persons would not swallow the idea that any detection system, much less the EGIS 3000, would experience such a staggering error rate.

-- In an effort to explain away the three detections of explosive residue that the NTSB was willing to acknowledge, the NTSB report claims that canine bomb-sniffing training was conducted on the TWA 800 plane in St. Louis on June 10, 1996 (p. 118). This myth had already been debunked before the NTSB report was published, giving us another indication of the report's flawed and fraudulent nature.

It should be noted that the FBI made the false claim about the bomb-sniffing training before they had even interviewed the St. Louis Airport Police Department officer who did the training. In addition, the FBI never interviewed the two pilots who flew the TWA 800 plane from St. Louis on June 10, who could have told them that no such training was done on the plane. The training was done on another 747 that was parked nearby.

-- In another effort to explain away the three detections of explosive residue that the NTSB was willing to acknowledge, the NTSB report claims that explosives are soluble in water and that therefore any explosive residue deposited on pieces of TWA 800’s wreckage would have dissolved in the water (p. 119). The TWA 800 Project refutes this claim:

. . . the NTSB inaccurately claimed that the explosives were soluble in water and therefore if a missile had deposited explosive residues on the wreckage, those residues would have dissolved in the water. However, according to a report published by Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, PETN “is practically insoluble in water.” And according to the United States Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, the “solubility of RDX in water is low to negligible.” PETN and RDX are explosives used in missile warheads and were detected throughout the aircraft wreckage. (FACT CHECKING: Politico)

Former senior NTSB investigator Hank Hughes has also debunked the NTSB's claim about the solubility of explosive residue. He notes that the test cited by the NTSB was done in unrealistic conditions that bore no resemblance to the conditions involved with the TWA 800 wreckage (Affidavit of Henry F. Hughes, pp. 35-36, https://twa800project.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/affidavit-of-hank-hughes.pdf)

-- The NTSB did not issue a determination of the cause of TWA 800's crash. Instead, the NTSB issued a "probable cause" finding that was based on an unproven theory. The NTSB theorized that a short circuit occurred outside the center wing tank, that this short circuit generated a spark, and that this spark entered the fuel tank through FQIS wiring and caused the tank to explode. The NTSB admitted it was unable to identify the ignition source. Moreover, the NTSB was unable to determine how the alleged spark escaped from the FQIS wiring, which wiring was specifically designed to prevent just such an occurrence. Crucially, despite the NTSB's expenditure of millions of dollars on sophisticated experiments, NTSB investigators were unable to reproduce the alleged energy transfer mechanisms in real-world conditions.

The TWA 800 Project notes,

There was absolutely no evidence of any short circuit occurring. On the contrary, when the gauge for the system allegedly responsible for the crash (the fuel quantity indication system [FQIS]) was reconstructed, it was in perfect working condition, which led Boeing engineers to conclude that no short circuit of any kind occurred in that system. (FACT CHECKING: Popular Mechanics)

-- FBI agents were caught on surveillance video illegally removing parts from the TWA 800 wreckage at the Calverton hangar.

-- The reddish-orange residue on foam removed from one of the seats at the Calverton hangar was tested by a commercial lab and was found to contain large amounts of elements used in explosives. Terrell Stacey, a TWA member of the NTSB investigation, removed two pieces of seat foam stained with reddish-brown residue and gave them to investigative journalist James Sanders. Stacey did this because he had become convinced the NTSB investigation was a cover-up. Sanders had one of the pieces tested at a commercial lab in California (and sent the other piece to a CBS producer). The lab results showed that the residue contained high concentrations of elements used in missile fuel and pyrotechnics.

The lab results also showed that the residue's elements were very different from those of 3M glue. A test conducted at a Florida State University lab excluded 3M glue as a possible source of the reddish-orange residue. The FBI did test another piece of seat foam, but the residue on the piece looked quite different from the residue on the two Sanders pieces. If the FBI ever tested the other piece of foam that Stacey gave to Sanders, there is no record of it.

