In view of the fact that the FBI leadership DID belatedly agree with Tobin that there was NO physical evidence that Flight 800 was the victim of a missile or bomb, why do you state in your title that it is an "ongoing dissent"?
FBI: No criminal evidence behind TWA 800 crash
November 18, 1997
NEW YORK (CNN) -- The FBI formally ended its 16-month investigation Tuesday into the crash of TWA flight 800, and agents said there was no evidence it was a criminal act. The probe now shifts to the National Transportation Safety Board, which plans to hold public hearings next month.
"No evidence has been found which would indicate that a criminal act was the cause of the tragedy of TWA flight 800," FBI Assistant Director James Kallstrom told a news conference. "We do know one thing," Kallstrom said. "The law enforcement team has done everything humanly possible, has pursued every lead, has looked at every theory and has left no stone unturned." He said the cost of the FBI probe ranged from $14 million to $20 million.
The FBI's conclusion left mechanical failure -- not a bomb or missile -- as the most likely cause of the crash on July 17, 1996, when the Paris-bound Boeing 747 exploded in a fireball minutes after taking off from Kennedy International Airport, killing all 230 people on board.
It was the complaints of government experts about Kallstrom's unprofessional and "inept" conduct that led to the Grassley hearing.
ll May 1999 - FBI Probe of TWA Crash Criticized
Several federal officials told a Senate subcommittee yesterday that the FBI's role in the investigation of the crash of TWA Flight 800 was overbearing and at times inept. According to that testimony, the agency clung to the theory that a bomb or missile had downed the plane months after its own chief scientist on the case had reached the opposite conclusion.
The hearing before the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on administrative oversight and the courts is the culmination of a two-year congressional review of the TWA investigation. Witnesses portrayed a probe riddled with sloppy investigative techniques and dominated by a powerful FBI agent-in-charge, who seemed determined to prove that the crash resulted from an act of terrorism.
"Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), the subcommittee chairman and a frequent FBI critic, said the crash investigation was "a model of failure, not success." He described the bureau's leadership in the case as "a disaster," adding that the bureau hindered the investigation and "risked public safety" with its alleged attempt to suppress a report on the cause of the crash by another government agency. The Jan. 20, 1997, report by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms concluded that the plane crashed after a mechanical flaw ignited an explosion in its central fuel tank, a finding that became official and was endorsed by the FBI several months later. But Andrew Vita, ATF's assistant director of field operations, testified that when he sought to submit the report in March 1997 to the National Transportation Safety Board, he "met resistance" from the FBI."
Grassley has accused the FBI of suppressing important public safety information in an act that could have endangered airline travelers. That charge was vigorously denied yesterday by Lewis D. Schiliro, head of the FBI's New York office, who called it "ludicrous" and defended the TWA investigation as "professional, responsible and methodical." Schiliro produced an unsigned copy of a letter from his predecessor, James K. Kallstrom, apparently forwarding the report to the NTSB along with a complaint that it was "unsolicited and premature." But safety board officials have said they have found no record that they received the ATF report and Grassley said he remains convinced it was never sent. Kallstrom, who has retired from the FBI and is now a bank executive, was the dominant figure in the TWA investigation. He was also, according to yesterday's testimony, obsessed by the bomb or missile theory – a scenario that would have kept the case under FBI jurisdiction.
William A. Tobin, the FBI's former chief metallurgist, said that by September 1996, about six weeks after the crash, he and other scientists working on the case unanimously agreed that there was no evidence that the crash was caused by a bomb or missile. But Kall strom resisted this conclusion, Tobin said, once coming within six inches of Tobin's face as he "advised me in graphic terms that it was a bomb." "I ended up wearing several particles of his saliva," Tobin said.
The FBI's attitude was "not whether but when they would get evidence of a bomb," said Frank Zakar, the NTSB's former chief metallurgist. Asked about the FBI's treatment of ATF agents working on the case, Hank Hughes, a senior accident investigator for the safety board, replied: "Unkind is the best way I can put it." Hughes compiled a list of what he described as the FBI's missteps, which included mishandling of evidence and an unauthorized invitation by an agent on the case to a psychic to view the wreckage and render an opinion.
By the way, isn't it a fact that you do NOT support the "missile shootdown" notion?
Do you suspect that TWA Flight 800 may have been the victim of a suitcase bomb?
ALL the readers, particularly the "shootdown" tinfoil hats, would obviously like to know your answers to those questions.