"Yet, not one expert witness report analyst has ever agreed with Commander Donaldson's allegations about the observations of the witnesses. Not even one."FALSE! You Sir are the most incompetent "analyst" I've even seen! Look at this....
Having followed the link to the official report of witness 649, I found it contained a letter from a real expert witness analyst from the Suffolk County Police Department (Douglas S. Matulewich, Deputy Inspector, Commanding Officer, Marine Bureau) who was employed to determine if TWA 800 witness accounts indicate that a missile was involved. Inspector Matulewich along with an agent from the Defense Intelligence Agency triangulated several witness accounts and concluded this,
Witness Expert: "I became involved in a joint effort to determine the possibility of a missile shooting down TWA flight 800. The objective was to determine if the observations of eye witnesses could be plotted on a chart to determine a location from which a missile was shot. ... The above Latitude and Longitude locations INDICATES THE CENTER OF AN AREA THAT IS STRONGLY RECOMMENDED TO BE SEARCHED AND AT A MINIMUM A ONE (1) nautical mile area should be searched for the remains of equipment that would launch a portable missile. The possibility exists that the equipment was discarded and now remains on the ocean floor." From official NTSB report.
All caps are in the original. You can read that on page 265 of 446 of the pdf file in the first link in this reply. There it is Asmodeus, an expert inspector who reviewed the witness accounts and concluded that they are enough like missile witness accounts to justify a massive search for residual missile parts. How could Asmodeus have overlooked this detail if he is the master analyst he implies and is sufficently versed in this case to render such strong opinion? It seems that Asmodeus capitalizes on what people don't know, either that or his tin-foil hat is getting too tight.
Now get this, the expert analyst Commander Donaldson found evidence of the FBI's search that was recommended based on the expert conclusion that the witness accounts support a missile strike. If the expert analysts and the FBI believed what Asmodeus believes they would never have recommended and conducted such a massive search of the ocean. It seems that Asmodeus' beliefs expose him as the real tin-foil hatter.
I've heard via private mailings that something credible has been dredged up and placed into Naval hands possibly to be used as a Pearl Harbor file. Apparently it was small enough to be placed into a safe. It should be exposure dated to be authentic. It was interesting that it was not turned over to the FBI or NTSB, the Black Holes of investigative bodies.
The
"Shrapnel" Myth:
John Barry Smith - LSoft Flight 800 Forum - 1 September 1997
"Shrapnel defined in ole' dictionary: 'A hollow projectile containing bullets or the like and a bursting charge, designed to explode berfore reaching the target, and to release a shower of missiles.' Ok, so 'FBI agents were here and standing with us while we were doing the autopsies and taking the shrapnel that we found', said Dr. Charles Wetli of the Suffolk County Medical Examiner. 'Virtually all of the bodies had shrapnel'. FBI agents wanting shrapnel so bad they can taste it, local doctor who has probably never seen real war wounds with real shrapnel sees bodies with pieces of metal embedded in them and says, 'shrapnel.' And reported by reporter. And you go conclusive. You are spring loaded to the missile/bomb explanation." The "All The Witnesses Were Accused of Being Drunk Drunk" Myth:
It's routine for expert major incident interviewers to ask witnesses if they had any alcoholic beverages to drink and/or had taken any kind of drugs within 12-24 hours prior to making their observations and to determine all the details in the event of an affirmative answer.
"George Black: I'd almost make an observation that one of the things by virtue of my position I got to interview witnesses pretty quickly. In this case, even the FBI was reviewing, interviewing these witnesses, hours, even days, afterwards, and one of the things that we do not know about these witnesses, was what their condition was at the time they made these observations. I noticed that you refer to someone at Yacht Club on an evening during the summer. I suspect I know what some of their conditions might have been but that is a bit of information we do not have since they were delayed interviews". Source
"You write as though you may have taken part in the cover-up. Did you."
An accusation disguised as a question, a typical tinfoiler tactic that dramatizes their circular logic: They decree that TWA 800 was the victim of a "missile(s) shootdown", that high ranking government officials and thousands of other Americans have engaged in the criminal coverup of that decreed "truth" about the disaster and that those who disagree with them are therefore guilty of complicity in the felonious criminal coverup of "the missile(s) shootdown" of TWA 800.
"Having followed the link to the official report of witness 649, I found it contained a letter from a real expert witness analyst from the Suffolk County Police Department (Douglas S. Matulewich, Deputy Inspector, Commanding Officer, Marine Bureau) who was employed to determine if TWA 800 witness accounts indicate that a missile was involved. Inspector Matulewich along with an agent from the Defense Intelligence Agency triangulated several witness accounts and concluded this:"
[Underlined emphasis added][Caps in the original]
Witness Expert: "I became involved in a joint effort to determine the possibility of a missile shooting down TWA flight 800. The objective was to determine if the observations of eye witnesses could be plotted on a chart to determine a location from which a missile was shot. ... The above Latitude and Longitude locations INDICATES THE CENTER OF AN AREA THAT IS STRONGLY RECOMMENDED TO BE SEARCHED AND AT A MINIMUM A ONE (1) nautical mile area should be searched for the remains of equipment that would launch a portable missile. The possibility exists that the equipment was discarded and now remains on the ocean floor."
