TWA Flight 800: A Missile Shootdown

[Mushroom]

You probably could have just stopped right there and asked the board to consider anything else posted after that by giffith to be utter bullshit given the pure-bullshit-nature of the allegation.

His posts are always pure bullshit.

However, you are making the mistake that many do, that I am actually trying to debate him. I know that is absolutely useless, as he has almost no grasp on reality. What I am doing is providing a voice of reason and facts, in the hopes that others that might fall for his bullshit will actually engage their minds and realize it is all bullshit.

Debating with a Conspiracy Theorist is a fool's errand. Most barely have enough functioning brain cells to blow their nose. Or maybe more like pass gas, considering where those brain cells are actually located.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

From what I remember, the government had to come up with an instantaneous magical ascent of the craft to account for the what people reported as upward streak toward the aircraft and there was traces of RDX explosive on the recovered fuselage.

 

[westwall]

Uh, yes, an ICBM is a type of SAM. You must be kidding. Adamantly stating erroneous arguments does not make them any less erroneous. I guess you missed, or ignored, the distinction I drew between anti-air SAMs and ICBMs.
You know, when you get on a public board and declare that an ICBM is not a SAM, you show you have no business talking about this subject.



I cited an article for you that discusses the fact that subs have been able to fire anti-air SAMs for quite some time. Did you not bother to read it?

And I, yet again, note that you keep ignoring the point that we're not just talking about subs but also about surface combat ships that were in the area. Why do you keep ducking this point?

I also note that you've made no effort to defend the physically impossible mythical "zoom climb" that was theorized in an attempt to explain what the 100-plus eyewitnesses saw. You know that we now know that the radar data prove that no such climb occurred, right?



This is your pitiful response to the ARAP TWA 800 report??? The fact that you would so casually and ignorantly dismiss a report written by aviation professionals with experience in every relevant field involved in this case again shows that you are not to be taken seriously.

How about we do this: Let's read some of the new information, much of it obtained by FOIA suits, that's presented in the major lawsuit that was filed a few months ago by the prestigious law firm Bailey and Glasser on behalf of several family members of the crash victims:

In August that year, just six weeks after TWA 800 went down off Long Island, a rocket with classified Department of Defense sensors flew near and “startled” an American Airlines pilot near CSEDS’ sister land-based site on Virginia’s eastern seaboard.

A month later and in the same area, two missiles were launched from Navy ships at aerial target drones flying nearby.

Another two months later, on November 16, 1996, almost precisely where TWA 800 went down off Long Island, a Pakistani Airlines pilot reported to Air Traffic Control that a “rocket” rose in front of him and continued rising above his altitude. People on shore that evening were interviewed by the FBI and confirmed that a projectile rose between airliners off Long Island at the time.

Six hours earlier that November day, a witness described seeing a missile-like object rise quickly over South New Jersey or Staten Island, NY.

On that same day (March 17, 1997), an Air Force cargo pilot reported to Air Traffic Control, and later to the FBI, that he had been seconds away from taking “evasive maneuvers” to avoid being hit by a missile fired over Burlington, Vermont. After the missile arced away from his aircraft at the last minute, he flew by its “non vapor” exhaust plume.

Steve Habeger, the Executive Director of CSEDS’s sister site in Virginia during this time, recently testified in Dr. Stalcup’s FOIA in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, Thomas Stalcup v. Department of Defense, Civil Action No. 1:13-cv-11967-DLC (the “FOIA Litigation”), that he was personally aware of at least a dozen Aegis missile tests off the East Coast of the United States around this same overall time period.

As part of the FOIA Litigation, Dr. Stalcup recently obtained crucial new evidence regarding what caused TWA 800 to explode on July 17, 1996.

For example, Dr. Stalcup obtained several FBI records never released to the TWA 800 families or the public. One described an “original [Navy radar] tape” showing an object “heading straight for TWA 800.” Another describes an object on radar “impact[ing]” TWA 800 and “spiral[ling] away,” while also stating that witnesses described seeing a “flair (sic) going up. . . . , orbit/circle another object. Subsequently debris fell from the sky". . . .

