Posted on 07/06/2006 4:55:42 PM PDT by Hal1950
July 17 marks the 10th anniversary of the destruction of TWA Flight 800, the investigation of which represented the most conspicuous and consequential misdirection of justice in American history. This column is part of an in-depth look at the incident, presenting several compelling reasons why the investigation must be re-opened.
"I always start with the premise that the question is, why should we not publish?" said New York Times beleaguered editor Bill Keller. "Publishing information is our job. What you really need is a reason to withhold information."
Keller, of course, was defending his paper's decision to expose the government's classified banking program used to investigate Islamic terrorists. His case for such bold reporting would ring a good deal truer, however, if his paper had not played an indispensable role in the single greatest and most gratuitous act of information withholding in recent American history.
On July 17, 1996, TWA Flight 800 exploded on a beautiful summer night only 12 minutes out of JFK. Had the plane crashed in Kalamazoo or Keokuk or Kansas City, chances are the American people would have known the cause of the crash almost immediately.
But it didn't. It crashed in the New York Times' backyard. The Times' reporters owned the story from day one.
On July 18, the last day of official honesty, Times reporters were all over the place, and they were pressing for the truth. On that day, unnamed "government officials" – most likely the FBI – told the New York Times that air traffic controllers had "picked up a mysterious radar blip that appeared to move rapidly toward the plane just before the explosion."
These officials and the Times unequivocally linked the radar to the multiple eyewitness sightings and the sightings to a missile attack.
According to the Times' sources, "The eyewitnesses had described a bright light, like a flash, moving toward the plane just before the initial explosion, and that the flash had been followed by a huge blast – a chain of events consistent with a missile impact and the blast produced by an aircraft heavily laden with fuel." As one federal official told the Times that first morning, "It doesn't look good," with the clear implication of a missile strike.
This was the last day these officials were open with the media about the possibility of a missile. Once they changed the story, so did an oddly quiescent Times. The words "radar" and "eyewitness" would all but disappear from the Times' reporting after the first day. Nor, inexplicably, would the Times investigate the possible role of the military in the downing of TWA 800 – not one paragraph – and not one word about satellites and what they might have captured.
As it happens, the Atlanta Olympics opened on July 19, the day the above stories were published. Were the White House to acknowledge that an attack from outside the plane had caused its destruction, the FAA might well have been compelled to shut down aviation on the East Coast. Accordingly, all missile talk ceased on that day. The investigation was forced into a false dialectic between bomb and mechanical. And the government, especially the FBI, would make the Times its messenger.
To its credit, the FBI pushed to the terrorist side of the equation and pulled the Times with it. The Times' article on Aug. 14 – "Fuel Tank's Condition Makes Malfunction Seem Less Likely" – was the most provocative yet.
According to the Times, investigators "concluded that the center fuel tank caught fire as many as 24 seconds after the initial blast that split apart the plane, a finding that deals a serious blow to the already remote possibility that a mechanical accident caused the crash." There was more. Investigators told the Times that the pattern of the debris "persuaded them that a mechanical malfunction is highly unlikely."
"Now that investigators say they think the center fuel tank did not explode," read the Times account, "they say the only good explanations remaining are that a bomb or a missile brought down the plane."
In retrospect, one can see that the FBI was indeed steering the Times towards a terrorist scenario but away from any talk of missiles. When "government officials" stopped talking about missile sightings, so did the Times. The paper's first article on the subject, and first serious reference in a month, occurred Aug. 17. The article featured one Michael Russell, an engineer who witnessed the explosion from a boat.
According to the Times, "His sober, understated story was one of only a few that investigators have judged credible." The Times took its story straight from FBI sources and picked up its spin as well. These few "clear accounts" like Russell's have "substantially weakened support for the idea that a missile downed the plane." The Times claimed that Russell's account of a quick flash well before the large fireball has "bolstered the idea that a bomb, and not an exploding fuel tank, triggered the disintegration of the airplane."
