Theories Abound To Explain Cause of China Airlines Crash Similar To TWA Flight 800

Taipei Times ^ | 27 May 2002 | Chiu Yu-tzu and Patrick Kearns

[Asmodeus]

Theories abound to explain cause
SEARCHING FOR ANSWERS: One source says a Chinese missile strike cannot be ruled out, while another points to similarities to the crash of TWA Flight 800 in the US

By Chiu Yu-tzu and Patrick Kearns STAFF REPORTERS

A Chinese missile or fuel-tank explosion similar to what brought down TWA Flight 800 off the coast of New York in 1996 were among the theories put forth by aviation experts and other sources yesterday to explain Saturday's China Airlines crash.

Kay Yong (¦¥³Í), head of the Aviation Safety Council, said yesterday that flight CI611 experienced an "inflight breakup" at more than 9,100m -- crumbling into four large pieces before falling into the ocean.

The suddenness of the flight's demise -- the plane's pilots reportedly did not radio for help -- had some experts focusing on the possibility that an explosion might have brought the Boeing 747-200 down. Investigators make numbered tags with pieces of cloth to mark the bodies retrieved from the sea. PHOTO: CHANG CHIA-MING, TAIPEI TIMES

According to one anonymous source connected with a Taiwanese think tank, the possibility that a Chinese missile downed the plane can't be ruled out. The People's Liberation Army is currently practicing drills along China's southern coast, the source noted.

Indeed, it wouldn't be the first time that a military misfire has downed a passenger jet. In October, a Russian passenger jet crashed into the Black Sea after being unintentionally hit by an S-200 missile during Ukrainian air defense exercises.

According to the source, China's inventory of military hardware includes a missile known as the S-300 PMU, or "SA-10 grumble." The PLA demonstrated the missile in 1996 just before Taiwan's 1996 presidential election.

But the Hong Kong-based Wen Wei Boa (¤å¶×³ø) yesterday quoted a source in Beijing as saying that no missile tests were performed on Saturday.

The S-300 PMU has a range of 120km, a maximum speed of Mach 7 and would be difficult to be tracked by radar, the anonymous source said.

According to the US Federation of American Scientists, China imported S-300 missiles from Russia in the early 1990s and they are deployed around Beijing. But there is one battery of fixed, long-range S-300s in Zhangzhou in Fujian Province, the source said.

"When an airplane flying at 9,100m collides with any outside force -- say a 1,600kg S-300 missile with a dummy warhead -- the loss of pressure inside the cabin could cause the situation to spin out of control," the source said.

Sudden depressurization inside the cabin would have knocked out the pilots, preventing them from sending a Mayday.

Other signs suggesting an accidental Chinese missile strike were Beijing's unusual friendliness in expressing concern over the tragedy and its offer to help search for survivors just hours after the accident; reports from pro-China media that were quick to downplay any connection between China's military exercises and the accident; and Premier Yu Shyi-kun taking command of search-and-rescue efforts in Penghu. Never before has the premier been placed in charge of an air crash accident, sources said.

TWA FLIGHT 800

One veteran pilot who contacted the Taipei Times yesterday said Saturday's crash bore striking similarities to the crash of TWA Flight 800 off the coast of Long Island, New York in 1996.

The pilot sought to keep his identity private for fear of reprisals from the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA).

"Talking to several other pilots after we heard about the crash, we all agreed it suffered the same fate as TWA Flight 800 -- a center fuel-tank explosion," the pilot said.

After nearly four years of investigation, US inspectors said an explosion of vapors inside a fuel tank caused TWA Flight 800 to plunge into the ocean -- in a safety problem that may involve thousands of commercial aircraft built by a number of different manufacturers.

The Taiwan-based pilot alleged that China Airlines knew its 747-200 was vulnerable to the safety problem surrounding the troublesome fuel tank but failed to eliminate the risk.

Government officials yesterday ordered China Airlines to ground its four remaining Boeing 747-200s, which are used for cargo delivery.

As many airplanes do, TWA Flight 800 took off with just 50 to 100 gallons of fuel in its center tank. The procedure is used on short-haul flights to cut the overall weight of the plane and thus save on expensive jet fuel costs.

In the case of TWA 800, experts said fumes inside the tank were heated to above the temperature at which they become explosive -- dooming the 747. What's not known is what ignited the blast.