One of these witnesses, Steven Habeger, the Executive Director of an East Coast Navy land-based test site, testified that within minutes of the TWA 800 disaster, he was ordered to allow the FBI to remove all Navy radar tapes from his facility that might have recorded the TWA 800 incident.

This event was corroborated by Mr. Habeger’s commanding officer and by FBI custody records obtained during the FOIA Litigation.

Dr. Stalcup also discovered that five days after the TWA 800 disaster, the Joint Terrorism Task Force directed the FBI to obtain another “original [Navy] radar tape” showing an object “heading straight for TWA 800” and to “prepare FD-302 re-procurement of this original tape.”

These radar tapes were confiscated by the FBI immediately after the crash of TWA 800. According to records obtained in the FOIA Litigation, they show an object “impact” TWA 800. . . . (pp. 15-18)



And your bilge is not worth answering.

No, an ICBM is NOT a type of SAM. An ICBM is twenty times the size of a SAM, has no ability to home on a flying target, and carries a nuclear warhead.

 

[Matted Joybeard]

An ICBM is a type of SAM is arguing on the level of a square as a type of rectangle, basically ignoring that words have meaning which mikegriffith1 either wants to throw or away or simply cannot grasp - I lean toward the latter here. While I suppose it's possible that an ICBM could be thought of as SAM through some weird mental leaps, no one even semi knowledgeable would talk of an ICBM as a SAM because of the literal definitional distinctions along with the individual self respect for not coming across as a total fool.

mikegriffith1 step back, realize you're bumping up and going beyond the limits of your understanding and ignoring your own intellectual or experiential shortcomings, the results being your susceptibility for buying into horseshit conspiracies.

 

[mikegriffith1]

Most credible explanation I recall was that it was a Stinger MANPAD, fired of the back end of a pleasure craft, that hit and brought down the 747. Supposedly there was an Israeli airline 747 scheduled for about the same takeoff time and that might have been the intended target. Quite a few of the Stingers that made it to Afghanistan in the 80s for the war with Russia were never accounted for/returned and speculation is some of them made it into the hands of Islamic Jihad orgs.

IIRC, during wreckage recovery a can (slightly larger than a soda can) with wires attached was found by one of the search vessels but considered not of consequence and tossed back into the sea. Supposedly descriptions match the ejector can used to boost a Stinger out of the launcher tube.

It was a great day for boating and seems the waters off that part of Long Island were crowded with pleasure craft. Step out to the fantail, aim, and launch. As soon as the missile is away, your partner guns the boat and does a rapid weave in and out of the other boats and gets blended into the crowd of such on the waters.

BTW, the auxiliary power unit of the 747 vents heated exhaust out the underside, mid wing/aircraft location, providing a heart source for lock on from front underside angle.

There was in fact an Israeli airliner that took off a short time before TWA 800 took off.

I'm open to the MANPAD theory, but I'm not sure that a MANPAD could have generated a high-velocity explosion. TWA 800's wreckage contained a number of indications of having been damaged by an external high-powered explosion. I'm not sure that a MANPAD explosion could have so severely damaged the front landing gear and blown the front landing gear doors inward. And I'm not sure that a MANPAD explosion could have bent a huge part of the center fuel tank's floor upward/inward.

I include a picture of the upward/inward-bent center fuel tank's floor in my article on the EMRTC test:

The EMRTC Test and TWA Flight 800: More Evidence Against the NTSB Theory

There are several credible accounts of missile wreckage being found and then being either discarded or confiscated and never catalogued.

It's worth noting that a major terrorist group took credit for TWA 800's destruction hours after it occurred, but the Clinton White House dismissed this as meaningless.

 

[Matted Joybeard]

'credible'. another word that has to have objective, empirical criteria, but here its just loosely thrown around.

the ntsb report is addresses all these theories surrounding the missile you keep puking out mikegriffith1. question if you ever read it. probably not because we have to operate from the assumption it's bullshit carefully put together over four years by the hundreds if not more experts and investigators tasked with conducting the evidence and actually looking at the evidence. it's pretty telling there's no link to it on your looney website. everyone should ignore the actual investigation and everything that went into it, smear literally everyone involved and not give it the weight due that you uncritically give to any dusty crackpot theory you come across.