In due time, the FBI would acknowledge that 270 eyewitnesses saw not just the white flash, but streaks of light in the sky converging on TWA Flight 800 before the flash. The New York Times would interview not a single one of them.
For all its misdirection, the FBI seemed to have been struggling against the White House throughout August. The Aug. 23 Times headline story – "Prime Evidence Found That Device Exploded in Cabin of Flight 800" – stole the thunder from Clinton's election-driven approval of welfare reform in that same day's paper and threatened to undermine the peace and prosperity message of the next week's Democratic convention.
"Investigators have finally found scientific evidence that an explosive device was detonated inside the passenger cabin of Trans World Airlines Flight 800," reported the Times authoritatively on the 23rd. The paper referred specifically to the traces of PETN, first identified by a bomb-sniffing dog more than two weeks before.
These investigators told the Times that PETN is commonly found in bombs and surface-to-air missiles, "making it impossible, for now, to know for sure which type of explosive device destroyed the Boeing 747." The Times reminded its readers that 10 days prior the FBI had said that ''one positive result'' in the forensic tests would cause them to declare the explosion a crime.
Now, however, senior investigators "were not ready to declare that the crash was the result of a criminal act in part because they did not yet know whether the explosion was caused by a bomb or a missile."
But there was a speed bump ahead. On the 25th, for the first time, the New York Times published a story with a "missile" lead. "The discovery of PETN," claimed the article, "has kept alive the fearsome though remote possibility that the airliner was brought down by a surface-to-air missile."
On Aug. 30, the FBI announced that it had discovered additional traces of explosive residue "on a piece of wreckage from inside the Boeing 747 near where the right wing meets the fuselage." The location is critical. This is exactly where the first explosion seemed to be centered. At the briefing, the FBI did not identify the type of chemical, but "senior investigators" tipped off the Times that the substance was RDX. One agent told the Times that finding the two ingredients together, RDX and PETN, was ''virtually synonymous with Semtex.''
The Times, which prided itself on its sources, was now being steered by the FBI agents exactly where they wanted this investigation to go – away from the "missile" and back towards the bomb, even if it meant revealing more information. If PETN alone allowed for the possibility of a missile, PETN and RDX together argued much more strongly for a bomb.
For the next three weeks, there was almost no news from the investigation. On Sept. 19, the same day that Al Gore was quietly telling the airline industry that it had nothing to fear from his security and safety commission, the Times was summoned to NTSB headquarters in Washington to be brief by longtime Gore family retainer and now NTSB chair, Jim Hall. The lead of the Times' subsequent story reads as follows:
"Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board, saying they are convinced that none of the physical evidence recovered from TWA Flight 800 proves that a bomb brought down the plane, plan tests intended to show that the explosion could have been caused by a mechanical failure alone. Weeks before, the Times had reported that "the only good explanations remaining are that a bomb or a missile brought down the plane off Long Island." In the interim, the evidence for an external strike had grown only stronger as more explosive residue had been found on the plane and more eyewitnesses had been interviewed. Now, however, officials were telling the public through the media that a mechanical failure brought down the airplane."
The New York Times did not say boo. Soon enough, its editors would move from misinformation to disinformation and demand punishment for those who dared to tell the truth.
They indicate in their report that they were flying at 8500 feet when they saw the huge fireball explode below their own flight altitude and that they flew to the smoke cloud it left and found the top to be at 7700 feet, the middle at about 7500 feet and the sky clear of anything unusual above that.
Their report also includes the following February 1997 Addendum
Feb 97: Addendum: Time has passed, the mystery of the downing of Flight 800 still eludes us. (probably not all of us). Until all data is evaluated, we’ll have to wait for the official facts. From an idealistic view, there is no reason to think otherwise. (what a perfect world we live in). Since Ken & Sven made this report public, we have heard many opinions on our sighting. We saw what we saw and report it as such. We have nothing to gain or loose. It has apparent that some aviation experience is required in reading this report.
There is one fact that bothers us, however. No mention is ever made of the fact that the explosion was at 7500 feet! We do not dispute the fact that something happened at 13,800 feet, but what happened after that. There is 5000 feet unaccounted for.