It should be noted that the FBI refused to allow CBS to have the other Sanders piece of foam tested by an independent lab. Instead, the FBI threatened CBS with legal action if they didn’t hand over the other Sanders piece of foam. Again, if the FBI ever did test the other Sanders piece of foam, there is no record of such a test.

-- There were puncture holes (i.e., inward-penetrating holes) in the exterior of the airplane. Such holes are common when a proximity-fused missile explodes within 100 feet of an airplane. Those holes could not have been caused by an explosion of the center wing tank.

-- There were spike-tooth fractures in the exterior of the airplane. Such fractures are caused by high-velocity explosions, not low-order/low-velocity explosions such as the one posited by the NTSB. Even the NTSB admitted that spike-tooth fractures are caused by high-energy events. The center wing tank explosion posited by the NTSB would have been a low-energy/low-velocity/low-order explosion, a deflagration.

Throughout the investigation, James Kallstrom, the head of the FBI's TWA 800 investigative effort, repeatedly used the straw-man scenario of a shoulder-fired missile to ignore the evidence of a proximity-fused missile. Kallstrom and a few other officials ensured that investigators only considered the scenario of a bomb or a shoulder-fired missile in their analysis of evidence of a manmade explosion. Since the scientists operated under the assumption that a proximity-fused missile was out of the question, they overlooked (or did not feel at liberty to acknowledge) clear evidence that this kind of missile exploded near the airliner. The TWA 800 Project:

Metallurgists and forensic scientists correctly showed that the evidence was inconsistent with a bomb or a shoulder-launched missile. Some of these metallurgists and scientists were misled into believing that the lack of shoulder-fired missile damage meant a lack of any type of missile damage. These scientists didn’t lie. Most had never investigated a shoot-down before and were misled about what the damage patterns from certain missile types look like. The NTSB never ruled out a proximity-fused missile, since that type of missile damage was not considered at all, according to their final report. The word “proximity-fused” does not appear anywhere in the NTSB final report. . . .

The extreme forces of air resistance on small projectiles exiting a missile a distance away from a target significantly reduces the speed of these projectiles. So even “low velocity holes” are consistent with a proximity-fused missile. What’s very important is the inward moving trajectory of the projectiles. This was not highlighted in the NTSB final report on the crash; the many holes and fractures consistent with being caused by projectiles originating from outside are very significant.

Regarding the two holes with high velocity characteristics mentioned above, all readers are urged to carefully review the official report, “TWA Flight 800 Analysis of Small Holes.” What the Popular Mechanics reporter does not reveal is that the NTSB investigator could not achieve high enough velocities to reproduce on test plates the holes found on TWA Flight 800 wreckage, even when firing test projectiles out of a gun. This means that whatever created the two holes on the TWA Flight 800 wreckage was created by something hitting it at a very high velocity—-a much higher velocity than the NTSB investigator was able to achieve during testing with a gun, a much higher velocity than the alleged low-velocity fuel-air explosion in the center wing tank and a much higher velocity than that at which the aircraft hit the water. . . .

Proximity-fused missiles do generate low velocity holes and impacts. Also, the reporter fails to mention spike tooth fractures found throughout the tank, which according to the NTSB, are created by a “high energy event.” These documented damage patterns are clear evidence of a high-energy event such as a missile warhead detonating at a distance from the aircraft (which is what proximity-fused missiles are designed to do)—-not from a low-velocity fuel-air explosion. (FACT CHECKING: Popular Mechanics; see also TWA Flight 800 - Physical Evidence).


-- The nose landing gear suffered severe concussive damage; damage that could not have been caused merely by the impact on the ocean. The terminal velocity of objects falling from TWA 800 to the sea would have been about 120-140 mph, not nearly fast enough to have done such marked structural damage to one of the toughest parts of the airliner. The nose landing gear compartment was 62 feet in front of the center wing tank, and numerous physical barriers and objects separated the two areas.