 

[Matted Joybeard]

didn't the twa 800 wreckage sit assembled a couple of decades as an investigative research resource? i'm sure there's 'evidence' out there were it was assembled in such a way with parts omitted, destroyed and/or tampered with to hide the missile damage.

 

[mikegriffith1]

From what I remember, the government had to come up with an instantaneous magical ascent of the craft to account for the what people reported as upward streak toward the aircraft and there was traces of RDX explosive on the recovered fuselage.

Yes, you are correct. The first stab at this was the silliest and most dishonest: the CIA's 3,000-foot "zoom climb," which was met with such universal condemnation from pilots and scientists that it was quickly ditched. It was later learned that even NTSB experts privately expressed strong objections to the CIA about the zoom climb, but their objections were ignored.

Next and last came the NTSB's modified zoom climb scenario. In some ways, it was even worse than the CIA's zoom climb. Ignoring the eyewitness accounts, not to mention the laws of physics and the radar data, the NTSB posited a gradual climb of 1,500 feet. But, to do this, they had to theorize that the alleged center fuel tank explosion went unseen! Nobody noticed it! Then, said the NTSB, the flame spread gradually throughout the rest of the fuselage and to the wings, creating the "streaking object," never mind that dozens of the witnesses specified that the missile-like object originated at ground/sea level and flew upward toward TWA 800 before any explosions occurred.

Of course, once the NTSB was pressured into finally releasing the radar data, the gig was up. The radar data show no climb whatsoever; rather, they show exactly what the eyewitnesses described: they show the fuselage banking and rotating for a short distance and then dropping out of the sky like a rock.

And, yes, considerable explosive residue was found on and in the plane. The FBI was only willing to acknowledge a handful of the explosive residue detections. They lamely dismissed the rest of the detections as false positives, claiming that the super-sensitive EGIS Explosives Detection System produced dozens of false positives. In actuality, the EGIS system almost never gives false positives.

In an attempt to explain the few residue detections that they were willing to acknowledge, the FBI came up with the bogus story that a bomb-sniffing training exercise had been done on the TWA 800 plane in St. Louis two months before the crash, and the NTSB didn't bother to check the story.

The other explanation offered for the residue was the NTSB's hilarious claim that it was "quite possible" that the explosive residue was transferred from military ships or ground vehicles or from the clothing and boots of military personnel onto the wreckage during or after the recovery operation! Holy cow, if this were true, bomb-sniffing training done on military aircraft would produce hundreds of residue detections.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Kalstrom, Comey, Krebs, Biden, Hillary and the Bushes all prove you have to be a pathological liar to work on the US government

 

[AZrailwhale]

Uh, yes, an ICBM is a type of SAM. You must be kidding. Adamantly stating erroneous arguments does not make them any less erroneous. I guess you missed, or ignored, the distinction I drew between anti-air SAMs and ICBMs.
You know, when you get on a public board and declare that an ICBM is not a SAM, you show you have no business talking about this subject.



I cited an article for you that discusses the fact that subs have been able to fire anti-air SAMs for quite some time. Did you not bother to read it?

And I, yet again, note that you keep ignoring the point that we're not just talking about subs but also about surface combat ships that were in the area. Why do you keep ducking this point?

I also note that you've made no effort to defend the physically impossible mythical "zoom climb" that was theorized in an attempt to explain what the 100-plus eyewitnesses saw. You know that we now know that the radar data prove that no such climb occurred, right?



This is your pitiful response to the ARAP TWA 800 report??? The fact that you would so casually and ignorantly dismiss a report written by aviation professionals with experience in every relevant field involved in this case again shows that you are not to be taken seriously.

How about we do this: Let's read some of the new information, much of it obtained by FOIA suits, that's presented in the major lawsuit that was filed a few months ago by the prestigious law firm Bailey and Glasser on behalf of several family members of the crash victims:

In August that year, just six weeks after TWA 800 went down off Long Island, a rocket with classified Department of Defense sensors flew near and “startled” an American Airlines pilot near CSEDS’ sister land-based site on Virginia’s eastern seaboard.

A month later and in the same area, two missiles were launched from Navy ships at aerial target drones flying nearby.