It is again appropriate to remind the readers what an "expert" is:
ex·pert (kspûrt) n. A person with a high degree of skill in or knowledge of a certain subject.
The tinfoiler alleges that Matulewich is a "Witness Expert". An expert witness interviewer conducts thorough and complete witness interviewers. Did Matulewich ever conduct any such witness interviews of any incident? Can the tinfoiler produce even one expert witness interview conducted by Matulewich?
No one can become an expert witness report analyst without knowing how to conduct an expert witness interview.
Did the tinfoiler notice that Matulewich "became involved in a joint effort" to see if they could find a possible missile launch point so that they could then look for "the remains of equipment that would launch a portable missile"?
Which is what James Kallstrom instructed his FBI agents to do at the outset.
"James Kallstrom’s erroneous assumption on the basis of intial reports that Flight 800 may have been the victim of a missile shootdown led to the FBI being authorized to seize control of the investigation from the NTSB at the outset. He promptly elbowed aside the NTSB Witness Interview Teams, as documented in NTSB Exhibit 4-A, and substituted his own agents to interview the witnesses, ignoring the fact that the NTSB Teams were far better qualified for that role. Making matters worse, as the complaints from so many of the witnesses reflect about extremely brief and sketchy interviews, it appears he gave them orders to move fast to find the "smoking gun" of a missile shootdown that he was apparently convinced would be readily found." Source
But Kallstrom publicly admitted later that no meaningful evidence of a missile shootdown of the 747 [or bomb] was ever found. Which, because of their circular logic, led the tinfoils to acccuse the FBI of a criminal coverup of "the truth". Which in turn required the tinfoil hatters to ignore the testimony and reports of government experts on other subjects such as explosives and forensic metallurgy documented in this source and its clickable link. Which the tinfoilers will inevitably allege was "more lies to coverup the truth".
Just as they will inevitably allege that this response to their fantasies is circular logic because most of them haven't the foggiest idea how to engage in logical deductive reasoning. As John Barry Smith put it, they are "spring loaded to the missile explanation".
To put it another way, the tinfoil hatters are reality impaired because their horrendous bias has destroyed their objectivity.
Senator Charles Grassley"A January 1997 ATF report, which will be discussed today, showed that the cause of the crash of the TWA Flight 800 was a mechanical failure. The FBI did not want that report out. It tried to suppress it. The FBI feared that if the case became a criminal case and went to court, the ATF report would be discoverable through Brady doctrine and might help exculpate the potential suspects. But the FBI had the cart before the horse. You cannot start suppressing information when there is no crime. The vast majority of explosions like TWA are due to accidents, not to sabotage. For the FBI to assume first that an explosion is sabotage reveals its lack of experience in dealing with explosion incidents. Indeed, th The distance of Major Meyer's explosion symbol from the IE is figured by taking the The distance of Major Meyer's explosion symbol from the IE is figured by taking the dis The distance of Major Meyer's explosion symbol from the IE is figured by taking the disThe distance of Major Meyer's explosion symbol from the IE is figured by taking the disThe distance of Major Meyer's explosion symbol from the IE is figured by taking the dise FBI rarely investigates explosions and fires. Other law enforcement agencies, most notably the ATF, investigate many explosions and have lots of experience.
The proof is in the pudding. The ATF called the cause of the crash correctly, 10 months before the FBI did. In fact, it is fair to say that the FBI hindered the investigation and the public's and the families' right to know, and in the process, in my view, the FBI risked public safety."
_______________________________
The FBI's own Chief Forensic Metallurgist and other experts told Kallstrom the same thing less than 2 months after the crash:
GRASSLEY: When did you arrive at the hanger in Calverton, New York where the plane was being reconstructed?
TOBIN: I arrived on August 4th of 1996.
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GRASSLEY: Within 30 days of arriving at Calverton, what was your professional assessment of as to whether the cause of the crash was a bomb?
TOBIN: It progressed from an inclination of viewing the earmarks as possibly a bomb, but it changed rather quickly to confirmation within my mind that there was no indication of a bomb and unlikely to be that of a missile within the first 30 days.
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GRASSLEY: At some point, did the bomb techs agree with yours and the NTSB's assessment that the cause of the crash was not a bomb?
