Posted on 12/14/2006 9:28:35 AM PST by Hal1950
Slowly but surely, retired United Airline Capt. Ray Lahr and attorney John Clarke are prying open the can of worms known as the TWA Flight 800 investigation, and sooner or later the major media will have to take notice.
WABC in New York already has. Two weeks ago, the station's Jim Hoffer did a short feature headlined "Major court ruling in TWA Flight 800 case." What proved to be most newsworthy about the feature, however, was not the ruling in question but a surprising admission by former NTSB managing director Peter Goelz.
As Hoffer noted, and has been reported here previously, a U.S. district court judge in Los Angeles has granted Lahr access to most of the documents he has requested to get at the truth behind the alleged 3,200-foot "zoom climb" of the damaged aircraft.
In the WABC feature, Hoffer interviewed not only Lahr but also Goelz, who oversaw the investigation. Wittingly or not, Goelz made the stunning comment that "whether [TWA Flight 800] climbed 3,200 feet or not is really irrelevant."
Irrelevant? Really? The FBI and the CIA did not think so. In 1996-1997, the two agencies climbed over the notorious "wall" to collaborate on an animation showing how a crippled 747 could climb rocket-like for 3,200 feet after its nose had been blown off. This animation was critical. The FBI needed such a scenario to silence the media and close the case.
The CIA video could not have been more definitive. "The Eyewitnesses Did Not See a Missile," reads an underlined script on the video screen. No, "What the witnesses saw was a Boeing 747 in various stages of crippled flight." The FBI showed the CIA video at its final press conference in November 1997, thereby ending any serious investigation.
Despite doubts, the NTSB stuck to the story. At the final NTSB hearing in August 2000, Dr. David Mayer, acting chief of the NTSB's Orwellian-titled "Human Performance Division," reaffirmed the zoom climb. "As the airplane maneuvered in crippled flight," said Mayer in an attempt to explain what the eyewitnesses saw, "it appeared to fly nearly straight up." Tellingly, at no NTSB hearing were the eyewitnesses, several of them pilots or military personnel, ever allowed to testify.
Goelz himself knows just how relevant the zoom climb is. His claim that "there is absolutely no evidence that a missile was fired at this aircraft" hinges on the zoom climb. Without it, there is no way to explain the testimony of the 270 FBI eyewitnesses who had seen lights streaking up toward the plane in the seconds before it exploded. Without it, that eyewitness testimony becomes once again all but irrefutable evidence of a missile strike.
Much of that testimony was vivid and specific. One travel industry professional, for instance, told the FBI that she was standing on the beach when she noticed a 747 "level off." With her eye still on TWA Flight 800, she watched in awe as a "red streak" with a "light gray smoke trail" moved up towards the airliner at a 45-degree angle. Then, the "red streak went past the right side and above the aircraft before arcking [sic] back down toward the aircrafts [sic] right wing."
She saw "the front of the aircraft separate from the back" and watched as the burning pieces of the debris fell from the aircraft. She provided a drawing that showed the scenario in some detail, including the "upside down Nike swoosh," which ended at the plane's right wing. By the way, she correctly identified the departure of the plane's nose long before that detail became publicly known. For the record, hers is one of perhaps 100 comparably strong testimonies.
A veteran safety investigator and a serious student of aerodynamics, Ray Lahr thought the zoom climb scenario a canard the moment he saw it. There is scarcely a pilot anywhere who disagrees with Lahr. Buttressed by wide support in the aviation community, he began his nine-year quest to see the evidence used to calculate the zoom climb.
Lahr is making progress. The Los Angeles judge clearly sided with him. He ruled that the case Lahr and Clarke presented was sufficiently strong "to permit plaintiff to proceed based on his claim that the government acted improperly in its investigation of Flight 800 or at least performed in a grossly negligent fashion."
Ten years out, the evidence for a missile strike grows stronger by the week. A Pulitzer awaits the first major media organization to tackle this case in a serious way. Shamefully, none ever has.
Get Jack Cashill's groundbreaking exposé, "First Strike: TWA Flight 800 and the Attack on America"
No, it is an effort to get at the truth. Next: the Iraqi connection to OKC.
Bump with no comment.
I totally agree.
I just find it hard to believe that 270 people were watching an ordinary plane flying in an ordinary manner in an ordinary sky, so intently that they could accurately describe as "eyewitnesses" what happened BEFORE the plane exploded.
Much more likely that they heard the explosion, looked up, saw stuff falling away, and their minds just reconstructed images of stuff flying AT the plane.
"Because then he would have to do something about it."
WTC I
Khobar Towers
US Embassy Tanzania
US Embassy Kenya
USS Cole
He didn't do anything about those, what's different about a commercial airline flight shot out of the sky - assuming it was?
Hopeless Romantic.
No terrorist group had thime to, as the shape of the investigation was quick.
There is also video footage and radar images that seem to also indicate a missle strike.
There is a website up, or was that is run by former pilots demanding to expose the truth.
I want the video's and radar images released, I can then make up my own mind.
But 4 months befoer an election, scumbag would do anything or anone to maintain his hold on Monica, the White House.
LOL!
A high school classmate of mine was on that plane (Patrick Bell)... I hope they get to the bottom of it. If it was terrorism, it seems to me that we have some unfinished business there as well.
Probably because it was 'our' sky and the fact that people are more intune with an airline disaster and what that can mean to society.
Tin foil hat alert!. TWA 800 was not a terrorist attack.... I coulain how it happened but to the conspiracy theorists it wouldn't matter.
Because he'd have to pardon more of them when he left office?
Al Qaida MANPADS, Slick Willy covered up to avoid bad PR prior to Olympics, end of discussion.
I saw it too! I got yer back!
Out of envelope fof a MANPADS, end of discussion.
Why would a terrorist group go to this trouble and then keep mum about it?
Because they hit the wrong plane. They were targeting an El-Al flight that was on gate hold.
OK, I am ready for the flames.
TWA Flt 800 was hit by a meteorite.
It would also explain the 'streak' seen in the sky.
July *is* the start of meteor showers for the summer.....
Makes as much sense as anythig else.
OK, go ahead, your turn.
Great twist at the very end.
It's plausible--barely. It's possible--barely. It doesn't require IMpossible things like the other scenarios do.
Hmm.
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