Another two months later, on November 16, 1996, almost precisely where TWA 800 went down off Long Island, a Pakistani Airlines pilot reported to Air Traffic Control that a “rocket” rose in front of him and continued rising above his altitude. People on shore that evening were interviewed by the FBI and confirmed that a projectile rose between airliners off Long Island at the time.

Six hours earlier that November day, a witness described seeing a missile-like object rise quickly over South New Jersey or Staten Island, NY.

On that same day (March 17, 1997), an Air Force cargo pilot reported to Air Traffic Control, and later to the FBI, that he had been seconds away from taking “evasive maneuvers” to avoid being hit by a missile fired over Burlington, Vermont. After the missile arced away from his aircraft at the last minute, he flew by its “non vapor” exhaust plume.

Steve Habeger, the Executive Director of CSEDS’s sister site in Virginia during this time, recently testified in Dr. Stalcup’s FOIA in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, Thomas Stalcup v. Department of Defense, Civil Action No. 1:13-cv-11967-DLC (the “FOIA Litigation”), that he was personally aware of at least a dozen Aegis missile tests off the East Coast of the United States around this same overall time period.

As part of the FOIA Litigation, Dr. Stalcup recently obtained crucial new evidence regarding what caused TWA 800 to explode on July 17, 1996.

For example, Dr. Stalcup obtained several FBI records never released to the TWA 800 families or the public. One described an “original [Navy radar] tape” showing an object “heading straight for TWA 800.” Another describes an object on radar “impact[ing]” TWA 800 and “spiral[ling] away,” while also stating that witnesses described seeing a “flair (sic) going up. . . . , orbit/circle another object. Subsequently debris fell from the sky". . . .

One of these witnesses, Steven Habeger, the Executive Director of an East Coast Navy land-based test site, testified that within minutes of the TWA 800 disaster, he was ordered to allow the FBI to remove all Navy radar tapes from his facility that might have recorded the TWA 800 incident.

This event was corroborated by Mr. Habeger’s commanding officer and by FBI custody records obtained during the FOIA Litigation.

Dr. Stalcup also discovered that five days after the TWA 800 disaster, the Joint Terrorism Task Force directed the FBI to obtain another “original [Navy] radar tape” showing an object “heading straight for TWA 800” and to “prepare FD-302 re-procurement of this original tape.”

These radar tapes were confiscated by the FBI immediately after the crash of TWA 800. According to records obtained in the FOIA Litigation, they show an object “impact” TWA 800. . . . (pp. 15-18)



And your bilge is not worth answering.

The only way an ICBM could shoot down an aircraft is to ACCIDENTLY hit it. ICBMs dont have any kind of homing capability.

 

[mikegriffith1]

The only way an ICBM could shoot down an aircraft is to ACCIDENTLY hit it. ICBMs dont have any kind of homing capability.

HUH? I never said that an ICBM hit TWA 800. Nobody has made any such claim.

 

[mikegriffith1]

Any discussion about the finding of explosive residue inside TWA 800 must include the long streak of reddish-orange residue that was found on the upper backs of seats in rows 17, 18, and 19. One of the investigators in the Calverton hangar, Captain Terrell Stacey, cut two pieces of foam from one of the reddish-orange-stained seats and turned them over to investigative journalist James Sanders for testing. Sanders had one of the pieces tested at a commercial lab in California, West Coast Analytical Services. The FBI claimed the reddish-orange residue was 3M glue, but the commercial lab’s test results clearly indicated the residue was explosive residue:

The high amounts of magnesium, calcium, aluminum, iron, and antimony were all key ingredients of incendiary devices and would not be legally allowed in any “glue” associated with airplane cabin interior. Calcium, which is used when extreme heat is desired, made up 12 percent of the reddish-orange residue. All told, 99 percent of the elements by volume in the residue samples were consistent with elements expected to be found in an incendiary warhead.