We would like to emphasize: - We approached the black-gray smoke cloud on the west side. We were at 7700 feet and were at the top edge of the cloud. The cloud center was at 7500 feet. There were 2 small bumps atop it. There was no smoke or smoke trails above it. It was still lit up a little by the sun, clear above.”
We don’t why this has never been discussed in any scenarios.
None of the conspiracy theorists have ever been able to conjure up a palatable missile(s) shootdown scenario for the public with that 5000 feet accounted for because the personally prepared detailed report of these two witnesses conclusively rules out the possibility that the 747 was shot down.
There was only one huge fireball explosion and it was first reported by radio to ATC at 8:31:50, 39 seconds after the initial event disabled Flight 800 at 13,800 feet.
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Thanks,
I believe that if there had been any kind of missile launch at all, it would have illuminated the sky, and would have been especially visible to aircraft flying above. The attention of the pilots in question would have been immediately diverted toward the source of such an event.
I think a more likely scenario is that the aircraft was leaking fuel, which ignited and left a visible trail which eyewitnesses mistook for a missile or other object streaking up toward the airplane.
Read later
Moby Dick is not a social disease.
A 747 downed by a missle would bear lots and lots of tell tale shrapnel damage.
I believe TWA 800 was brought down by a terrorist bomb, either brought on board by a suicide passenger or planted there at the airport. I also believe it was very deliberately covered up by the Clinton Administration which did not want to alarm the public in an election year or invite scrutiny of its previous coverup, namely the Oklahoma City bombing. And guess who was behind both of these incidents? Saddam Hussein. Now do you want to guess again what Sandy Bergeer stuffed into his pants?
The streak must have been descending and most likely was fire in the falling wreckage.
Still too many conflicting statements for me to 100% believe this was an accident...the fact that it occured along with WTC 1 and OKC during the Clintonista reign has me more inclined to believe this was a terrorist hit.
None was reportedly found and the conspiracy theorists have been unable to publicly present any irrefutable evidence to to the contrary.
Unfortunately, the event itself, in the setting in which it occurred (the Clinton presidency...following several poorly explained and understood events-OKC bombing, Waco incineration, World Trade Center bombing, and the deathof the President's attorney, Vince Foster....just to name a few...)lends itself to endless speculation....a very silly scenario trying to lend a comprehensible explanation for the otherwise incomprehensible did'nt help....http://www.cnn.com/US/9711/18/twa.presser.update/pt1.35.mov
There's no irrefutable evidence of a missile attack or bomb, a cargo door accident, a meteor, lightning strike, etc. Theories have been abundant but after 10 years it's long past time for all the conspiracy theorists to put up or shut up.
You did read First Strike didn't you?
Somebody more serious than him would have to pick up the torch of Flight 800 in order for me to pay attention.
Clinton never covered up anything. /sarcasm
I don't know why you're calling me a conspiracy theorist. I think it was an accident, pure and simple. Nobody's trying to cover anything up; they're just trying to explain a freak accident as best as the facts of the case will allow.
I take my cue from a certain 747 mechanic who postulated a number of years ago that one of the engine cowlings wasn't properly secured; that it came loose and was forced back onto the wing, where its rivets punctured a fuel tank.
And numerous individuals skilled with missiles of all kinds have stated that any missile launch in the vicinity would have lit up the night sky--something that didn't happen.
Bad science.
bttt
Whatever might have been on the plane is one thing, but the whole "eyewitnesses saw a missle" doesn't hold water with me. Show the average person an X-ray and they wouldn't be able to spot the fracture.
When we see things we don't understand, we make them into things that we do understand.
Can you explain why the CIA after more than a year of analysis released a computer generated movie with their definitive explanation and then within 24 hours changed it and then changed it again?
No. Of course, computer-generated movies are time-consuming and expensive and so, I call BS.
No, I call BS on the conspiratorial switching of the explanations. I'd love to see the video, though. Got a link?
