Posted on 06/10/2002 4:43:57 PM PDT by Asmodeus
This could be a very big hint, indeed!
"Do you believe that assertion to be true?"
The fiery events in the sky didn't commence until 30+ seconds AFTER the Initiating Event at 13,800 feet and there was nothing unusual in the sky for the witnesses to see until then. The fiery streak appeared only moments before the Massive Fireball explosion, was most likely fire in the falling wreckage and appears to have been the ignition source of the main fuel bearing wreckage, setting off the MF.
Stephanopoulis 9/11/02 on ABC --
"There are facilities in the White House, not the normal situation room, which everyone has seen in the past, has seen pictures of. There is a second situation room, behind the primary situation room, which has video conferencing capabilities. The director of the Pentagon, the defense chief, can speak from a national military command center at the Pentagon. The Secretary of State can speak from the State Department, the president from wherever he is, and they'll have this capability for video conferencing throughout this crisis. In my time at the White House it was used in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing, in the aftermath of the TWA Flight 800 bombing, and that would be the way they would stay in contact through the afternoon."
Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker 6/3/02 --
By 1990, in the wake of the terrorist bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, congressional committees had concluded that the F.A.A. needed more immediate access to current intelligence, and urged than an F.A.A. security official be assigned to the relevant offices in the C.I.A., the F.B.I., and the State Department. Leo Boivin, who was the agency's primary security analyst at the time, told me, "I started the program. Getting into the C.I.A. and State was no problem, but the F.B.I. effectively said no--that it wasn't going to happen. The bureau didn't want anybody in there, and we couldn't fight the bureau." In 1996, after the crash of T.W.A. Flight 800, a commission directed by Vice-President Al Gore also called for closer liaison."
From the FAA web site an Airworthiness Directive.
Airworthiness Directives
DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
Federal Aviation Administration
14 CFR Part 39 [64 FR 4959 No. 21 02/02/99]
Docket No. 98-NM-50-AD; Amendment 39-11018; AD 99-03-04 RIN 2120-AA64
Airworthiness Directives; BOEING Model 737-100, -200, -300, -400, and -500 Series Airplanes
99-03-04 BOEING: Amendment 39-11018. Docket 98-NM-50-AD.
Applicability: All Model 737-100, -200, -300, -400, and -500 series airplanes; certificated in any category.
NOTE 1: This AD applies to each airplane identified in the preceding applicability provision, regardless of whether it has been modified, altered, or repaired in the area subject to the requirements of this AD. For airplanes that have been modified, altered, or repaired so that the performance of the requirements of this AD is affected, the owner/operator must request approval for an alternative method of compliance in accordance with paragraph (c) of this AD. The request should include an assessment of the effect of the modification, alteration, or repair on the unsafe condition addressed by this AD; and, if the unsafe condition has not been eliminated, the request should include specific proposed actions to address it.
Compliance: Required as indicated, unless accomplished previously.
To prevent possible ignition of fuel vapors in the fuel tanks, and external ignition of fuel vapor exiting the fuel vent system and consequent propagation of a flame front into the fuel tanks, accomplish the following:
(a) Within 48 months after the effective date of this AD, provide shielding and separation of the fuel system wiring (that is routed to the fuel tanks) from adjacent wiring, in accordance with a method approved by the Manager, Seattle Aircraft Certification Office (ACO), FAA, Transport Airplane Directorate.
(b) Within 36 months after the effective date of this AD, install flame arrestors and pressure relief valves in the fuel vent system, in accordance with a method approved by the Manager, Seattle ACO.
(c) An alternative method of compliance or adjustment of the compliance time that provides an acceptable level of safety may be used if approved by the Manager, Seattle ACO. Operators shall submit their requests through an appropriate FAA Principal Maintenance Inspector, who may add comments and then send it to the Manager, Seattle ACO.
NOTE 2: Information concerning the existence of approved alternative methods of compliance with this AD, if any, may be obtained from the Seattle ACO.
(d) Special flight permits may be issued in accordance with sections 21.197 and 21.199 of the Federal Aviation Regulations (14 CFR 21.197 and 21.199) to operate the airplane to a location where the requirements of this AD can be accomplished.
(e) This amendment becomes effective on March 9, 1999.
Url = http://www1.airweb.faa.gov/Regulatory_and_Guidance_Library/rgAD.nsf/0/B4972818C7BF1C7386256982006B9B79?OpenDocument&Highlight=747%20fuel
url for FAA = http://www1.airweb.faa.gov/Regulatory_and_Guidance_Library/rgAD.nsf/MainFrame?OpenFrameSet
In fact if you search for “747 fuel” this is the only airworthiness directive you will find. None for “747 fuel tank”. About a year ago I searched for any airworthiness directive for 747 relating to the 'cause' of TWA 800 and did not find any thing. Now it appears with a 1999 date?
