NINE YEARS afterwards.
...
That's baloney.
Posted on 07/03/2016 2:12:06 PM PDT by Kaslin
James Sanders was the first investigative reporter to take a serious look at what happened to TWA Flight 800. For his efforts, he, his wife Elizabeth, a TWA trainer, and one of his sources, TWA Capt. Terry Stacey were arrested. The Sanderses were tried and convicted in federal court of conspiracy to steal airplane parts. Learn more in TWA 800: The Crash, The Cover-Up, The Conspiracy (Regnery: July 5).
July 12, 1996, Westhampton, Long Island, a repairman using his video camera to film the dawn, instead captured a large missile solid-fuel exhaust plume climbing into the sky. Then something large fell from the sky, on fire, leaving a smoke trail as it descended slowly toward the Atlantic Ocean south of Westhampton.
Five days later, in the same area of the sky, just after 8:30 pm, the United States Navy fired off another missile that brought down TWA Flight 800. Almost twenty years later I obtained from the FBI the video of the July 12, 1996, shoot-down, but the FBI refused to send me the documents associated with the video.
Newly discovered CIA documents, however, reveal that a cover-up was ordered. A factually-false narrative disguised as analysis was created, but never released to the media. Highly credible witnesses observed a missile take out TWA Flight 800, statements so compelling the FBI and CIA altered these statements to comport with the desired outcome of the investigation: mechanical failure.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Dismissing the eyewitnesses is a big leap.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
And therein lies the big difference between the Truther BS that DesertRhino equates with CONSPIRACY THEORISTS OOOoooOOoooOooo and people who are skeptical of “official” stories.
The ones who are full of BS are the ones who say “You now that thing you saw? You didn’t really see that; ignore any and all evidence that doesn’t fit MY narrative”.
You notice I don’t hypothesize about what kind of missile was used or what materials it had in it or whatever. I stick to demonstrable facts, unlike the FBI and CIA.
So the center fuel tank exploded...... something that had never happened before with the 747 and something that hasn’t happened since.....AND no “fixes” were ordered for all remaining 747s to prevent such an “accident” from ever happening again??
Please........
word
AND no “fixes” were ordered for all remaining 747s to prevent such an “accident” from ever happening again??
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To be honest, they DID do fixes afterwards.
NINE YEARS afterwards.
Aren’t you glad that that the government was so worried about this life-threatening problem that could have killed >200 people per aircraft, at a rate of a few thousand a day (workloads of typical 747s)?
OK then. I guess I should have confidence in the competence of our government.
How well do those vents work when the plane is on the ground?
You know, an interesting possibility could be that the government had a tip about terrorist attack. A Navy antimissile ship was sent to intercept, but as was common with the technology of the day, made the intercept too close to the airplane and blew it up accidentally.
Of course for that to happen - the clintton administration would have to be involved in the investigation within two hours, for the first and only time in history the NTSB professionals would have to be sent away without being part of the investigation, huge chunks of tagged evidence (like the nose landing get doors) would have to disappear while in FBI custody, and the NTSB mouthpiece would have to hid in France trying to avoid answering questions under oath. You could also produce an animated video of an airplane climbing after the nose has been blown off, and then when over 30 aerodynamists sign a letter that it is patently absurd, have everyone in the government point fingers at each other tying to deny they created it.
Nah, might as well just move along.
I posted this the other night in a similar thread. I can certainly listen to evidence that the plane was brought down by a missile, but not one fired from a USN Ticonderoga Class cruiser.
This is perhaps a weakness of mine, and I am aware of it. I simply don’t believe 350 men aboard a US Naval ship responsible of the deaths of innocent Americans would all be a party to the conspiracy, even involuntarily.
Having grown up as a military brat, and did a tour in myself aboard various warships, I simply don’t see that happening, even if the truth of the matter is that I personally cannot bring myself to accept the truth of it.
I understand craven human behavior, and I just will not believe that out of a crew of 350, not a single one would crack out of pure torture of conscience. I cannot imagine the ship would come into port, and dozens of FBI/CIA/DIA/Whatever come on board who are all privy to what has been done, and they get each crewman individually and put the screws to them to stay quiet.
When they come into port, would their families meet them? Would they be told not to show up? Would they stand on the docks for hours, as each crewman is processed and has to sign a form in blood or something. And not one of them would meet with their families, but instead of a joyous reunion they get someone who is so tortured and conflicted at least one spouse doesn’t completely panic and blurt out something like “John! What is wrong? What’s the matter?”
Or, that they would all be given a large sum of money. Or both money and a threat.
I simply don’t see it. Tell me someone with a shoulder launched missile, a cargo ship at sea with a missile, whatever, did it...okay. I can buy it.
But I won’t believe 350 American sailors would be party to it and keep the code of silence. But that is just me, perhaps my own weakness.
The radar image, showed something heading toward TWA800. Once it impacts, and TWA800, disappears from radar, the government calls the other image, “artifact”.
The seats showed something like a missile went through. When the government said it was just melted glue, the chief pilot at TWA, took a sample to an independent lab. They concluded it was rocket residue. The chef pilot wAs arrested. The government said they had conducted dog training exercises on the plane, a month earlier, with fake missile/bomb residue.