-- A wing leading edge rib, which was composed of tough structural aluminum, showed evidence of having been next to a high-velocity explosion. The part suffered substantial structural damage and had inward penetrating holes in it. During the NTSB investigation, ALPA crash investigator James Speer discussed this part with Dr. Merritt Birky, the head of the Fire and Explosions Group in the investigation. Birky dismissed the structural damage and holes as hydraulic damage from impact with the ocean water. Speer told him he knew this was wrong:

So we walked over and looked at that part and I asked him what he thought, and he asked me what I thought, and I said it looked to me like a high-velocity explosion. And he says, “Well, I have considered everything and I have decided that this happened by hydraulic action on impact with the water.”

I looked him right in the eye and I said, “Well BS.” And I said, “You know as well as I that terminal velocity of these things falling to the atmosphere near sea level, falling at terminal velocity is about 120 to 140 miles an hour, and at that kind of velocity does not do this kind of damage to structural aluminum”. . . .

And I said “there’s a piece of stringer attached to this.” And I said, “since when have you seen hydraulic action on impact with water cause sooting through the hole?” And with that, he turned on his heels and stomped off. (Affidavit of James Speer, p. 2)


Those who have watched Birky’s stumbling performance in the Borjesson-Stalcup TWA 800 documentary will not be surprised to learn that when Speer and Birky were discussing this piece of wreckage during the NTSB investigation, Birky “didn’t even know the different blast-front velocities between fuel-air and high explosions” (p. 3). Speer continues by explaining that only a high-order explosion could have caused the holes in the part, and that a low-order explosion, such as fuel-air explosion, could not have caused those holes:

That is very important in determining which type of explosion was involved because they produce very different damage patterns. The holes piercing the part in question were definitely from the high-velocity blast front of a high explosion, as opposed to a low order fuel-air explosion.

I even went to the JFK hangar on Sunday, after Boeing identified the part as a wing leading edge rib, and had a TWA mechanic lower the leading edge slats so I could photograph the large cavity in the leading edge. I did this to help people in ALPA and the NTSB understand that the holes piercing the part had to have been caused by a directed jet of high velocity gas from a high explosion as opposed to a low velocity fuel-air explosion that simply would have rolled around the ribs. (p. 3)


-- Over 100 witnesses said they saw an object streaking upward toward TWA 800 before it exploded. These witnesses were located in a wide range of locations, some on the beach, some farther inland, some in the air, and some on the ocean. Most of these witnesses used the word "flare," "firework," "streak," "rocket," or "missile" to describe the object.

The NTSB conducted a missile-visibility test in which people were positioned 2-12 miles away from the missile firing to approximate the locations of the TWA 800 missile witnesses. All of the participants in the test were able to see the missiles (https://www.netowne.com/conspiracy/conspiracies/missle-witness-study.html). (By the way, in the NTSB test, radar did not detect the missiles until they exploded.)

-- The FBI used a bogus CIA animation to try to explain what the witnesses saw, but the animation was so flawed that it was quickly abandoned and rarely mentioned again. CIA emails obtained via a FOIA lawsuit reveal that the CIA knew that both the radar tracking data and the black box data invalidated their animation. Some of these emails are shown in the Borjesson-Stalcup documentary TWA Flight 800.

-- The NTSB produced its own animation, but it was nearly as problematic as the CIA animation. The CIA animation featured a 3,000-foot "zoom climb" after the nose separated from the plane, while the NTSB animation featured a much more gradual and lower climb of 1,500 feet. Even the witnesses who were airborne said nothing about any kind of a climb but said the plane quickly began to drop. Most important, none of the radar data show a climb.

-- An audio expert discovered that the last four seconds of TWA 800’s Flight Data Recorder tape were deliberately erased after the crash (4secfinal).
 
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.
thats micrib shill for ya.
 
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.
You make some good points but you really need to find some numbers as to how much heat EMRTC's "industrial heater" was producing, how much heat Flt 800's air conditioners could have been putting out and precisely what are the fill volume differences between EMRTC's 737 center fuel tank and Flt 800's 747 center fuel tank.
 
