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James Sanders in his book Downing of TWA Flight 800 says terrorists intended to ram a airliner departing JFK with a smaller plane packed with explosives. US intelligence learned of the plot and alerted the US Navy. The Navy attempted to shoot down the smaller plane with two missiles but the plane was closing fast on TWA800. One missile hit TWA800, which explains the propellant residue, and the other hit the smaller plane, which explains the large, non-fuel explosion external to TWA800, but close enough that the concussion destroyed it. That senario is plausible and is consistent with all of the evidence.

· Test results conflict about the contents of red residue.

In March 1997, freelance journalist and ex-Seal Beach policeman James D. Sanders said red residue found on a piece of the jetliner’s seats was consistent with exhaust from solid fuel for rockets. A missile scientist said the elements were consistent with rocket fuel. Sanders used that and other evidence to conclude a missile with an inert warhead shot down Flight 800. His evidence and conclusions were published in The Press-Enterprise.

FBI and NTSB officials said the red residue was adhesive and that their tests showed it to be 3M’s Scotch-Grip 1357 High Performance Contact Adhesive. However, Scotch-Grip 1357 is green, not red.

Three independent laboratory tests show Scotch-Grip 1357’s makeup is significantly different than the residue Sanders had tested independently in a Southern California laboratory.

The test the NTSB commissioned the National Aeronautic and Space Administration to conduct on the adhesive and Flight 800 seats is so dissimilar to Sanders’ test that the results “are like comparing apples and oranges,” according to Semtec Laboratories of Phoenix, Ariz., a private test laboratory.

Laboratory manager Ed Holdsworth, who examined the conflicting test reports at the request of The Press-Enterprise, said they showed the adhesive and red residue differences to be significant.

“Clearly the data do not support the statement that the analyses are `consistent with’ the residue being 3M adhesive,” his report said. But he cautioned he also could not say the red residue was consistent with rocket propellent, in part because of “the lack of any basic data on what the residue from a solid fuel rocket motor should contain.”

Two independent tests at a branch of the Los Alamos National Laboratory at Florida State University determined the 3M adhesive and seating material from a TWA sister plane to Flight 800 were missing almost half the elements found in the red residue Sanders had tested. Of the eight elements common to the 3M product and the red residue, most were present in significantly smaller quantities in the adhesive.

The FBI’s original samples and Sanders’ sample also came from different spots, according to investigators. The FBI’s came from inside a plastic inset on seatbacks while Sanders’ was fabric from the top ridge of a seat.

James Sanders in his book Downing of TWA Flight 800 says terrorists intended to ram a airliner departing JFK with a smaller plane packed with explosives. US intelligence learned of the plot and alerted the US Navy. The Navy attempted to shoot down the smaller plane with two missiles but the plane was closing fast on TWA800.

Ideas like this always strike me as disinformational backfires. (i.e crazy ideas that are associated with an inconvenient truth, that can be used to discredit the inconvenient truth. Other examples are some of the stories about Vincent Foster and the "clipper chip" or supposed runs he made to Swiss Banks.) So the Navy knew about this "smaller plane" and just happened to decide to conduct some exercises in the area that day? I don't remember. Does Sanders suggest that this "smaller plane" was actually there and such an attempt was made. If yes: Isn't it remarkable that no one saw this "smaller plane" including the FAA Radar? If no: Did the Navy shoot at the nonexistent plane? And what kind of a "smaller plane" was this? None of the planes I've flown can fly and/or climb that fast. These are the ravings of a madman.

ML/NJ