China Airlines flight CI611 also took off with its center tank nearly empty -- a procedure that Boeing recommended be discontinued after the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in 1998 said fuel pumps on older model 747 planes were a possible source of faulty wiring that could have ignited the TWA blast.

"The FAA today issued an Airworthiness Directive prohibiting dry operation of the center wing tank override/jettison pumps ..." on applicable 747 airplanes, Boeing said in the statement to all owners of the planes.

The pilot said China Airlines continued the risky practice "because here in Taiwan everything is about money."

Warnings from boeing

China Airlines vice president of flight safety, Samson Yeh (¸­¤S«C), confirmed that the airline had received notification from Boeing not to run the center tank dry, but that they made their own safety modifications to eliminate any potential point of ignition.

"At the time ... I remember we changed the procedure. In terms of empty fuel tanks we were not supposed to use the fuel pumps [when we flew with dry tanks], otherwise you will overheat it.

I believe [the maintenance department] also put some insulation on the wiring, to isolate [potential sparks]," Yeh said.

Yeh did concede that while an overheated fuel tank was "one of the possibilities" behind the sudden mid-air break up, "this case is different from [TWA 800] because that one was caused by the center fuel tank overheating, whereas this one was a sudden explosion -- which means it's totally different."

Another option for planes designated specifically for short-haul flights is the removal of the center tank and its pump -- a costly and time-consuming process, according to the pilot.

A 16-year veteran for an international carrier, but based in Taiwan, the anonymous pilot said many cabin crews know China airlines' last remaining passenger 747-200 was flying with the potential risk, but that reporting the issue to civil authorities -- charged with overseeing the two national carriers -- could result in the loss of their jobs.

No Taiwan-based pilots want to say anything negative about "the airline industry in Taiwan. They [officials] are very vindictive. We all have to do our PC," he said, referring to a "precision check," a test required by the CAA every six months that allows pilots to stay in the air. "If we said anything they'd fail us for sure."

Another similarity between Saturday's crash and the crash of TWA Flight 800 is that in the latter, many speculated that a missile brought the plane down.

But crash investigators later concluded that it wasn't a missile or a bomb blast that downed the plane.

"High-energy explosions leave distinctive damage signatures such as severe pitting, cratering, hot gas washing and petaling," said Bernard Loeb, director of the US National Transportation Safety Bureau last year. "No such damage was found on any portion of the recovered airplane structure."

The physical evidence "leads to the inescapable conclusion that the cause of the in-flight breakup of TWA Flight 800 was a fuel-air explosion inside the center wing tank," Loeb said.

[Cvengr]

BTW, An idea arose recently with reports of the 911 hijacker's letter to his girlfriend regarding his underwater training concurrent with his airline piloting lessons.

I wonder if it's possible to launch a Stinger from underwater with a few to no modifications.

Here's a few synchronistic facts.

MidEastern men recently purchasing rebreather or 'bubbleless' SCUBA gear in Florida.

One of the 911 hijackers reports himself immediately prior to 911 that e's training in aviation and underwater skills.

Iranian terrorist training employs skills in shoulderfired AA missile and SCUBA.

Skill sets of assymetric warfare involving Al-Quada generally imply enemy personnel conducting the acts have less than graduate level engineering experience, but WTC collapse implies graduate level engineering design of an innovative nature in mechanical/aeronautical power/forces.

USN had a significant presence on the surface/subsurface area below the TWA 800 incident vicinity, which dispersed soon thereafter.

Highly unlikely USN was covering up its own malfeasance if it fired a missile simply by nature of military structure, and command and control limitations in highly visible scenarios. However, if USN was reacting to intel foreknowledge in search of unknown particular threat, their presence would be nicely explained and lack of knowledge throughout also nicey explained.

Subsurface area within 1st atmosphere in slightly choppy waters might provide sufficient skip zones and noise to remove positive sonar detection of near surface swimmers. Even if not an actual measurement, sufficient uncertainty exists to encourage this as an avenue of possible approach for an enemy underwater swimmer.

