MSNBC and the missing videotape: Jack Cashill examines network's role in TWA Flight 800 cover-up

On April 20, 2001, a Peruvian military jet pilot confused a small plane carrying missionaries for one carrying drug runners and shot it down. In the last two weeks, MSNBC has been leading the charge to bring this case to closure.

Its on-air personnel – Chris Matthews and Joe Scarborough in particular – have been asking hard questions about why no charges have been brought against CIA agents who may have lied about the nature of this crash. The MSNBC website invites citizens to communicate their concerns about this presumed cover-up through MSNBC to the U.S. government.

This would be all well and good were it not for the likely role that MSNBC played in the cover-up of TWA Flight 800. On July 18, 1996, about 12 hours after TWA Flight 800 exploded off the coast of Long Island, a military officer – off the record – told a very tired Fox News senior reporter that "a major screw-up" had occurred and that the "White House" had ordered the military to "stand down" for 48 hours until policy decisions were reached.

This did not surprise the Fox journalist. For hours the previous evening, Fox News had reportedly been involved in a bidding war for an amateur video tape of the 747 being destroyed by what appeared to be missile fire. When the electronic bidding war reached $50,000, Fox was eliminated from the process.

The high bidder seems to have been NBC and/or its new sister network, MSNBC. This makes market sense in that MSNBC had been launched just two days prior, and the publicity would have been well worth the cost. Still, I say "seems" because my sources here will not speak on record, nor will MSNBC follow up on queries. Here is exactly what I know, no more, no less.

In the summer of 2001, my partner James Sanders, and I were negotiating with Broadcast Network News (BNN) – the world's largest independent news producer – to distribute our documentary on the subject of TWA Flight 800, "Silenced." These were serious negotiations. The person with whom we were communicating was BNN's chief executive officer, Steve Rosenbaum.

One day that summer, Rosenbaum called me in a state of high excitement. "Jack," he said, "you will not believe the conversation I just had." Although Rosenbaum thought our video had market potential, he was not at all convinced of our thesis, namely that missiles had been fired at TWA Flight 800. The conversation in question eliminated just about all doubt.

As Rosenbaum explained, he had been interviewing a candidate for a position as BNN's technical director at a rooftop cafe when an airplane passed overhead. The conversation moved naturally to airplanes and then, with Rosenbaum taking the lead, to TWA Flight 800.

"I've seen the video," said the candidate, who had until recently been working at MSNBC.

"No," the candidate answered, "the video, the actual video of the plane being shot down."

As the candidate told Rosenbaum, late on the night of the crash, editors at MSNBC had the tape on their monitors when "three men in suits" came to their editing suites, removed the tape, and threatened the editors with serious consequences if they ever revealed its contents.

The threats worked all too well. Despite my repeated requests, Rosenbaum could not get the technical director, whom he hired, to go on record. Over the years, I have asked various producers at MSNBC to follow up, but if they did, they kept what they learned to themselves.

Earlier in his research, Sanders had been approached by a technician at another station who had monitoring the competition's feeds from Long Island and made a bootleg copy of that same amateur video. What is more, he withheld a copy from the FBI when its agents came to confiscate whatever relevant tapes his station might have. Despite a series of phone calls, Sanders could not persuade the technician to hand over the tape. His fear was palpable enough, however, to convince Sanders that he was telling the truth.

Although I have not seen the video myself, I have heard from scores, if not hundreds, of credible people who swear they saw it on television in the first hours after the crash. That at least one among the hundreds of eyewitnesses would have had a video camera handy during a beautiful summer sunset evening makes perfect sense. The FBI admits to having confiscated two still photos and predictably writes off the images to dirt or scratches on the lens. A video would have been much harder to dismiss.

Nelson DeMille has obviously heard these stories as well – and perhaps more. In his best-selling novel, "Night Falls," a confiscated amateur video drives the plot. Although he spices the video up a bit in the retelling, DeMille is not just spinning fantasy. His insider details have the ring of authenticity about them.