Let's review facts about TWA 800 and the NTSB investigation that are established by hard/physical evidence and/or that are too well documented to be credibly denied:

-- The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAMAW) investigative team rejected the NTSB’s theory about the crash and concluded (1) that the center wing tank explosion was not the initiating event, (2) that the initiating event was a “high-pressure event” that breached the fuselage, (3) that this high-pressure event caused a structural failure in the area of Flight Station 854 to 860 on the lower left side of the aircraft, and (4) that this high-pressure event also caused the center wing tank explosion (IAMAW, Analysis and Recommendations Regarding TWA Flight 800, p. 9, https://twa800.com/iamaw/iamaw.pdf).

-- Early photos of the center wing tank's floor and later photos of the floor prove that someone markedly altered the floor's appearance. The early photos show a large section of the floor bent severely upward/inward. In later photos, this large upward/inward-bent section is gone. The photos are presented in Jack Cashill’s documentary Silenced, among other sources.

-- 116 pieces of wreckage tested positive for explosive residue when tested by the sophisticated, highly-sensitive EGIS 3000 explosive residue detection machines at the Calverton hangar. False positives are very rare with EGIS. Yet, the FBI claimed that only a few of the 116 EGIS detections proved to be valid when tested at the FBI Lab, a preposterous proposition.

On May 10, 1999, Assistant FBI Director Donald Kerr, head of the FBI Lab Division, testified to a Senate subcommittee that those 116 pieces from the Calverton hangar were forwarded to the FBI Lab for further testing, and that only a few of those pieces once again tested positive for explosive residue (Administrative Oversight Hearing of the Investigation of TWA Flight 800, Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight, Senate Judiciary Committee, May 10, 1999, pp. 50-51, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-106shrg65055/pdf/CHRG-106shrg65055.pdf). William Tobin, the FBI's chief metallurgist, told the subcommittee that in the FBI Lab testing, "there were three separate incidents, or instances, of the finding of high-explosive residues on various parts" (p. 23). The NTSB report likewise says that only three pieces tested positive for explosive residue when examined by the FBI Lab, and that one piece contained RDX, one contained NTG, and one contained both RDX and PETN:

Examination of recovered wreckage revealed trace amounts of explosive residue on three samples of material from three separate locations in the airplane wreckage. These material samples were submitted to the FBI’s laboratory in Washington, D.C., with many other material samples for analysis. The pieces on which these traces were found were described by the FBI as a piece of canvas-like material and two pieces of floor panel; however, the exact locations of the traces were not documented. According to the FBI's laboratory report, analysis of each of the three material samples revealed that they contained traces of different explosives: one contained cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine (RDX), one contained nitroglycerin, and one contained a combination of RDX and pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN). (NTSB report, p. 118)

The idea that the EGIS machines at the Calverton hangar suffered a false-positive rate of 115 out of 118 is beyond absurd. The EGIS 3000's rate for false positives when testing bare metal is approximately 1 in 10,000 (ARAP report, p. 35, https://twa800.com/report/final.pdf).

In his book on criminal forensics, Dr. Harold Trimm calls EGIS "the ultimate in speed, accuracy, and sensitivity" (Forensics the Easy Way, New York: Barron's Educational Series, 2005, p. 151).

A 1999 U.S. Department of Justice guide on selecting commercial explosives detection systems praised the EGIS system:

The best-known GC/chemiluminescence system is the Thermedics EGIS. It is capable of analyzing samples in 18 seconds, and because of its high sensitivity and excellent selectivity, it is a popular system with laboratory researchers and forensic analysts. (Guide for the Selection of Commercial Explosives Detection Systems for Law Enforcement Applications, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, 1999, p. 18)

In early 1990s, Germany's Ministry of Interior selected the EGIS 3000 system for use in all German airports (German Government Selects Thermo Electron Explosives Trace Detector as Standard for Airport Security After Competitive Performance Test).

In any other case, an allegation that two EGIS 3000 machines experienced a false-positive rate of 30% would be viewed as highly doubtful, if not impossible. Yet, the FBI and the NTSB would have us believe that the EGIS 3000 machines in the Calverton hangar experienced an astonishing false-positive rate of 98% (115 out of 118).

It is worth mentioning that the same FBI Lab that repeatedly declared that most of the Calverton EGIS detections were false positives was, during this same period, beset with accusations of fraud, evidence-tampering, and incompetence. The FBI's own Inspector General issued a report on the FBI Lab that documented numerous cases of inaccurate and scientifically flawed analysis, evidence mishandling, and evidence contamination.

