Posted on 06/07/2016 5:18:37 PM PDT by Kaslin
On the pleasant summer evening of July 17, 1996, TWA Flight 800 left JFK Airport in New York bound for Paris. Twelve minutes after takeoff, about ten miles south of the popular south shore of Long Island, at least two surface-to-air missiles blew the 747 out of the sky, killing all 230 people on board.
I write the above with 100 percent confidence. I owe that confidence to the efforts of a small corps of committed individuals -- eyewitnesses, independent researchers, whistleblowers from within the investigation, and family members who have turned their grief into action. In attempting to get at the truth, at least three of these people were arrested, several others were thrown off the TWA 800 investigation, and every one of them was ridiculed.
In TWA 800: The Crash, The Cover-Up, The Conspiracy (Regnery: July 5), I get to tell their story, an epic one. What makes the story so compelling is that these everyday citizens have struggled against a Goliath that could not have been more powerful. The opposition includes, among other powers, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the FBI, and the CIA.
In a totalitarian country, authorities can suppress information at will. In America, the media have to collaborate in that suppression, and this they did, closing their eyes to the obvious and accepting without evidence the government’s unproven theory of a spontaneous fuel tank explosion.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
As far as the technical issues are concerned, I would assume that those firing the weapon would have positioned themselves along the flight path, which is fairly fixed, and taken into account speed and distance. It may or may not have been a MANPAD, but I wouldn't rule it out.
There has been the contention ever since the incident that the USG wanted to downplay what happened so as not to cause panic and impact the airline industry, An accident is far less threatening than terrorists near our airports launching missiles to down passenger jets.
I was specifically responding to a post regarding a submarine launching the missile. I was in the navy at the time of TWA 800 and my two submarines did not have anti-aircraft capability. So if a sub did launch an anti-aircraft missile, it would have been experimental. I doubt they would be part of exercises.
But you seem to be speaking of surface ships conducting routine exercises. Okay. So the navy would send these ships hundreds of miles away from the nearest base to conduct live fire exercises on flying drones in the same airspace as the busiest airports (JFK, LGA, EWR) in the US? And then every single sailor onboard all these ships agreed to the cover up?
That seems even less probable than a random exploding center fuel tank, which I don’t fully buy.
Well clearly those are not my two Los Angeles class boats. They’re not even American with those cute little bow mounted torpedo tubes. And one of them is shooting at a P-3.
So what submarine launched anti-aircraft missile system is currently operational?
The most unreliable components of any aircraft mishap are “eye witness” accounts. (As a USAF certified mishap investigator and led two investigations and participated in several, I find this fact to be remarkably true.)
Contrails explain a lot.
Small missile (4’), non-reflective, no plume/trail, miles and miles and miles away, a human is not physically capable seeing such a missile, the missile is unable to execute an intercept profile, combine that with a history of fuel tank explosions, Occams Razor applies.
Or. . .we can have a complex conspiracy in play with shifting standards of “proof” when elements of the conspiracy are proven not true and/or physically impossible.
For example, the flight performance profile of the MANPAD makes it impossible to fly the intercept profile so we change and now say the MANPAD shooter must have been exactly where he needed to be to take the shot so a ballistic launch can be done.
However, this doesn’t work because the time of flight of the MANPAD to altitude requires the missile to track from the moment of launch and fly a straight lime, which it does not. It flies a pursuit curve, thereby resulting in the jet entering the engagement zone and then flying out the other side of the zone before the missile reaches altitude.
So, we now shift to an entirely different sort of missile or the Navy doing the shooting. But NOTAMS for the date/time/area don’t reflect live firing in the area of the jet and the Navy ships were well to the south.
My earlier comments about airlines and OEM: “The cost of complying with regulations that remove the center line tank explosion threat is tens upon tens of millions of dollars, and the airlines absorbed that cost. . .and the airlines and OEM know the systems and if they knew the tank was not the cause then there would have been lawsuits and public hearings challenging the regulation. And with the threat of another center line tank explosion, the airlines and OEM have to fix the problem otherwise they would be sued out of existence. . .the fact the airlines and OEMs did not challenge the regulation and made the changes means they knew it was the cause.”
The best conspiracies have no proof that there is a conspiracy. The lack of proof is proof of how good the cover-up/conspiracy is.
Time to move on. Have a nice day.
You’ve said it better than I could. Thank you.
Actually it had happened before. At least 100 times on various aircraft prior to that crash according to the FAA. The 767 specifically had two partial deployments prior to this incident.