I like the urgency of this requirement, “Within 48 months after the effective date”.
YES FOUR YEARS
And this was a major accident.
The missle is what caught people's attention, and caused them to be looking when the plane was struck.
I didn't know it was just a gravity problem.
At that, this AD seems to apply only to Boeing 737 aircraft, not 747s.
I saw that interview. It was just as you describe.
"...he very matter of factly said that it was known to be a missile hit, and not a fuel tank explosion."
He is my favorite "expert"...
I hadn't heard that expression...but it is apt!
- yes ..."
LOL! Sound like a politician, there!
Accuracy in Media - PRESS RELEASE
Washington, DC - July 14, 2000 For Immediate Release
TWA EyeWitness Alliance to Hold Press Conference on the 4th Anniversary of the TWA Flight 800 Crash
When: Monday, July 17, 2000 at 10:30 a.m. Where: National Press Club, Zenger Room
Eyewitnesses - Three of the 755 eyewitnesses interviewed by the FBI will relate what they saw — Dwight Brumley, who from an airliner 5000 feet above TWA 800, saw a missile blow it up; Fred Meyer, veteran helicopter pilot, who saw a missile strike the plane from his National Guard helicopter; Michael Wire, who was falsely described by the CIA as having provided the evidence on which its absurd video simulation of the crash was based. All three agree that this simulation bears no relationship to reality.
Click here for an 18 July 2000 Associated Press article by G. Stephen Bierman Jr. about that Press Conference. Two excerpts read as follows [emphasis added]:
[quote]On the fourth anniversary of the crash of TWA Flight 800, two witnesses criticized investigators Monday for doing too little to determine the source of a light they say they saw in the sky near the doomed plane. [end quote] [quote]Dwight Brumley, who watched as a passenger on another flight 5,000 feet above Flight 800, said he told his story to the FBI but felt it wasn't taken seriously. "I could not positively say that what I saw was a missile. What I saw was a very bright flame of light moving parallel to my aircraft", Brumley said at a news conference. [end quote]
The same clickable reference source includes the transcript of a recorded inept interview of witness Brumley. It isn't clear if it was at that press conference. Note the elapsed time between the fiery streak and the Massive Fireball explosion in the falling wreckage at 5500-7500 feet was only 1-2 seconds.
Meyer apparently didn't appear at the Press Conference but he stated as follows to an NTSB Witness Group: "I saw a streak of light in the sky. I have no idea what it was. And my reaction when I saw it was, what the hell is that?
Click here for Meyer's detailed report. He obviously could not have seen a "shootdown" of the airliner at 13,800 feet only 3-4 seconds before he saw the Massive Fireball explode in the falling wreckage at 5500-7500 feet.
If you have a report of Michael Wire you want to post, do so. The following is from the Archives of the LSoft Flight 800 Forum: [excerpt][quote]That one eyewitness is Michael Wire, a machinery expert who was working on a new drawbridge on Beach Lane, a road running from Westhampton, Long Island, to the beach. Wire's FBI report says that standing on the bridge, looking toward the beach, he saw a white light just above the rooftop of a house about 900 feet away, ascending from the ground at about a 40 degree angle. It "sparkled" and he thought it was fireworks. It "zig zagged" as it traveled upward and was going south-southeast when it "arched over" and disappeared from view. Two or three seconds later he saw an orange light that appeared to be a fireball in the sky about half a mile away. It was falling at about a 30-degree angle, with a fire trail burning behind it. According to Wire, the fireball disappeared behind a house two houses away from the one where he saw the white light. He then heard the first and loudest of four explosions. It shook the bridge. Eight or nine seconds later he heard two more explosions followed by a fourth a second later.
[end quote] Note that the elapsed time between the fiery streak and the Massive Fireball explosion in the falling wreckage at 5500-7500 feet is two or three seconds.
None of those 3 witnesses could have possibly seen a "missile shootdown" of Flight 800 at 13,800 feet. The sequential timeline tells the tale. Yet, the Donaldson brothers' website and Reed Irvine contend they are "missile witnesses".
The timeline and location of the major events of the disaster was approximately as follows:
8:31:11 Intact and climbing 747 approaches 13,800 feet.
8:31:12 Initiating Event at 13,800 feet followed immediately by the commencement of the decapitation process.
8:31:47 explosion of Massive Fireball in the falling wreckage at 5500-7500 feet. 8:31:55-8:31:57 splashdown of the Massive Fireball flames.
Source.
Well, your not crazy. I know I heard two different interview accounts aired after the crash that said they saw something fly into the path of the airliner. I don't know how reliable the people were for something like this, but at the time, they said saw *something* before the crash that was not part of the airliner. I recall thay were separate accounts.
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