Additional research revealed that “energized explosives” used in warheads create much more heat when magnesium, boron, aluminum, and zinc are added to RDX and/or PETN. These elements comprised a significant percentage of the residue Sanders received from Stacey. As noted earlier, PETN samples—and reportedly RDX samples—had been found and confirmed on Flight 800 debris from this same area of penetration, the right-side passenger cabin between rows 17 and 27. (Jack Cashill and James Sanders, First Strike: TWA Flight 800 and the Attack on America, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Kindle Edition, 2003, p. 112)

The West Coast Analytical Services test results also show that the reddish-orange residue was very different from 3M glue:

Magnesium
18% (residue)
2.5% (3M glue)

Silicon
15% (residue)
.0005% (3M glue)

Calcium
12% (residue)
.0020% (3M glue)

Zinc
3.6 % (residue)
.043% (3M glue)

Iron
3.1% (residue)
.0041% (3M glue)

Aluminum
2.8% (residue)
.0065% (3M glue)

Lead
2.4% (residue)
0% (3M glue)

Titanium
1.7% (residue)
.00012% (3M glue)

Manganese
.21% (residue)
.00048% (3M glue)

For the complete comparison between the reddish-orange residue and 3M glue, and for information about the NTSB’s inexcusable refusal to follow up on NASA’s finding that the first metal aircraft part recovered from the crash contained nitrates, see this article:

Investigation of Red Residue

The Flight 800 Investigation

Associated Retired Aviation Professionals - Commander Donaldson, USN Ret. has uncovered significant new information that shows that TWA Flight 800 was shot down by shoulder fired missiles.

twa800.com

 

[mikegriffith1]

'credible'. another word that has to have objective, empirical criteria, but here its just loosely thrown around.

the ntsb report is addresses all these theories surrounding the missile you keep puking out

No, it does not. Clearly, you have not read the NTSB report and/or you are unaware of the issues that it does not even mention.

And in those cases where the NTSB report does address evidence of a weapon explosion, it makes claims that had already been debunked by then. For example, to explain the explosive residue found inside the plane, the NTSB repeats the claim that a bomb-sniffing exercise was done on the TWA 800 plane in St. Louis on 6/10/1996, even though that myth had been soundly debunked by the time the report was published.

And then there's the NTSB report's bogus claims about the streak-patterned reddish-orange residue found on the backs of some seats. The report repeats the false claim that NASA testing found that residue to be 3M glue. That is absurd. The report does not even address the testing of that residue by a respected commercial lab in Los Angeles, whose results I've already discussed earlier. The composition of that residue was nothing like the composition of 3M glue.

Or, look at the NTSB report's disgraceful misrepresentation of the 100-plus eyewitness accounts of an object streaking upward toward TWA 800 before it exploded.

mikegriffith1. question if you ever read it. probably not because we have to operate from the assumption it's &*$%^*(&^ carefully put together over four years by the hundreds if not more experts and investigators tasked with conducting the evidence and actually looking at the evidence. it's pretty telling there's no link to it on your looney website. everyone should ignore the actual investigation and everything that went into it, smear literally everyone involved and not give it the weight due that you uncritically give to any dusty crackpot theory you come across.

You are the one who is uncritically accepting a crackpot theory, and you obviously know little about the NTSB "investigation" and how the NTSB report was written. We now know that many of the experts on the investigative team strongly objected to the ridiculous center-wing-tank-explosion theory. We also have photographic proof that physical evidence of an external explosion was altered in the hangar. Obviously, the NTSB report says nothing about these crucial facts.

But, you know what, yes, I will add a link to the NTSB report to my TWA 800 website. My site already includes several links to sites that link to the NTSB report, and the NTSB report is readily available with a quick Google search. My site offers the balance of providing reports and research that refute the NTSB report, but these reports and research are not as readily available as the NTSB report. Nevertheless, I will add a link to the NTSB report to my site.

By the way, where in the NTSB report does it explain the severe concussive damage that was done to the nose landing gear? Where does it explain how the low-velocity/low-order explosion posited by the NTSB could have caused such severe damage to landing gear that was over 60 feet forward of the center wing tank?

This damage is especially revealing because the landing gear is made of steel and titanium and is one of the strongest, toughest parts of the airliner. It could not have been damaged so severely merely from the impact of landing on the water.

Some TWA 800 investigators recognized the obvious implications of this damage and shared this information with journalists. I quote from a story published in the Baltimore Sun on July 31, 1996:

The front landing gear of the Boeing 747 that crashed off the coast here July 17 shows damage from a powerful blast inside the plane, the first clear physical evidence that the plane was brought down by a bomb, federal investigators said last night.

