Erroneous Claims About The TWA Flight 800 Disaster

Wasn't the fight from New York to Paris?
If so, why on earth would the center tank be empty, or near empty?

Moses Goddard told me he thought it was a missile.

Hey Asmo: WARREN RUDMAN says hi.

One of my favorite pastimes after twa800 was whenever I flew a commercial jet and went past the pilot during seating, I would ask if the pilot thought 747s were unsafe due to CWT explosion hazards.

I *never* got an affirmative from a pilot.

While there may be reams of data that show a CWT explosion *could* have been the cause of twa800 going down, I rely on the instincts and knowledge of pilots who fly the airplanes themselves. These guys presumeably have a lot more at stake than I do to study the reports and come to their own conclusions... after all, it is their butts at stake every working day.

So whatever the academics or the feds come up with, common sense tells me that if it were a problem with the CWT, the planes would have been grounded until the problem was solved, and pilots everywhere would not unanimously and uninhibitedly voice doubts about the NTSB and Fibbie conclusions. Since neither of these happened (in addition to the witnesses, radar evidence, lack of proper procedure, continual government cover-up mode with regard to other evidence), the onus is on the reports and those who produce them to complete the hard sell to come up with a comprehensive scenario for how we got where we are today with all the conflicting indicators.

I have personally witnessed government employees in cover-butt mode, and it should be recorded for posterity and replayed on the same channel as those real life cop videos. As comedy.

From a high level, cover up is the picture conveyed. I'll leave arguing cherry-picked details to "others".

Only enough fuel is added to make the trip plus a reserve. To fill the tanks completely for each flight would waste fuel, as the added weight would cause excessive fuel usage. Generally, due to prevailing winds, Eastbound flights are shorter and require less fuel than Westbound flights.

OK.
To me, Paris seems like a long flight.
Before I crossed an ocean, I'd want to be sure I had enough.

Hi, I mention my experience because it is readily accessible by way of being readily repeatable. Next time you board a jet, ask a pilot yourself. It does not have to be a 747. The pilots and crew that I spoke with always seemed to regard the official TWA800 info and theories with huge skepticism.

The best way of proving that it was a CWT explosion, short of shutting down all 747s until the problem was corrected, would have been to hold a *normal* NTSB investigation and *normal* NTSB hearing. Since those were never done, the problem is there is and will always be a "credibility gap".

Does he promise eternal salvation or triple your money back?

"Good article. (But it doesn't address the really serious complaints which some of us have about the overall investigation or its conclusions.)"

The following may help you and other readers to better understand the mass of mess the NTSB inherited from the FBI. Sorry for the length but it's only a small fraction of the reports noted.

Witnesses Group Chairman's Factual Report [excerpts] The FBI provided the NTSB with a variety of documents pertaining to interviews conducted by FBI agents. The documents consist primarily of FD-302 forms, teletypes, and inserts. An FD-302 is a standard FBI form that is used to record the admissible testimony of an FBI agent. 16 In addition to FD-302s, interview results were also frequently summarized in teletypes or inserts, which are somewhat less formal investigative documents that also could be used as evidence. Although it is not technically correct to refer to all of the documents as "302 forms," for the purposes of the accident investigation, all of the documents are functionally equivalent.

This report refers to FBI documents of any type pertaining to interviews as "witness documents." These documents are summaries of some of the information provided to FBI agents by witnesses during interviews conducted as part of the FBI's criminal investigation. No verbatim records of the FBI interviews were produced. The documents are almost exclusively written in the words of the agents who conducted the interviews, and not in the words of the witnesses themselves.

The documents were created to capture information relevant to its criminal investigation, and FBI agents frequently included only information that appeared relevant to this purpose. Witnesses were almost always interviewed by more than one FBI agent (or other law enforcement personnel), one of whom served as the note taker.

A witness document was prepared later by reference to these notes. Although some agents typed these documents themselves, many were prepared by typists by reference to handwritten drafts. The agents reviewed the typed documents for accuracy. This review was often accomplished shortly after the interview, but due to the large number of interviews being conducted, a backlog developed, and sometimes several days or weeks elapsed before handwritten interview notes were typed and reviewed.

The witnesses themselves were not asked to review or correct the documents. Because of these factors, the witness group avoids referring to the witness documents as "statements."

NTSB Witness Group Study Report [excerpts] The witness interviews conducted by the FBI were done in support of its criminal investigation. During the September 30, 1998, meeting, FBI Special Agent Otto told the witness group that in the initial days of the investigation, the FBI began to suspect that a missile might have been used against flight 800 because so many eyewitness accounts included descriptions of a flare-like object or fireworks in the sky prior to the appearance of a large fireball. Consequently, rather than recording a complete accounting of the visual and aural events described by the witnesses, Special Agent Otto indicated that FBI agents tended to use the witness documents to capture information that appeared relevant to its criminal investigation.