What makes the MSNBC involvement all the more ironic is that the CIA was responsible for producing the 15-minute animated video used successfully to discredit the eyewitness testimony. If the MSNBC producers are interested in exposing not just a routine CIA cover-up, but the most consequential cover-up in American history, my fellow investigators and I will be happy to lead them right to the source.

There is admittedly much we still do not know about the explosion of TWA Flight 800, but we know enough about the CIA cover-up to bring indictments. Before turning on the CIA, however, MSNBC might want to look inward. The CIA at least had the excuse of national security. If MSNBC had reasons for betraying its journalistic ethics, I am not sure I know what they are. Indeed, had its new executives stuck to their guns that night, they might very well have prevented Sept. 11.

> You wouldn't make a very good investigative reporter. You only seem to 'find' what you want to find.

Actually, in order to get the facts, I did some checking, and found some very interesting FACTS.

#1. The great company, the "largest independent news producer" does not exist. It disappeared. Without a trace, it seems. Both its web sites no longer exist. One domain name is even for sale, so you know how long that one has been gone!

#2. The telephone number they list has been disconnected for so long it has been assigned to another person. In his words "They disappeared. They left no forwarding number or address. Lots of people seem to be chasing them."

#3. Their prime correspondent was Peter Arnett! Now that is someone I really want to trust when it comes to reporting news that affects American national security!!!!!!?

#4. Their last corporate contact was Suntal Amin (relative of Idi Amin? :~) Again, that sounds like someone I really want to depend on for critical national security information.......

The veracity and validity of the whole story hinges on some phantom video guy who is probably now working out of a phone booth in the Bronx!

PS, Trust me, I didn't start out trying to make you look bad in this. It just worked out that way.

Again. . . I am not saying that the evidence doesn't look suspicious. But argument, even expert testimony, is not physical evidence. Yes, there are bits and pieces of evidence, but not enough for a conclusion of a missile or a bomb. But the MISSING evidence, which seems to have existed at one point, is reason enough to re-open the investigation.

I'm not overly skeptical, it's just the lawyer coming out in me.

Bottom line: I don't fully accept the "official" story, but there's not enough there at this point to accept any alternative theory.

BTW. I do not mind you having a skeptical attitude towards the missile/bomb theories. I am always looking for proof, no matter what it confirms. Your skepticism is what encourages me to dig further into research.

So, Thank You.

As far as finding parts of the missile, IIRC, the Navy conducted the search, and the strictest security was invoked on that search, and anything 'found' by citizens.

If, and I agree, it is still a big if, the US Navy, or any of the other nationalities Navies, that were there conducting exercises on that day (it is a matter of record) and some rule of Murphy's law escaped the control of mortal human beings, and the test missile went off course, and an anti-missile was sent to destroy it, and it arrived too late, and both hit the jetliner,

Do you think the NAVY would reveal what they discovered on the ocean floor? Especially if they had the consent of the President of the US not to reveal it?

You seem to be blowing quite a bit of smoke...

Me? I am not proffering theories without a shred of real evidence. The type of coverup that this conspiracy would entail hundreds of individuals from the military, the FBI, and the NTSB. Even if you could shut them up then, I cannot see these folks taking this to their grave, unless they felt that it warranted it. If you had FBI agents hovering over you and telling you what to, and more importantly what NOT to say, you might resent it. If you KNEW that it was wrong on about a hundred levels, you might just leak out the evidence of it in about 10 years.

10 years have come and gone and nothing.

Hey, that's all I was asking. You stated they never existed, and implied the CEO was a fiction.

I provided information that showed there was a company(there were many more references) and the name of the CEO was confirmed.

Now you claim that it has since disappeared from the face of the Earth, because of your inability to find any info on it.

You claimed you could not find ANY info on them to begin with, so your credibility is kinda low with me at the moment.

At least now you are looking and providing some kind of documented verification.

Were you to prove in this manner that the CEO was in a mental ward, and was found to have made up the story, I would be very congratulatory.

They were interviewed, and they said they saw a missile. If 5 different eyewitnesses who were experts in vehicle accidents and driving styles saw you ram another vehi....blah, blah, blah...