The landing gear would have been retracted into its housing inside the fuselage long before the plane exploded, and the hydraulic mechanism that retracts it was found to have "serious concussive damage," a federal investigator said. "By the way it had been smashed, the bomb experts thought it had been very close to the source of the explosion”. . . .

Samples of apparent residue found on the landing gear have been sent to the FBI lab in Washington to see if they hold chemical traces of an explosive.

One investigator who saw the hydraulic unit described the damage as "more like a crack than a tear."

"The vast majority of the wreckage has been these torn, mangled pieces of thin metal, from the fuselage," he said. "This was a huge piece of thick steel, and it had been blasted, is the only way to describe it." (Landing gear damage points to bomb on TWA flight Retracted nose wheel took strong blast, probers say)

This was at the time when the FBI appeared ready to go with, or at least reluctantly accept, the bomb explanation, since the missile explanation was summarily and prematurely rejected by key officials within days after the crash, if not hours.

The ARAP TWA 800 report notes the following about the implication of the damage to the landing gear:

The nose gear doors were forced into the gear well before the aircraft hit the water. See NTSB Exhibit 7A. . . .

The landing gear on a B747 are extremely tough. They can be extended at speeds up to 320 knots Indicated Air Speed (IAS), or .82 mach, and can be raised at speeds up to 270 knots IAS, or.82mach. Flight 800’s airspeed was 298 IAS and .6 mach! This means that even if the Captain had intentionally lowered the landing gear in flight at 13,800 feet, nothing in the landing gear or gear door assemblies would have failed. (Interim Report on the Crash of TWA Flight 800 and the Actions of the NTSB and the FBI, July 17, 1998, p. 18)

James Sanders and Jack Cashill provide helpful information about the damage to the nose landing gear, including the fact that residue on the landing gear tested positive for explosive material:

Although the landing gear had been retracted into its housing before the plane exploded, “serious concussive damage” disfigured its hydraulic mechanism. This was not easily done. With the exception of certain engine components, the landing gear is the strongest single part of an aircraft, made as it is of steel and titanium. . . .

With on-site results testing positive, “samples of apparent residue found on the landing gear have been sent to the F.B.I. lab in Washington to find if they hold chemical traces of an explosive.” (First Strike, p. 52)

The testing of residue samples at the Calverton hangar was done with the super-sensitive EGIS explosive detection system. Over 100 items from the plane, including some from the exterior, tested positive for explosive material when tested by the EGIS machines at the hangar. False positives are extremely rare, if not unheard of, with EGIS. Yet, the FBI and the NTSB would have us believe that the EGIS machines at the hangar produced an astounding 100-plus false positives in this case, a preposterous claim.

By the way, NTSB defenders refer to EGIS units as “portable,” implying that they’re not very thorough. Actually, each EGIS machine weighs about 300 pounds, and EGIS was a highly sophisticated and extremely sensitive detection system. Israel bought a number of EGIS units. A 1999 Department of Justice Guide for the Selection of Commercial Explosives Detection Systems for Law Enforcement Applications said the following about the EGIS system:

The best-known GC/chemiluminescence system is the Thermedics Egis. It is capable of analyzing samples in 18 s, and because of its high sensitivity and excellent selectivity it is a popular system with laboratory researchers and forensic analysts. (p. 18)

Yet, again, the NTSB and the FBI would have us believe that the EGIS machines in the Calverton hangar produced over 100 false positives. That is truly a crackpot claim.

 

[Mushroom]

There was in fact an Israeli airliner that took off a short time before TWA 800 took off.

 

[Mushroom]

didn't the twa 800 wreckage sit assembled a couple of decades as an investigative research resource? i'm sure there's 'evidence' out there were it was assembled in such a way with parts omitted, destroyed and/or tampered with to hide the missile damage.

That is exactly true. It actually sat in a hangar until 2021 until it was finally disposed of. And that was only because the lease on the hanger was expiring. Otherwise, it would still be there.

I wonder why all these "experts" never seem to have bothered to try and get access to it.