The chief of the Explosives Unit at the FBI Lab during the TWA 800 investigation was J. Thomas Thurston. In a 1997 Senate hearing on problems with the FBI Lab, former Crime Lab Unit chief James Corby singled out Thurston as a problem and said Thurston "did alter reports intentionally" (The Flight 800 Investigation).

Incidentally, the NTSB report does not even mention the 116 EGIS detections of explosive residue. Perhaps the authors of the report feared that even the most gullible persons would not swallow the idea that any detection system, much less the EGIS 3000, would experience such a staggering error rate.

-- In an effort to explain away the three detections of explosive residue that the NTSB was willing to acknowledge, the NTSB report claims that canine bomb-sniffing training was conducted on the TWA 800 plane in St. Louis on June 10, 1996 (p. 118). This myth had already been debunked before the NTSB report was published, giving us another indication of the report's flawed and fraudulent nature.

It should be noted that the FBI made the false claim about the bomb-sniffing training before they had even interviewed the St. Louis Airport Police Department officer who did the training. In addition, the FBI never interviewed the two pilots who flew the TWA 800 plane from St. Louis on June 10, who could have told them that no such training was done on the plane. The training was done on another 747 that was parked nearby.

-- In another effort to explain away the three detections of explosive residue that the NTSB was willing to acknowledge, the NTSB report claims that explosives are soluble in water and that therefore any explosive residue deposited on pieces of TWA 800’s wreckage would have dissolved in the water (p. 119). The TWA 800 Project refutes this claim:

. . . the NTSB inaccurately claimed that the explosives were soluble in water and therefore if a missile had deposited explosive residues on the wreckage, those residues would have dissolved in the water. However, according to a report published by Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, PETN “is practically insoluble in water.” And according to the United States Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, the “solubility of RDX in water is low to negligible.” PETN and RDX are explosives used in missile warheads and were detected throughout the aircraft wreckage. (FACT CHECKING: Politico)

Former senior NTSB investigator Hank Hughes has also debunked the NTSB's claim about the solubility of explosive residue. He notes that the test cited by the NTSB was done in unrealistic conditions that bore no resemblance to the conditions involved with the TWA 800 wreckage (Affidavit of Henry F. Hughes, pp. 35-36, https://twa800project.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/affidavit-of-hank-hughes.pdf)

-- The NTSB did not issue a determination of the cause of TWA 800's crash. Instead, the NTSB issued a "probable cause" finding that was based on an unproven theory. The NTSB theorized that a short circuit occurred outside the center wing tank, that this short circuit generated a spark, and that this spark entered the fuel tank through FQIS wiring and caused the tank to explode. The NTSB admitted it was unable to identify the ignition source. Moreover, the NTSB was unable to determine how the alleged spark escaped from the FQIS wiring, which wiring was specifically designed to prevent just such an occurrence. Crucially, despite the NTSB's expenditure of millions of dollars on sophisticated experiments, NTSB investigators were unable to reproduce the alleged energy transfer mechanisms in real-world conditions.

The TWA 800 Project notes,

There was absolutely no evidence of any short circuit occurring. On the contrary, when the gauge for the system allegedly responsible for the crash (the fuel quantity indication system [FQIS]) was reconstructed, it was in perfect working condition, which led Boeing engineers to conclude that no short circuit of any kind occurred in that system. (FACT CHECKING: Popular Mechanics)

-- FBI agents were caught on surveillance video illegally removing parts from the TWA 800 wreckage at the Calverton hangar.

-- The reddish-orange residue on foam removed from one of the seats at the Calverton hangar was tested by a commercial lab and was found to contain large amounts of elements used in explosives. Terrell Stacey, a TWA member of the NTSB investigation, removed two pieces of seat foam stained with reddish-brown residue and gave them to investigative journalist James Sanders. Stacey did this because he had become convinced the NTSB investigation was a cover-up. Sanders had one of the pieces tested at a commercial lab in California (and sent the other piece to a CBS producer). The lab results showed that the residue contained high concentrations of elements used in missile fuel and pyrotechnics.

