Posted on 07/18/2006 7:13:58 PM PDT by PajamaTruthMafia
Know how many witnesses the NYT's interviewed???
Answer: NONE
... was adamant that it COULD NOT be a Afghanistan Stingers or any other man portable AA missile ..
and he was repeatedly prove wrong...
A Afghanistan Stingers or other man portable AA missile could do it.... but I'm not in the mood to look up a 5 year old thread
Some of those threads have been lost due to FR changing software. I found a listing for quite a few but they are dead links.
There was also a P-3C ASW Patrol Aircraft passing through the area as I recall. It was also singled out as the perpetrator of the shot. As far as I know, it has no armament at all capable of engaging an air target. It can carry Harpoon missiles (Anti-surface) and Torpedos.
I'm telling you, you can't fire a missile in the Navy and nobody notice. Every one of the things has a serial number and the Navy knows where everyone of them is. Every time the thing is moved, traded, or whatever the master database is updated. I amd my various division officers did a lot of agonizing accounting for every round of ammunitiion of the ship from .45 caliber up through Harpoons to ensure that not a single one went astray.
If its fired for training it has telemetry on it and a whole bunch of federal civilians and contractors monitoring it. A lot of people know when its going to be fired and a Notice to Mariners and Notice to Airmen is filed blocking off the firing range.
Civilian and military aircraft and ships have been hit by errant shots before and none of them went unnoticed.
Now, if some terrorist in a boat launched a light SAM at the plane then I don't know. I don't think any of them are capable of engaging at 12k feet. I don't think a Stinger can hit something at that altitude.
I did not suggest or imply that.
I again refer everyone to the following graphic which depicts the firing locations and solutions for a Tier Two MANPAD SAM... using the specific altitude and speed of TWA-800:
It is indeed possible. Note that the best possible shots are from directly in front of the heading of TWA-800 but there are many on either side...
THE FBI and FLIGHT 800 Village Voice Published: July 14-20, 1999 Author: Robert Davey
The missile expert has also been in contact with military labs where, he says, the chemists have been unable to make jet fuel vapor explode as the NTSB says it did in TWA 800's center fuel tank. "The labs told the NTSB there's a big problem—it can't happen." The NTSB wouldn't listen. He says, "They were adamant that [the labs] had to find something."
The missile expert says his unit was summoned by the FBI quite early in the investigation and asked to review the eyewitness accounts and check out the potential for a successful missile hit. "We talked to Ted Otto and Steve Bongardt"—two agents assigned by FBI assistant director James Kallstrom to examine the missile theory. "We picked missiles and ran computer simulations and shipped the data to Bongardt," the Voice source says. The data showed that virtually any post–Vietnam era shoulder-launched missile would have had the range and infrared seeker capability to reach the plane at 13,700 feet, he says.
The accounts were so persuasive, he says, that Otto and Bongardt arranged a meeting in Washington, D.C., in late '96 to discuss them and other data. A high-powered group convened around the table—the CIA and other military and intelligence agencies were represented but not the NTSB. "We took a vote, and almost everyone said the plane was shot down," the expert says. Only the CIA remained silent. "The CIA was very quiet." Someone asked if there was a warning prior to the disaster of a terrorist attack. "The CIA wouldn't say," he recalls.
And there was more—the expert mentioned a videotape shot by a man on Long Island one night during the weeks preceding the crash, which appeared to show a rocket trail rising skyward. "The FBI showed it to us as interesting evidence," the expert says. It looked like the trail of a missile, he adds. FBI assistant director Kallstrom, now retired from the agency, says he doesn't recall any such video.
You need to read the whole article.
Thanks for reminding me of this article. I read it way back when.
To this day I am convinced that TWA-800 was brought down by one or two MANPAD missiles shot at it by terrorists who DID admit blame but whose claims were ignored and deliberately downplayed.
The despicable actions of the CIA and NTSB in denigrating the over 700 eyewitnesses by creating fantasy cartoons, denying basic physical laws, only served to cement my convictions.
"Come on this was the guy that try to spin OKC as the main stream right wing and Rush's fault..."
Bill Clinton was/is a ruthless/sociopathic political animal. No doubt, and I like a good conspiracy as much as the next guy, but as a former active duty officer, I can assure you, military soldiers/airmen do not walk lock-step with whomever the president is. They have their own opinions and if something "strange" had occurred, I believe that there wouldn't be some silent cabal working perfectly to keep the story line together all these years. If I would have seen it, and someone with dark glass and dark suit telling me that it is in the "nations interest" to keep a lid on the SAM launch, I would have patronized the guy for the moment, and then hit the talk shows the next day. So, I'm open-minded and would be willing to consider any possible proposal. At a minimum, the dead deserve it. What was the final, final "official" story for the explosion? Former press secretary Pierre Salinger apparently thought something strange happened? But who wants to be lumped in with him? Sorta like Charlie Sheen believing that Bush blew up the twin towers in a controlled blast.
I thought that you might have. Newer signups have missed a lot of background info on Flight 800.
Then why did Clinton sign EO 13039 to exclude the Navy divers from whistleblower protection right after accusations were made that it was a missile?
Link to the order that now appears online.
Link to article describing it's disappearance.
The Missing TWA Executive Order Accuracy In Media August 4, 1998
One piece of the evidence, which helps illustrate the cover-up charge, is a presidential executive order issued shortly after accusations were being made in the press that the plane was shot down by a missile. Bill Donaldson identified the executive order as number 13039, dated March 11, 1997, and said it removed whistleblower protection from Navy personnel who had been involved in the salvage operation. It was designed to keep quiet about what they may have found.
You might be asking where you could find a copy of this particular executive order in order to do some investigation of your own. There are several White House sites on the World Wide Web where executive orders are supposed to be listed. We went to both of them, and could not find it. In the chronological listing of these documents, there is no number 13039. It is missing.
However, our search on the Internet turned up the missing executive order number 13039. It was posted on one of several sites dealing with the TWA crash. We subsequently confirmed with officials in the White House that such an executive order does, in fact, exist. However, we could find no reason why it has disappeared from the official list.
The order is titled, "Exclusion of the Naval Special Warfare Development Groups From the Federal Labor-Management Relations Program." This is a law that provides a mechanism for workers to report wrongdoing without fear of reprisal. In other words, whistleblower protection. Clinton excluded them from this law on national security and intelligence grounds.
"This doesn't mean TWA Flight 800 was shot down, mind you . . . it just means that the "They never could have covered it up for so long" rationale simply doesn't work in my book."
No it doesn't work.
But you'll never convince an Ostrich not to stick his head in the sand to ignore something uncomfortable.
I don't know if TWA 800 was shot down, blew up from exposed wiring in or near a gas tank, or simply came apart because Mike Moore's fat a$$ was riding in the tail section.
But I do know this.
I've learned to keep my mouth shut when I haven't personally witnessed an event and/or don't have some technical expertise in what I'm talking about.
I'm certainly willing to believe that somebody shot it down deliberately but not the U.S. Navy, either deliberately or accidently. The illustrations of the flight characteristics of the MANPAD is convincing enough to me that it was possible to do it. Fair enough...
I'm not sure that would be an issue in this case. I would certainly take eyewitness accounts with a grain of salt in any incident like this (especially since the vast majority of the eyewitnesses were at least nine miles away from where the crash occurred). But you don't need to be a technical expert in anything to conclude that many of the "conclusions" documented by FBI and CIA were completely fraudulent and violated some of the most elementary laws of nature.
I have never thought it was the Navy. Terrorists had been after the US and in light of post 42, it seems very likely.
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