 

[Mushroom]

HUH? I never said that an ICBM hit TWA 800. Nobody has made any such claim.

What??? Where are you getting this stuff? Some submarines most certainly do have surface-to-air missiles.

Uh, yes, an ICBM is a type of SAM. You must be kidding. Adamantly stating erroneous arguments does not make them any less erroneous. I guess you missed, or ignored, the distinction I drew between anti-air SAMs and ICBMs.
You know, when you get on a public board and declare that an ICBM is not a SAM, you show you have no business talking about this subject.

No, you just tried to spin your BS into something that was not even close to true. Then doubled down on it repeatedly.

Just like this entire thread is largely BS, and had no place in the "history" area. Just more CT nonsense.

Kind of like the USS Liberty ones that crop up in here over and over again.

 

[mikegriffith1]

That is exactly true. It actually sat in a hangar until 2021 until it was finally disposed of. And that was only because the lease on the hanger was expiring. Otherwise, it would still be there.

I wonder why all these "experts" never seem to have bothered to try and get access to it.

You again show your ignorance on this issue, caused by your refusal to read the other side of the story.

Are you actually suggesting that Hank Hughes, James Speer, Glen Schulze, Ray Lahr, Robert Young, etc., are not experts? You realize that Hughes, Speer, and Young took part in the NTSB's TWA 800 investigation, right? Right?

You realize that Hughes headed the Airplane Interior Documentation Group in the NTSB investigation, right? Have you read his 42-page affidavit that he filed in support of the TWA 800 Project's petition for reconsideration? There's a link to it on my TWA 800 website. Oh, heck, I suspect you won't bother to go there to find it, so here's a link to his affidavit:

https://twa800project.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/affidavit-of-hank-hughes.pdf

I see that, like a juvenile, you're still playing your dishonest fiddle about my statements regarding ICBMs and SAMs. As I've explained, I was initially speaking strictly generically, not in terms of military nomenclature. But, I'm sure you'll keep beating that drum like a middle-schooler, since you obviously know little about the TWA 800 case.

 

[Mushroom]

You again show your ignorance on this issue, caused by your refusal to read the other side of the story.

And you foolishly believe I have never looked at the other side.

I did look at it, studied a hell of a lot of the data, and in the end realized it was almost all garbage and dismissed it.

And no, I am not being dishonest about an ICBM and a SAM. You are the one that foolishly stated that an ICBM is a SAM. Then you doubled down on it yet again. You are the one that made that claim, not me. And now you are simply acting childish because you could not make me believe that an ICBM is a SAM no more than I believe in this pile of rubbish you keep dishing out.

You are constantly making completely incorrect claims, then get all butthurt when called out on that repeatedly. Yet, you call me "juvenile".

 

[mikegriffith1]

And you foolishly believe I have never looked at the other side.

I did look at it, studied a hell of a lot of the data, and in the end realized it was almost all garbage and dismissed it.

Then why haven't you addressed any of the evidence I've presented? Surely if it's "garbage," you should be able to easily refute it. Simply claiming that it's "totally incorrect" is not addressing it.

And no, I am not being dishonest about an ICBM and a SAM. You are the one that foolishly stated that an ICBM is a SAM. Then you doubled down on it yet again. You are the one that made that claim, not me. And now you are simply acting childish because you could not make me believe that an ICBM is a SAM no more than I believe in this pile of rubbish you keep dishing out.

This is just more of your dishonest posturing. As I've explained to you three times now, I was speaking strictly in a generic sense and not in terms of military nomenclature, in the same way that one might describe a small farm tractor to a child as a "motor vehicle," which is perfectly true in a generic sense but incorrect in terms of standard DMV nomenclature. Since you came across as knowing nothing about military matters, I was trying to explain things in a basic, generic manner to you.

You are constantly making completely incorrect claims, then get all butthurt when called out on that repeatedly. Yet, you call me "juvenile".

You are delusional, or just dishonest. You have not addressed any of the evidence I've presented. You just keep saying it's "all wrong," "BS," "completely incorrect," without offering any sources or facts to support your posturing.

How about you explain why the following points about the bogus list of fuel-tank explosions in the NTSB report is "completely incorrect"? Be a big boy and prove you've read half of what you imply you've read.

