Posted on 07/13/2006 4:00:05 PM PDT by Hal1950
A Massachusetts group has filed a lawsuit to force federal officials to release information about a piece of debris from Flight 800 that it hopes will show that a missile downed the plane.
Federal investigators have dismissed that explanation as the cause of the 1996 explosion that killed all 230 people aboard. Instead they concluded that a spark ignited fuel tank vapors.
The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Boston, demands that the National Transportation Safety Board respond to numerous freedom of information act requests made since 2004.
Tom Stalcup, who heads the East Falmouth, Mass.-based Flight 800 Independent Researchers Organization, which filed the suit, said he is "very certain" that federal investigators found the piece of debris and are now concealing evidence of its existence.
Radar data show the piece of debris falling at high speed from the plane and a Navy salvage map shows it was later recovered, said Stalcup, 36, a physicist and owner of a West Falmouth, Mass., company that makes wireless weather stations. Despite this evidence, federal officials won't explain what happened to the debris once it was recovered from the ocean off Long Island, he said.
"One piece in particular landed closer to JFK Airport than any of the other thousands of recovered items ... after exiting the airframe at apparent supersonic speeds," the suit says.
NTSB spokesman Paul Schlamm said the agency does not comment on pending lawsuits, but said most federal agencies have limited resources to respond in a timely way to Freedom of Information Act requests. "We are aware that there's a FOIA backlog," Schlamm said.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsday.com ...
Really? Then perhaps those "experts" could explain how the target tracking and missile guidance radars that employ very powerful and narrow beam radar energy using specific pulse and frequency codes to guide a missile to the only target they are tracking, could then guide that missile to another target operating miles away. And perhaps those "experts" could explain how the radar seeker located in the relatively fragile nose of a surface to air missile could survive not only the impact with a target drone, but survive plunging through that drone and arrive intact on the other side, never breaking contact with the radars guiding it to its target, and then maintain not only the energy but the ability to guide to a second target located miles away from its intended target which it then impacts with enough energy to penetrate and guide through without leaving a trace of its existence. And perhaps those "experts" could point to a single example of the US military conducting surface to air missile tests in an extremely crowded civilian air corridor. And while they're at it, perhaps they could point to the launch location of the supposed target drone.
But if they did describe such a scenario, they obviously wouldn't be "experts" in any of the topics described, because none of them could or would happen.
With regard to the cause you listed for the demise of TWA 800, you clearly have not read the NTSB report, (supported by both TWA and Boeing) that does not describe what you state is the most likely scenario for the end of TWA 800.
I've wasted plenty (too much) time on these threads trying to explain to people the difference between fact and fiction. Most of those people (maybe all) have never read the actual accident investigation report of this incident which is available to any an all at the following links....
NTSB TWA 800 Final Report
TWA 800 Investigation Docket Materials
...and that says all I need to know about their "expertise". Instead they prefer to get their information from conspiracy artists who make a living propagating phony theories for blood money through such "credible" sources as WorldNetDaily. I no longer have any delusions of steering someone like that toward anything resembling reality. Anyone who is really interested in the truth will have the intellectual integrity to read the NTSB information for themselves. Unfortunately, most of the people who subscribe to conspiracy theories have little real intellect or integrity and they prove it every time they refuse to read all the facts available about incidents like TWA 800. Rather than actually reading the NTSB report they simply deny it could be true. Yet, they don't even know what it really says (hint: the NTSB does not support the statement that TWA 800 climbed 3000' after its nose separated).
That is my final comment on this thread.
The flight took off at around 6:30 I believe and climbed to 14000 ft before the plane exploded. The outside air temperature could not be a factor and if you are claiming the AC Condensers are a factor then all 747's should be grounded immediately.
140 degrees is the highest temperature that the NTSB estimated that the fuel could have reached at 14,000 ft. While the fuel is theoretically flammable at 127 degrees at sea level, when tested, there was no combustion until the fuel reached 185 degrees. Then there was only a slow burn, approximately 3 seconds, in which the vapor was consumed and the fire went out.
There is no way that center fuel tank "exploded", just as there is no way that the plane climbed an additional 3000 ft after being split in two as the NTSB farcically claimed.
The only time that there is only fuel vapor in the tank's ullage (the area in the tank above the fuel level) and in the vent lines, occurs when the airplane is stationary on the ground or during low-speed ground operations. The design of the vent system includes a scoop under each wing tip oriented into the relative wind which acts to slightly pressurize each tank through the vent lines that run laterally from surge tank to surge tank. This acts to evacuate the fuel vapors from the ullage and also to put a "head" pressure on the fuel to decrease the vapor formation.
So the best you have is an "accident" investigation report from where the FBI pulled jurisdiction over the NTSB, with recovery efforts handled by the Navy, and a computer simulation of a 3,000 foot assent by a nose-less aircraft done by the CIA!
That is my final comment on this thread.
We'll see, jokes like you tend keep on giving.
Just read all the information about Flight 800 here on FR and if you're still not convinced it was a cover-up, there's no point in conversing.
Obviously, the AC condensers location under the fuel tank is not by itself considered a problem, under any circumstances.
What seperated this incident from the countless thousands of other times of similar conditions was the freak short circuit in the main wiring harness which grounded out within the tank fuel level wiring, causing a spark.
I don't claim to know all the answers, and I hated the Clinton administration as bitterly as anyone here, but I don't believe there was any cover up. A coverup would involve many people, and "many people" can't keep their collective mouths shut.
If you think a hot, late, afternoon in New York is a "contributary factor" then we better stop all takeoffs of 747's from all places between the tropics of Capricorn and Cancer.
Don't let's ever have a 747 go to Baghdad (125 Deg in the summer), Singapore, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Nairobi, etc, etc for fear the fuel tanks might explode....
in fact, might as well permanantly ground the plane, it's totally unusable...
As for the cover up, The collective mouths HAVEN'T been able to stay shut, that's why there are so many people out there claiming it was a shoot down.
Read my post 43, the vapors are scavenged from the tank once the plane commences takeoff roll and a head pressure supresses the formation of new vapor.
The 747 has been in service for over 35 years. There are hundreds in the air right now. How have we got away with only one fuel tank exploding in all that time?
So it turns out we have only had one catastrophic event of this nature in all that time and it coincidentally happened at exactly the same time that 136 unrelated, independent witnesses saw a red streak of light shoot up from the surface and end at the plane at the precise moment it exploded into a fireball - what an amazing coincidence!
Who'd have thunk it?
You're missing my point.
The fuel system is OK. It is not a problem.
A SHORT CIRCUIT was the problem.
No, that's not really the problem actually. The problem is the NTSB's investigation, led by the FBI coicidentally, was very non-tranparent.
I'm not missing your point at all:
1 There is no hard evidence of a short circuit.
2. If there was a short circuit, there is no evidence there was any vapor in the tank at that time to ignite since it would have been purged on climb out.
3. Even if there had been vapor in the tank, there is no evidence that an electrical short would have produced a spark hot enough to ignite it - The NTSB were totally unable to recreate an explosion using heated Jet-A vapor and an electrical spark under controlled conditions.
So what I am saying is that :
a: The NTSB theory is weak
b: They couldn't produce an explosion in the conditions that they claimed existed, in fact even when they exacerbated the criteria to provoke an explosion, they were unsuccessful until they got totally out of specification.
c: After many millions of hours of flying no other 747 has had a similar problem, even though they land and take off in far harsher environments worldwide than a New York summer's eve.
d: And if you you think that was the only time a 747 wiring harness had shorted out in 35 years I have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn....
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