An important note: Even if generally not possible with an off the shelf Stinger, few environments exist in the US military for sufficient latitude to toy, field engineer, modify, or tinker with Stingers to develop such a weapon. Even in project management of such weapons, it's likely that such an idea would be developed first by concept study and engineered design, then prototyping, rather than hands-on tinkering until a new state of the art was created. However, in asymetric warfare, it is very likely that weapons such as Stingers might be tinkered with by amateurs with sufficient functional knowledge and wherewithal to develop such tactical innovation with little to no budget or identifiable overhead/or significant logistics trail.

Considering movies of underwater sub launches of Polaris missiles are fairly prolific and probably identifiable as a signature of US might, and availability of Stingers if it exists to Al-Quada from past mid-east associations, even if this hasn't happeed, I suspect it's a reasonable expectation of the skillsets of such an enemy.

Obviously the above needs substantial research and quantification before it might be plausible entertained as the answer to TWA800. When I observed the synchronicity of such a scenario nicely explaining events and also consistant with human character of all the parties reporting eyewitness accounts on a missle theory, but deafening silence of the authorities even where obvious credible eyewitness reports are discarded, the more consistent this possible scenario seems to withstand.

Anybody else out there ever see this possible theory in a CT thread or similar for disproof or confirmation?

[Tuor]

However, if USN was reacting to intel foreknowledge in search of unknown particular threat, their presence would be nicely explained and lack of knowledge throughout also nicey explained.

I would be *very* surprised if this was the case. Navy ships conducting these sort of operations would have to tell the crew something... maybe not exactly what they were looking for, but that they were looking for something or other. If, while on such a mission, a plane were to explode almost right above them, there are many (but no BM's) who would put two and two together and, again, word would leak out that the Navy was in the area looking for 'something' at the time the missle attack occurred.

I have not heard this to be the case, so I don't think the Navy had any idea that there was something going on. It is possible, though unlikely, that a ship's Captain could simply arrange for his ship to be doing a random patrol in the area and not tell the crew to do anything different than standard routine, but, if so, it would greatly reduce the point of their being there in the first place: Captains don't look through Big Eyes and neither do most officers.

So, to summarize, I don't think the Navy had anything to do with the downing of Flight 800, not even through suspicion or vague warnings from on high.

Tuor

[acehai]

Sorry if the Winds Aloft chart looked a little compressed...Here's a clearer version.

Altitude ... Wind Direction ... Wind Speed
(Feet) .... (in degrees From) ..... (Knots)

1000 ................. 270 ...................... 12
2000 ................. 280 ...................... 14
3000 ................. 285 ...................... 17
4000 ................. 290 ...................... 17
5000 ................. 303 ...................... 19
6000 ................. 310 ...................... 19
7000 ................. 315 ...................... 17
8000 ................. 320 ...................... 16
9000 ................. 330 ...................... 12
10000 ................ 335 ..................... 12
11000 ................ 320 ..................... 12
12000 ................ 295...................... 16
13000 ................ 290 ..................... 16
14000 ................ 300 ..................... 17

[Tymesup]

Here's a link from the FIRO website

National Security Invoked Re Navy Activity Near Flight 800

It does seem to be a big coincidence that the Navy was in the area.

[Tymesup]

The Wall Street Journal had a brief article some months ago. Some entity had determined that they expected one fuel tank explosion to occur over the next twenty years. Therefore, they did not recommend changing fuel tank design. I don't recall whether this was all of this particular plane/fuel tank or all of them, but either way, it's a lot of planes and not a lot of explosions.

[Asmodeus]

Many of the readers may be wondering why some of you tinfoil hat witness report analyst wannabe's are so desperately trying to discredit witnesses Faret & Wendell after touting them as your Star "shootdown" witnesses for so long.

Tens of millions of people around the world originally suspected that Flight 800 was the victim of a missile shootdown because of the initial press reports of a fiery streak tracking to the place in the sky where a HUGE fireball [aka Massive Fireball or MF] then exploded. They did so because they assumed the huge fireball exploded where the 747 was flying [at 13,800 feet at 8:31:12].

ALL the "shootdown" tinfoil hats made that assumption

The report of witnesses Faret & Wendell was the first detailed report to be posted on the internet but by then the tinfoil hat witness report analyst wannabe's had so completely convinced each other that Flight 800 was a "shootdown" victim that it had destroyed their own objectivity so badly that they failed to notice that Faret & Wendell clearly indicated the the Massive Fireball explosion was below their own flight altitude of 8500 feet and proceded to tout them as their star "shootdown" witnesses.