The NTSB report attempts to give the impression that fuel-tank explosions like the one theorized for TWA 800 are not unprecedented:

The Safety Board has participated in the investigation of several aviation accidents/incidents involving fuel tank explosions. According to a list prepared by the FAA, since 1959 there have been at least 26 documented fuel tank explosions/fires in military and civilian transport-category airplanes (including TWA flight 800). Appendix G lists these fuel tank explosions/fires, several of which are discussed in greater detail in this section. (p. 179)

However, when we examine Appendix G, we see that the list of alleged examples of fuel-tank explosions is a mix of fraud and irrelevance.

First off, we can scratch TWA 800 from the list, since the NTSB did not determine the cause of the crash but only offered a "probable cause" theory and failed to produce any physical evidence that confirmed the theory (nor was the NTSB able to duplicate the theory in an experiment). Plus, it is poor logic to include Airliner A in a list that ostensibly presents precedents for your theory about Airliner A.

Thus, we're really only talking about 25 alleged examples of fuel-tank explosions. Consider the following facts about these proposed examples:

-- Of the 25 alleged examples, not one was a Boeing 747 center wing tank explosion caused by a spark from an internal ignition source. Not one.

-- Of the 25 alleged examples, not one was a Boeing 747, and not one was even a wide-body aircraft made by Boeing or by any other company. Not one.

-- 16 of the 25 supposed examples were in planes that were using JP-4 fuel. JP-4 fuel is far more flammable than the Jet-A fuel that TWA 800 was using.

Thus, we're really only talking about nine examples that include the crucial condition of Jet-A fuel. But, for the sake of argument, I will continue with the 25-examples assumption.

-- 15 of the 25 proposed examples did not even happen in the air but occurred on the ground.

-- Only eight of the 25 alleged examples involved center wing tanks. One of those eight examples was Avianca Flight 203, which, as the report acknowledges, was destroyed on 11/27/1989 by a bomb placed above the center wing tank! Are you kidding me? (Note: The list misspells Avianca as "Avionca.")

Another one of those eight examples, the 1990 explosion of Philippines Airlines Flight 143, may not have even involved a center wing tank explosion at all (see ARAP, Interim Report on the Crash of TWA Flight 800 and the Actions of the NTSB and the FBI, pp. 8-9, https://twa800.com/report/final.pdf).

-- A look at some of the other cases included in the remaining 25 supposed examples shows how badly the NTSB was reaching and straining when they endorsed and published the FAA's list. As you read each of these cases, ask yourself, "How in the world does this support the NTSB's theory that TWA 800's center wing tank exploded because of an unidentified short circuit outside the tank that supposedly generated a spark that then somehow escaped from the FQIS wiring inside the tank?" Let's take a look:

* The 1989 case of a Beechjet 400 (Be 400). The auxiliary tank ignited during ground refueling due to an electrostatic discharge from polyurethane foam. The tank remained intact.

* The 1974 case of a World Airways DC-8 using JP-4 fuel. The inboard main tank exploded when a mechanic forced a circuit breaker into an open fuel cell during ground maintenance.

* The 1964 case of a Southern Air Transport Boeing 727. A wing tank exploded when the center tank was being purged for entry and a static discharge occurred from a CO2 Firex Nozzle into the center tank access door during ground maintenance.

* The 1965 case of a Boeing 707 in San Francisco. An engine fire heated the wing's upper surface to over 900 degrees F. Not surprisingly, the wing's fuel tank exploded, destroying 21 feet of the wing. The plane landed safely.

* The 1980 case of a B-52G using JP-4 fuel. During ground maintenance, fuel was being transferred from body tanks to wing tanks. The empty mid-body tank exploded due to electrical arcing in the mid-body boost pump because a phased lead wire was mispositioned inside the pump. (Arcing is when an electric current moves through the air between two conductive points.)

The bottom line is that never in the history of aviation before 7/16/1996 had an airliner's center wing tank exploded from an internal ignition source, and no airliner has experienced such an explosion since then. This fact alone suggests that the NTSB's TWA 800 theory deserves a large dose of skepticism from the outset.

 

[Matted Joybeard]

Just fucking lol at this 'logic'.