Forget about the "official causes" for a second and let me pose a statistical anamoly. I find it statistically amazing that such a large number of jumbo jets could be involved in major disaster in a short period of time; all originating from New York, all very large aircraft, all involving major loss of life. If you look back at statistical history regarding large passenger aircraft, sharing the same origination point, completely fatal in nature, and official causes sharing such unprovable explanations, this is more than unprecedented. It is damn near statisticaly impossible.
American Airlines Flight 587 - November 12, 2001)
Airbus A300 - 255 dead
Official Cause: Overuse of the rudder to counter wake turbulence. The fire was the result of fuel leakage as the engines separated from the wings, or engine compressor surges.
(Egypt Air Flight 990 - October 31, 1999)
Boeing 767 - 217 Dead
Official Cause: Intentional - co-pilot suicide/murder.
(Swiss Air Flight 111 September 2, 1998)
MD-11 - 229 Dead
Official Cause: Flight data recorders stop recording. Offical cause of crash - faulty wiring and failure of a circuit breaker.
(TWA Flight 800 - July 17, 1996)
Boeing 747-131, 230 Dead
Official Cause: Faulty wiring in centerline fuel tank.
Neither of NYC's major airports carry as much traffic as Hartsfield ATL, Ohaire (ORD) or Dallas (DFW) and this has never occurred in the NTSB history.
I can see obvious reasons why the downing of a series of commercial aircraft from our largest city would be supressed by the people in charge. I'm not necessarily saying I am proving this. But if you were an astronomer or physicsts studying data, this would stand out like a pink elephant.
I find it very intersting that 9/11 was perpetrated very intentionally for the world to see. I personally don't think our own government had anything to do with the loss of any of this aircraft, but i can see many reasons why it would be very convenient to NOT really know why.
In addition to the incidents already stated, you have to go back to 1979 to find any air disaster in the US involving a higher fatality count.
Huh... I figured that this would detail the one secret that the New York Times has kept perfectly for decades now, the one they and Walter Durante won a Pulitzer prize for...
Mark
Here is a link to a page with a lot of the history.
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/CRASH/TWA/CIAVIDEO/ciavideo.html
They changed it almost immediately after having months to prepare it and then the FBI tried to change it again.
THAT POSTS LINKS IN THIS FONT?
Now, I don't want to hear from you again until you provide a link to the CIA video. Not to a site with "a lot of the history", a cite with the actual video.
I'll wait.
another one:
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/CRASH/TWA/CIAVIDEO/1118twa.mov
and another one form the same day:
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/CRASH/TWA/CIAVIDEO/twa_animation.mov
I am. Tell us who they are and I'll prove it.
A single missle theory, eh? I love it. Eyewitnesses, who could see the missle, but not the plane, from the ground, witnessed a missle, presumably shoulder-fired, that was able to reach and hit a commercial airliner flying thousands of miles above and at full speed?
Son, if it were possible to do that, then North Korea should pose no threat at all!
If the eyewitnesses were so sure it was a missle, what kind of missle was it?
markdown = Mujahadeen (thanks spell check)
That is also my understanding. I still think someone could have inserted a small incindiary device directly into the fuel tank. The device would have a trigger that dissolved at a set rate in the fuel and sometime later, viola! No explosive residue, no shrapnel because it was a fuel fire.
Feet, I meant feet.
First, I am not saying a shoulder-fired missle cannot reach that far, I am saying that a single-shot, one, no others, a single, solitary shot brought down a single, solitary plane. No weaponry was found anywhere and a similar incident has never been found again.
Do you realize what this means? You could sit there and pick off commercial airliners like sitting ducks.
I'm going to take a stab, but your comparison to the Soviet gunship is nonsense because (1) helicopters are slow, they don't have that whole jet engine thing going for them, (2) gunships fly particularly low because of what they do, strafing and (3) helicopters can hover in place.
Moreover, I don't think they did it with a single shot.