It appears that during some interviews the questions asked by the FBI agents were framed in a manner that emphasized aspects relevant to the missile investigation. In fact, some suggested interview questions are included in document CC-5, which pertains to Witness 32. Some of these include:

What was the timing of events? How long did the missile fly, etc. What does the terrain around launch sight look like? Were scorch marks visible? Where was the sun in relation to the aircraft and the missile launch point? The witness group and the document readers found that a number of other aspects of the witness documents make it difficult to extract accurate and reliable information from them.

These include possible interviewer and interviewee bias, ambiguous clock-point and angle references, potentially inaccurate distance estimates, combined accounts, reporting of witness speculation and conclusions, imprecise or vague language, internal inconsistency, and errors concerning the origin streak of light. Each of these issues will be discussed along with an example or two.

Possible interviewer and interviewee bias. As mentioned previously, FBI witness interviewing was focused on the possibility that a missile had been used against the accident airplane. This focus may have resulted in bias on the part of some the interviewers. For example, the document (CC1-628) pertaining to Witness 590 (10.4 nautical miles slant range from flight 800, interviewed July 20, 1996) describes an ascending red ball. 10,11 The document further states, "Upon impact, [redacted] observed a large fireball." Neither the document nor the attached interview notes states that the witness saw anything other than the red ball in the sky; thus, it is unclear what the "impact" mentioned in the document is. Although this incongruity could be due to other reasons, the witness appears to have described an ascending red ball and a large fireball, which the interviewer related using the word "impact."

For a similar example, see document CC1-382, which pertains to Witness 411 and Witness 412 (both of whom were 8.2 nautical miles slant range from flight 800, interviewed July 20, 1996). These witnesses describe seeing a flare-like object, but "they did not see what [the] flare struck, but it exploded in air into a large orange fireball." This characterization may suggest that the interviewer and/ or the interviewees believed that the flare-like object was a missile, which must have struck something. Beliefs concerning the possibility of a missile attack may have biased or colored the word choices used in reporting the witness accounts; therefore, these accounts must be interpreted carefully.

The presence of missile experts at some interviews may also have influenced these biases.

One document pertaining to Witness 243 (CC4-146, interview date not provided) states that the witness saw an ascending object and then an explosion. However, another document pertaining to this witness (CC1-28, interviewed July 18, 1996) states that the witness (12.0 nautical miles slant range from flight 800) noticed something similar to a flare and "the flying object was relatively slow in flying up and took about four or five seconds before hitting the airplane." Though the document implies that the witness saw an airplane, the document does not specifically state that the witness actually saw an airplane. The interviewer or the interviewee may have used these words to convey that the witness observed an explosion after seeing the flare-like object.

Some documents noted that the witness did not realize what he or she was observing, and some documents specifically state that the witness made conclusions about what he or she observed after learning about the accident in the media.

For example, the document pertaining to Witness 326 (CC-368, 13.2 nautical miles slant range from flight 800, interviewed July 24, 1996) states that this witness did not think much about what was observed until watching the evening news.

The document pertaining to Witness 271 states that she did not realize that she had observed an airplane crash until about an hour later when family members told her that TWA flight 800 had exploded.

The document pertaining to Witness 166 (CC1-374, 31.0 nautical miles slant range from flight 800, interviewed July 26, 1996) states that this witness concluded that he had observed a missile after hearing news accounts about the crash.

Clearly, some witnesses discussed the crash with each other and/ or learned about it from the media before they were interviewed. It is likely that media coverage about the crash and the associated criminal investigation may have led to bias on the part of some the interviewees.

Ambiguous clock-point and angle references. Sometimes direction or position is described using clock-point references that do not appear to be those generally used in aviation. It is not always readily apparent whether "o'clock" is referring to the observed object's path of travel, its position, or its elevation angle.

For example, the document pertaining to Witness 533 (CC-371, interviewed July 19, 1996) describes "the trajectory of the smoke trail initially as verticle [sic] (approximately 11: 00 direction)." Without knowing the orientation of the clock face in space, this type of description is difficult to interpret. The clock face could be parallel to the line of sight of witness such that 11 o'clock is almost directly above the witness, perpendicular to the line of sight of the witness such that 11 o'clock describes a trajectory that is nearly perpendicular to the horizon, or the clock could be parallel to the horizon such that 11 o'clock is just to the left of being directly in front of the witness (8.1 nautical miles slant range from flight 800).

In another example, the document pertaining to Witness 216 states that he "observed to his right, at about forty-five (45) degrees, a flare vertically going 'down'… [and] saw a horizontal explosion about one-half (1/ 2) way down from where he first observed what he believed was a 'boat flare'" (CC1-261, interviewed July 23, 1996). From this description, it cannot be determined with certainty where the witness first observed the flare. It appears that the witness (10.3 nautical miles slant range from flight 800) said that he first observed the flare at 45 degrees above the horizon; however, the description could also be referring to the direction in which the witness first observed the flare. The flare may have been first observed 45 degrees to his right. Because the initial position is ambiguous, the description of an explosion half way down from that point is also ambiguous.

______________________________

"What about the full page ad taken out in the Washington Times by the witnesses what want to be heard but are denied?"

Here's the ad - and the documentation on the monumental bellyflop of one of its authors.

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