The lab results also showed that the residue's elements were very different from those of 3M glue. A test conducted at a Florida State University lab excluded 3M glue as a possible source of the reddish-orange residue. The FBI did test another piece of seat foam, but the residue on the piece looked quite different from the residue on the two Sanders pieces. If the FBI ever tested the other piece of foam that Stacey gave to Sanders, there is no record of it.

It should be noted that the FBI refused to allow CBS to have the other Sanders piece of foam tested by an independent lab. Instead, the FBI threatened CBS with legal action if they didn’t hand over the other Sanders piece of foam. Again, if the FBI ever did test the other Sanders piece of foam, there is no record of such a test.

-- There were puncture holes (i.e., inward-penetrating holes) in the exterior of the airplane. Such holes are common when a proximity-fused missile explodes within 100 feet of an airplane. Those holes could not have been caused by an explosion of the center wing tank.

-- There were spike-tooth fractures in the exterior of the airplane. Such fractures are caused by high-velocity explosions, not low-order/low-velocity explosions such as the one posited by the NTSB. Even the NTSB admitted that spike-tooth fractures are caused by high-energy events. The center wing tank explosion posited by the NTSB would have been a low-energy/low-velocity/low-order explosion, a deflagration.

Throughout the investigation, James Kallstrom, the head of the FBI's TWA 800 investigative effort, repeatedly used the straw-man scenario of a shoulder-fired missile to ignore the evidence of a proximity-fused missile. Kallstrom and a few other officials ensured that investigators only considered the scenario of a bomb or a shoulder-fired missile in their analysis of evidence of a manmade explosion. Since the scientists operated under the assumption that a proximity-fused missile was out of the question, they overlooked (or did not feel at liberty to acknowledge) clear evidence that this kind of missile exploded near the airliner. The TWA 800 Project:

Metallurgists and forensic scientists correctly showed that the evidence was inconsistent with a bomb or a shoulder-launched missile. Some of these metallurgists and scientists were misled into believing that the lack of shoulder-fired missile damage meant a lack of any type of missile damage. These scientists didn’t lie. Most had never investigated a shoot-down before and were misled about what the damage patterns from certain missile types look like. The NTSB never ruled out a proximity-fused missile, since that type of missile damage was not considered at all, according to their final report. The word “proximity-fused” does not appear anywhere in the NTSB final report. . . .

The extreme forces of air resistance on small projectiles exiting a missile a distance away from a target significantly reduces the speed of these projectiles. So even “low velocity holes” are consistent with a proximity-fused missile. What’s very important is the inward moving trajectory of the projectiles. This was not highlighted in the NTSB final report on the crash; the many holes and fractures consistent with being caused by projectiles originating from outside are very significant.

Regarding the two holes with high velocity characteristics mentioned above, all readers are urged to carefully review the official report, “TWA Flight 800 Analysis of Small Holes.” What the Popular Mechanics reporter does not reveal is that the NTSB investigator could not achieve high enough velocities to reproduce on test plates the holes found on TWA Flight 800 wreckage, even when firing test projectiles out of a gun. This means that whatever created the two holes on the TWA Flight 800 wreckage was created by something hitting it at a very high velocity—-a much higher velocity than the NTSB investigator was able to achieve during testing with a gun, a much higher velocity than the alleged low-velocity fuel-air explosion in the center wing tank and a much higher velocity than that at which the aircraft hit the water. . . .

Proximity-fused missiles do generate low velocity holes and impacts. Also, the reporter fails to mention spike tooth fractures found throughout the tank, which according to the NTSB, are created by a “high energy event.” These documented damage patterns are clear evidence of a high-energy event such as a missile warhead detonating at a distance from the aircraft (which is what proximity-fused missiles are designed to do)—-not from a low-velocity fuel-air explosion. (FACT CHECKING: Popular Mechanics; see also TWA Flight 800 - Physical Evidence).