If what you say is true, forget TWA800, no plane is safe at any time anywhere. You ain't shooting skeet here with a "predictable flight pattern". If the eyewitnesses had "seen" 10 missles, what you say might make sense, but if terrorists could pick a plane out of the sky with a SINGLE SHOT, then they would have done it at least twice, don't you think?
If they could do this, no plane would be safe anywhere.
Yes I do.
So this "none was ever found" is not such a convincing statement.
Well, my statement regarding no evidence of a missle still stands. A MANPAD such as a Stinger with its small warhead is not capable of bringing down a 747 the way TWA-800 came down. A larger SAM is needed. Such SAM wouldn't use the old style scored casing to produce shrapnel, it would use ball bearings.
Ball bearings will produce irrefutable damage evidence that couldn't be covered up. Remember that chartered Israeli flight the Ukrainians accidentally shot down over the Caspian a few years ago? Remember how riddled its skin was with what looked like bullet holes? Those were shrapnel (ball bearing) holes from the SAM.
Why did they immediately change security at airports which they never removed?
I'm not saying TWA-800 didn't have help coming down. I'm just saying it wasn't a SAM that did it.
No group ever claimed credit for a bombing, so far as I know.
Wow. A cartoon.
Now maybe you can explain why the FBI and CIA hijacked the investigation from the NTSB and FAA...
As for conspiracy theories, those come into existence when the "official" version doesn't fill in the gaps or connect the dots.
What proof is there that the 200+ witnesses who said they saw something going up before the plane came down were wrong?
The idea that that many people would step forward and independantly claim to have seen something going up (NOT DOWN) before the plane came down and all be wrong (not know up from down) just doesn't wash. That the compass azimuths to what they saw from their locations roughly converge is just a coincidence, right?
Ultimately, there will not be irrefutable evidence of anything. Wasn't that Janet Reno's favorite line? "There is no evidence which exists..."
I, for one took that to mean that they had eliminated all of it, to the best of their abilities.
Conspiracy theorists have been "putting up" since the plane went down. Unfortunately, eyewitness testimony is about like a WMD in Iraq-- ignored. Ignored, that is, uneless it happens to fit the official scenario.
Keeping in mind that the MSM, the same MSM who ignore WMDs in Iraq, were unapologetic schills for the CLintons, (and in fact still talk about taking back their White House and their Congress,) I really can't see any reason why they wouldn't play footsie with the Clinton Administration in a cover up.
I am only amazed that they haven't found some convoluted way to blame Bush. Maybe they aren't as creative as we thought.
And what else can they do? Do they have a magical green energy ring?
747's, hell! Private commercial aircraft, gulfstreams, if there exists barely detectable weaponry that can do this, stuff that's that mobile enough to never have been found. (BTW, they saw the missle in the sky, why did nobody see/hear it launched? I already know, a boat waaaaaaaaay out at sea.) I'm not sure what your motive is, maybe that there should be force-fields around all 747's, but that won't help. As I said, you could pick off private aircraft or those little commuter planes. There are airports in much more remote locations than Long Island.
Basic common sense: If it's a terrorist attack, what's the motive? Nobody's taking credit and it wasn't a dry run because it HAS NEVER HAPPENED AGAIN, EVER, ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD.
They have supersonic speed so the difference between a relatively slow helicopter and a faster 747 is still no big deal.
Are you INSANE? Let's not just talk maximum speed, 'kay. Let's talk minimum speed. If the Afghanis with their super-duper missles shot down a gunship, isn't it possible, just possible, that the thing was hovering in mid-air at the time?
In which case, your analogy is stupid.
Yet, it's the missile(s) shootdown conspiracy theorists like you that try to ignore this detailed report of Faret & Wendell.
There's no irrefutable evidence of anything. That's the problem.
Eyewitness accounts may be all manner of inaccurate, but the NTSB's conclusion was based on their inability to prove any specific cause, so it must have been the center tank.
Bad science.
20 sig226
Worse than bad science, -- it's lousy logic to conclude that anyone questioning a 'report' with so many holes in it is automatically a "conspiracy theorist".
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