But when debrie was washing up on the beaches of L.I., the head of the F.B.I., picked up a U.S. Flag and gave to some children, watching. No charges.
Then on September 11th. George Stephanopolis said ,it reminded him, of when TWA 800 was “shot down”.
And of course, when, it th appened, Pierre Salinger came out immediately, and stated that his sources told him, that the U.S. Navy shot down TWA 800.
Commander Donaldson retired navy. Always felt it was shot down...but by terrorists
And any cover up would be done WITH crew support, not against it. What if you were on one of the ships. If it wasn't an accident, you would have been told the plane was being used for terrorism and had to be shot down, that it was carrying a nuke or something. So if anyone talked later, they could trigger a war.
If it was an accident, you'd be given a cover story that would seem plausible, that you agreed with. For example, you'd know first hand the value of the Aegis system. You'd be told it would be scrapped if the truth about it screwing up and taking out an airliner got out, and that that simply could not be allowed to happen - Aegis was crucial to the security of the US. So it would have to be covered up to save the system.
And as for processing the emotions, the ship would stay out at sea until whoever was running the op made sure every crew member was vetted. Individual and group counseling sessions would take place. And they'd also be told that if any one of them spoke, the whole crew would go down - not through punishments and threats, but simply by a media feeding frenzy. You'd all be given crisis phone numbers, shrinks would be on board and available in the future, you'd all get extreme hazardous duty pay as bonuses and classified medals for going above and beyond the call of duty.
Point being, it could be done. And none of the crew would believe they were being anything but honorable. After all, the people on the plane were dead and can't be brought back - why harm the country on top of it all? It would be horrible, yes. But accidents happen and have to be dealt with properly - that's part of being in the military. And with the right explanation, there would be no conscience to "crack." Far, far worse necessities have been covered up in war, this would be no different.
The worse possibility would have been if some terrorist in their own boat fired the missile. That happens in US waters and the Navy is right there and didn't stop it? THAT would make sailors talk, IMO.
Do we have such antimissile missiles on Naval ships?
The picture of the other bomber, looked like Jose Padia. He was charged, and went to prison, for secret crimes.
It took twelve years after TWA-800 before the FAA released their rules in July 2008 requiring all new commercial aircraft in the US to have inerted fuel tanks but then only starting two years later in 2010! In addition of the thousands of already existing commercial aircraft, the FAA required they be retrofitted only 2018, and only specific models to boot. Of the 747s, and there are thousands still flying, only 60 are being required to be retrofitted with inerting systems! They are NOT 747-100s like the plane that was destroyed in the TWA-800 disaster.
There have been over 20 incidents of fires and at least one explosion documented.
Many of those were in StratoTankers, and the fuel tank involved was the cargo carrying tank, not the fuel tanks of the planes themselves. Others were military jets which use a far more volatile fuel with a lower flash point than Jet A.
Try TWELVE YEARS after but effective to start FOURTEEN YEARS after! And retro fitting existing planes to be completed by TWENTY-TWO YEARS after and only 60 of the thousands of 747s and NOT ONE OF THEM A 747-100!
“SFAR 88” issued June, 2001 (less than 5 years after TWA 800): http://lessonslearned.faa.gov/TWA800/SFAR88Summary.pdf
I’m laughing my ass off at what you call “fixes,” moonman62. “Recommendations” that take years to act on are NOT “fixes”, nor are running test flights to modify 747 Flight Handbooks to essentially warn crews that the fuel in a Center Wing Tank might be hotter than a previous handbook said it was. . . None of that is a serious “fix.”
Even adding a bit more fuel to an empty tank to decrease the air/fuel mixing space does nothing because there will STILL be an volume of mixed air/fuel that can be ignited with a spark.
Note there is NO recommendation to remove or reroute wiring from the fuel tanks. . . that’s because there was no wiring to remove or reroute!
The NTSB couch it in equivocal language because they really had no definitive cause to fix.
Also, two other center tank explosions (1 about 5 years before TWA 800 and 1 about 5 years after TWA-800):
1990:
http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19900511-1
http://www.ntsb.gov/safety/safety-recs/RecLetters/A90_100_103.pdf
I've seen that before. It really changed nothing. No fuel tank inerting. The requirement that there be no ignition source in fuel tanks had already been in force since the 1958 revision. All they did was add the language about preventing the fuel mixture getting too hot and no ignition source. They required the builders to REVIEW their designed tanks for any potential problems and self report if they found any or not. . . and change it on future builds if they did. Other than that, they need to tell their customers to check the older planes regularly.
Not much, in other words.
Safety items move slowly when aircraft manufacturers and airlines have high-paid lobbyists involved and the fixes cost millions...just the way of the world: http://www.ntsb.gov/news/press-releases/Pages/At_9th_Anniversary_of_TWA_800_Crash_NTSB_Seeks_FAA_Action_on_Fuel_Tank_Flammability_Recommendations.aspx
Bad Airbus A330-300 (Air France 447) pitot tubes took 6 years to get fixed: http://www.aviationtoday.com/regions/usa/Mandate-to-Replace-Airbus-Pitot-Tubes_34126.html#.V3o14FcYd_k
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