-- The nose landing gear suffered severe concussive damage; damage that could not have been caused merely by the impact on the ocean. The terminal velocity of objects falling from TWA 800 to the sea would have been about 120-140 mph, not nearly fast enough to have done such marked structural damage to one of the toughest parts of the airliner. The nose landing gear compartment was 62 feet in front of the center wing tank, and numerous physical barriers and objects separated the two areas.

-- A wing leading edge rib, which was composed of tough structural aluminum, showed evidence of having been next to a high-velocity explosion. The part suffered substantial structural damage and had inward penetrating holes in it. During the NTSB investigation, ALPA crash investigator James Speer discussed this part with Dr. Merritt Birky, the head of the Fire and Explosions Group in the investigation. Birky dismissed the structural damage and holes as hydraulic damage from impact with the ocean water. Speer told him he knew this was wrong:

So we walked over and looked at that part and I asked him what he thought, and he asked me what I thought, and I said it looked to me like a high-velocity explosion. And he says, “Well, I have considered everything and I have decided that this happened by hydraulic action on impact with the water.”

I looked him right in the eye and I said, “Well BS.” And I said, “You know as well as I that terminal velocity of these things falling to the atmosphere near sea level, falling at terminal velocity is about 120 to 140 miles an hour, and at that kind of velocity does not do this kind of damage to structural aluminum”. . . .

And I said “there’s a piece of stringer attached to this.” And I said, “since when have you seen hydraulic action on impact with water cause sooting through the hole?” And with that, he turned on his heels and stomped off. (Affidavit of James Speer, p. 2)


Those who have watched Birky’s stumbling performance in the Borjesson-Stalcup TWA 800 documentary will not be surprised to learn that when Speer and Birky were discussing this piece of wreckage during the NTSB investigation, Birky “didn’t even know the different blast-front velocities between fuel-air and high explosions” (p. 3). Speer continues by explaining that only a high-order explosion could have caused the holes in the part, and that a low-order explosion, such as fuel-air explosion, could not have caused those holes:

That is very important in determining which type of explosion was involved because they produce very different damage patterns. The holes piercing the part in question were definitely from the high-velocity blast front of a high explosion, as opposed to a low order fuel-air explosion.

I even went to the JFK hangar on Sunday, after Boeing identified the part as a wing leading edge rib, and had a TWA mechanic lower the leading edge slats so I could photograph the large cavity in the leading edge. I did this to help people in ALPA and the NTSB understand that the holes piercing the part had to have been caused by a directed jet of high velocity gas from a high explosion as opposed to a low velocity fuel-air explosion that simply would have rolled around the ribs. (p. 3)


-- Over 100 witnesses said they saw an object streaking upward toward TWA 800 before it exploded. These witnesses were located in a wide range of locations, some on the beach, some farther inland, some in the air, and some on the ocean. Most of these witnesses used the word "flare," "firework," "streak," "rocket," or "missile" to describe the object.

The NTSB conducted a missile-visibility test in which people were positioned 2-12 miles away from the missile firing to approximate the locations of the TWA 800 missile witnesses. All of the participants in the test were able to see the missiles (https://www.netowne.com/conspiracy/conspiracies/missle-witness-study.html). (By the way, in the NTSB test, radar did not detect the missiles until they exploded.)

-- The FBI used a bogus CIA animation to try to explain what the witnesses saw, but the animation was so flawed that it was quickly abandoned and rarely mentioned again. CIA emails obtained via a FOIA lawsuit reveal that the CIA knew that both the radar tracking data and the black box data invalidated their animation. Some of these emails are shown in the Borjesson-Stalcup documentary TWA Flight 800.

-- The NTSB produced its own animation, but it was nearly as problematic as the CIA animation. The CIA animation featured a 3,000-foot "zoom climb" after the nose separated from the plane, while the NTSB animation featured a much more gradual and lower climb of 1,500 feet. Even the witnesses who were airborne said nothing about any kind of a climb but said the plane quickly began to drop. Most important, none of the radar data show a climb.

-- An audio expert discovered that the last four seconds of TWA 800’s Flight Data Recorder tape were deliberately erased after the crash (4secfinal).
excellent stuff there thanks.
 

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