This is why I can't get into this. Non Sequiturs, Straw man arguments, misdirection, tangents. Been there, done that. Got the T-shirt.

I will not follow you down one rabbit hole after another. Either you got something (like evidence), or you don't. You can spin these stories into a nice package, but at the end of the day, you got squat.

Interesting how the divers on those ships were removed from federal whistleblower protection by clinton's executive order at the time of the crash/search.

Can you cite the EO that Clinton signed?

Also, I was not aware that members of the military can even HAVE whistleblower status. Can you cite where you know this little nugget of information from?

What you said is an important point.

I cannot see these folks taking this to their grave, unless they felt that it warranted it.

If you were one of the small group of military personnel who knew what went wrong, and how, and revealing the info to the public would compromise national security, and damage the military in the public eye, even though it was an accident, a fatal one, but was unpredictable and almost unpreventable (unless tests were done out to sea where the unavailability of 'friendlies' made the test worthless), would you stay loyal to the Navy, to your commanding officers, or would you spill the beans?

The videotape was examined closely and found to have no indications of any missile, The New York Times reported Thursday.

By the FBI, which was put in charge to ensure that the proper 'findings' were made, and any contrary evidence or testimony were to be re-investigated until they no longer existed.

Go look it up and see if you can find Rosenbaum as a co-partner with others in HDNet. See if the truth is that BNN was dissolved and the assets incorporated into HDNet and partners as a new business venture. I am not vouching for Rosenbaum's supposed claim based on this. I am verifying for myself that BNN and Rosenbaum did exist, and that he still exists and has gone on from that inc. name.

You tried to claim he did not exist and neither did his business, and that now he and it have disappeared off the face of the Earth.

I say you are wrong, that is all, and the proof is out there.

PS, Trust me, I didn't start out trying to make you look bad in this. It just worked out that way.

{ :')

Evidence of a Missile

A Sweep by Sweep analysis of the radar data clearly depicts a plume of very high velocity metal exploding out of the aircraft's right side at approximately 20:31:13. The lead ejecta almost certainly has to be a missile body! With the aircraft on a heading of 071 degrees True, this radar contact separated laterally from the aircraft track on a ballistic trajectory of 190 degrees True, traveling about 3,200 feet in less than 7 seconds. This 119 degree change of direction and high velocity could not possibly have been the result of a Center Wing Tank explosion.

This is not theory or speculation, but hard physical evidence. It takes almost 2 seconds for a bullet fired from a military sniper rifle to travel that distance. Only a missile body, with it's hundreds of thousands of foot pounds (ft/lbs)* of kinetic energy would have the inertia to perform this way on radar. It only takes 6,000 ft/lbs of energy for a 50 caliber heavy machine gun bullet to punch through 3/8 inch thick steel plate. Boeing 747's are constructed of various aluminum alloys and rarely in thickness' exceeding 1/2 inch.

With this much energy, the missile body would slice through the aircraft "like a bullet through a tin can", just as I stated in my April 24, 1997 letter to the Wall Street Journal, in response to Chairman Hall's "It wasn't a missile" letter to the same paper. It is startling to note also that the trajectory of the ejecta (missile body & other parts) is on a direct line from an unidentified boat, 2.9 nautical miles to the Northeast of Flight 800 when it exploded.

The NTSB had compiled a statistical analysis of the eyewitness evidence in the Witness Group Factual Report: Exhibit 4A, which included the following findings:

"102 [eyewitnesses] gave information about the origin of the streak. Six said the streak originated from the air, and 96 said that it originated from the surface."

Without fanfare on March 11, 1997 President Clinton signed into law Executive Order 13039. That week in history missile theorists went public , the FBI confiscated an independent investigator's copy of an FAA radar tape AND was seeking another investigator for questioning.

Executive Order 13039 specifically provides for "Exclusion of the Naval Special Warfare Development Group From the Federal Labor-Management Relations Program". This program provides a mechanism for workers to report wrongdoing without fear of reprisal.

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