The consequences were much more severe for this full deployment on the 767 due to several reasons: early thrust reversers on older turbojets and low bypass turbofans were in the exhaust and not in the fan section like a modern high bypass turbofan, earlier jets like the 747 have longer pylons compared to the 767’s tucked up engines, and the 767 was a twin jet.
With an engine tucked up close to the wing (higher) and thrust reversers in the fan section (further forward than an exhaust reverser), it disrupted the airflow over the wing significantly more than in older aircraft, which were much more able to recover from an uncommanded deployment.
Why it hasn’t happened since is obviously due to the mandated redesign with additional locks.
All you had to do was buy me a beer and I would have just told you where I was.
I believe these eyewitnesses.
I believe the Ophonybama regime has taken “cover ups” to the Pulitzer Prize level!
Agreed... it wouldn’t be able to outclimb it. If it were already at altitude with an intercept course that took advantage of the closing speeds. I don’t know. I don’t have my electronic E6B with me.
I also don’t know whether TW800 was still within Class Bravo airspace and/or if it was still restricted to 250 kt. This is all pulled out of very hazy, 20-year-old memories.
Sorry, but this "truism" is hard to apply in this case. The common thread among the hundreds of witnesses who had a multitude of perspectives is that there was some sort of missile launched from the ground into the air resulting in some sort of explosion. We can talk about the color of the flash, whether or not there was a plume, etc. Those are details. But there seems to be a consensus about a missile of some sort rising from the ground to the aircraft. Hard to explain it away.
..., combine that with a history of fuel tank explosions, Occams Razor applies.
What history is that? How many and what was done to correct it prior to TWA 800?
Or. . .we can have a complex conspiracy in play with shifting standards of “proof” when elements of the conspiracy are proven not true and/or physically impossible.<
Conspiracy or cover-up? What would be the motive to cover-up the cause of the accident as a terrorist attack? Does the government have a history of cover-ups? You bet, whether it is Fast and Furious, Benghazi, the IRS targeting of conservative groups, etc. I could provide a list a mile long even going back to the Gulf of Tonkin or the government tests on blacks relating to the effects of syphilis.
Tossing out the conspiracy appellation is similar to calling some one a birther or climate change denier. The issue is whether the public was told the truth about what happened to TWA 800. If one believes that the USG is not providing all the information, he is considered some sort of conspiracy nut. There are still many questions outstanding.
And with the threat of another center line tank explosion, the airlines and OEM have to fix the problem otherwise they would be sued out of existence. . .the fact the airlines and OEMs did not challenge the regulation and made the changes means they knew it was the cause.”
Would it have been better for the airlines if the cause was determined to be terrorism? What would that have done to airline income? 9/11 had an impact on the number of passengers flying. We had to create an entirely new agency to improve security. The costs have been enormous. It is far easier to make some changes to the aircraft and claim the problem is fixed. Have a nice day.
“What history is that?”
Post 171.
I choose fact over conspiracies involving hundreds of thousands of people.
Nothing good can come from continuing this exchange. Like I said earlier, good-bye.
There is a whole class of persons on the Internet who are vested in keeping the official story afloat, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is Normalcy Bias.
Hundreds of thousands? It only took 19 hijackers to take down the WTC and damage the Pentagon.
The Normalcy Bias condition is well known to psychologists and sociologists. It refers to a mental state of denial in which individuals enter into when facing a disaster or pending danger. Normalcy Bias leads people to underestimate and minimize both the possibility of a catastrophe actually happening, as well as its possible consequences to their health and safety.
The Normalcy Bias often results in situations where people fail to prepare for a likely and impending disaster. The Normalcy Bias leads people believe that since something has never happened before, that it never will happen. Therefore, like an infant with a security blanket we cling to our habitual, repetitive, and normal way of life, despite overwhelming proof that serious danger lies ahead.
I heard lil’ Georgie slip up another time too. He was naming of terrorist attacks, and TWA 800 was the third one. Everyone looked startled, and the network cut to a commercial.
I saw that too. He let it slip that they were watching when it happened one time too, but I can’t remember the exact words.
I also heard him talking about Kennedy stealing the election in Illinois, one time. Just like it was a well known fact and of no consequence. Just a routine thing. Well of course for Dems it is.
Well and truly stated ... as usual.
I’ll see if I can drum up Jet-A costs both in the US and other planned stops for TWA800 and run a CBA for topping the tanks before hopping the pond.
While you're doing that you will need to factor in the cost of hauling all that excess fuel across the Atlantic.
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