TOBIN: Yes, Senator. I would estimate that probably four to six weeks -- after about four to six weeks, we were all unanimously or near unanimously on the same page. And all being the bomb techs, the National Transportation Safety Board and the metallurgy or the material science interests in the FBI laboratory. We were all unanimously -- we were united in our observations and conclusions that there was no bomb or missile damage evident on those aircraft parts.
GRASSLEY: The term four to six weeks brings you to what date on the calendar approximately? Just approximately.
TOBIN: My guess would be mid September, early to mid September.
_______________________________
Having parlayed his unprofessional knee-jerk conclusion at the outset, that zoom+boom=missile shootdown, into authorization from Louis Freeh, Janet Reno and the White House to seize control of the investigation from the NTSB along with a blank check, James Kallstrom kept his cop mentality neck bowed and barged ahead with more futile wild goose chase efforts to prove he was right.
FBI Assistant Director Schiliro: "It should also be pointed out that the main 92 foot reconstruction project of the plane's fuselage was initiated at the insistence and urging of the FBI to identify possible patterns of damage or directional forces in a three-dimensional perspective, despite the repeated objection and reluctance of many NTSB senior managers to take on such an investigative project."
"It was also at the urging of the FBI that the evidence collection effort continued after the cessation of diving operations on November 3, 1996 due to weather conditions. The FBI contracted for the services of four (4) scallop trawlers to literally ``rake'' the ocean floor for aircraft debris from November 1996 until the end of April 1997. Each trawler operated 24 hours a day, weather permitting, and was staffed by two FBI Special Agents who painstakingly separated sea life from manmade objects and ensured a proper chain of custody."
"Through such arduous and thorough efforts, the FBI and the NTSB and its parties were afforded an unprecedented opportunity to conduct further forensic and engineering analyses which assisted in the overall decision making process."
Translation: Kallstrom fell on his face in his efforts to prove that zoom+boom=missile shootdown.
Click here for the sources of all the above quotes.
_______________________________
James Kallstrom's clones, the tinfoil hats, have continued his efforts to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear with more of his zoom+boom=missile shootdown.
Commander Donaldson: . . . . the loss of the aircraft was caused by an explosive event in the number two main tank. [Underlined emphasis added]
-----
Commander DONALDSON: I think a missile was fired, that we have dozens of people that agree with the flight time of the missile, where it came from and where it went. I think it steered for the center wing tank. I think it veered forward and entered the number two main. There is 45 square feet of front spar missing in front of that tank. [Underlined emphasis added]
As Portrayed In This Animated Graphic
But Donaldson made the same blunder James Kallstrom earlier did. He succumbed to his knee jerk reaction that zoom+boom=missile shootdown of Flight 800 at 13,800 feet at 8:31:12.
The "boom" is aka the Massive Fireball explosion. It was informally calculated to have been approximately 2000 feet in diamater. It was by far the most dramatic fiery event in the sky and seen by virtually all of the witnesses - including those airborne such as witnesses Faret & Wendell who saw it explode below their own flight altitude of 8500 feet, flew over to the smoke cloud it left and thereby determined that its clearly defined top was at 7700 feet. Source
Their report also includes the following interesting addendum:
Feb 97: Addendum:< Time has passed, the mystery of the downing of Flight 800 still eludes us. (probably not all of us). Until all data is evaluated, we’ll have to wait for the official facts. From an idealistic view, there is no reason to think otherwise. (what a perfect world we live in). Since Ken & Sven made this report public, we have heard many opinions on our sighting. We saw what we saw and report it as such. We have nothing to gain or loose. It is apparent that some aviation experience is required.
There is one fact that bothers us, however. No mention is ever made of the fact that the explosion was at 7500 feet! We do not dispute the fact that something happened at 13,800 feet, but what happened after that. There is 5000 feet unaccounted for.
We would like to emphasize:
"We approached the black-gray smoke cloud on the west side. We were at 7700 feet and were at the top edge of the cloud. The cloud center was at 7500 feet. There were 2 small bumps atop it. There was no smoke or smoke trails above it. It was still lit up a little by the sun, clear above."
We don’t know why this has never been discussed in any scenarios.
_______________________________
Compare their report on the altitude of the Massive Fireball explosion with the following and note the Massive Fireball explosion altitude estimates of the other airborne witnesses:
NTSB Exhibit 4-A Airborne Witness Matrix
You say:
"Now get this, the expert analyst Commander Donaldson found evidence of the FBI's search that was recommended based on the expert conclusion that the witness accounts support a missile strike. If the expert analysts and the FBI believed what Asmodeus believes they would never have recommended and conducted such a massive search of the ocean."
Expert witness report analysts don't succumb to knee-jerk reactions that zoom+zoom=missile shootdown.
Expert witness report analysts would determine the altitude of the boom.
ex·pert (kspûrt) n. A person with a high degree of skill in or knowledge of a certain subject.
http://www.100megspop3.com/bark/800MslWitMyth.html