Only when it was publicly pointed out to them in a posting to the LSoft Flight 800 Forum in August 1997 that Faret & Wendell had made it clear the Massive Fireball was below 8500 feet did the tinfoil hats begin to realize their blunder. Which you and some of the rest of them have since tried to cover up with your efforts to discredit Faret & Wendell.

It appears that Richard Hirsch made the 2 most notable efforts to discredit them.

The first was his second smoke cloud notion, the allegation being that the smoke cloud left by the Massive Fireball explosion - and the smoke trail it left as it fell to the sea - had blown away and that the smoke cloud and trail Faret & Wendell flew over to had thereafter formed from rising smoke from the surface flames. That's why you're now talking about the winds aloft. Did Hirsch ever ask them if they saw the smoke cloud and trail disappear and get replaced by a second smoke cloud and trail that arose from the surface flames as they flew toward it?

The second was Hirsch's just plain goofy allegation that airline pilot David McClaine saw the Massive Fireball explode at or near 13,800 feet. Did he ever ask McClaine what his best estimate of the falltime of the Massive Fireball flames to the surface was?

As in any incident, there was only ONE sequence of events in the Flight 800 disaster and ALL of the fiery events in the sky observed by the eyewitnesses clearly appear to have taken place far below 13,800 feet and long after 8:31:12 - in short, during the final stages of the crippled flight of TWA Flight 800, just as the NTSB has stated.

The timeline and location of the major events of the disaster was approximately as follows:

8:31:11 Intact and climbing 747 approaches 13,800 feet.

8:31:12 Initiating Event at 13,800 feet followed immediately by the commencement of the decapitation process.

8:31:47 explosion of Massive Fireball at 5500-7500 feet. The eyewitnesses contend that the Massive Fireball explosion was immediately preceded by the fiery streak.

8:31:55-8:31:57 splashdown of the Massive Fireball flames.
Source.

Notice the falltime of the Massive Fireball flames to the surface was approximately 8-10 seconds. Didn't witness Meyer say that he and his helicopter crewmates agreed at the time that the falltime was approximately 10 seconds? Isn't that a glaringly obvious impossibility from anywhere near 13,800 feet? Are you and some of the other tinfoil hats going to try to discredit him too - after touting him as a grizzled unflappable air combat veteran who knows what he saw?.

According to the NTSB Airborne Witness Matrix, ALL of the pilot witnesses who estimated the Massive Fireball explosion altitude gave estimates that were all compatible with Faret & Wendell's report - some of them estimating even lower altitudes. Are the tinfoil hats going to attempt to discredit ALL of them too?

How about The Sworn Testimony of FBI Chief Metallurgist William Tobin that there was no evidence of a missile shootdown or bomb in the recovered wreckage. The tinfoil hats have never been able to publicly produce any physical evidence to the contrary. Are they going to try to discredit Tobin too?

The "missile(s) shootdown" tinfoil hats have smeared thousands of Americans - including members of the U.S. military - by falsely accusing them of heinous crimes for nearly six years now without any supporting evidence.

All because of the erroneous assumption at the outset that the Massive Fireball explosion took place at or near 13,800 feet at 8:31:12.

[Tuor]

It does seem to be a big coincidence that the Navy was in the area.

This may be a smoke screen. I still stand by what I said about this earlier: there's no way you can keep a ship full of sailors quiet. If there were only a few (like a tug boat), then maybe. But not an entire ship.

Tuor

[Cvengr]

What have you done to dismantle subwoofers in cars over fuel tanks? Gasoline is far more volatile than the jet fuel in question and more sisceptible to shock and static electricity. Pesky middle fuel tanks, just so darned unpredicable, eh?

[acehai]

Faret & Wendell's witness statements do not state anything about the fireball transitioning into a smoke cloud. So we don't know if the smoke is from the initial fireball or from the large fireball that emerged from the bottom and fell down to the ocean.

...A short "pin flash of light" appeared on the ground (perhaps water). Very shortly thereafter the white light exploded instantaneously into a huge red-orange ball. My initial response was, "Who's shooting fireworks tonight?". The magnitude of the fire ball, and altitude, quickly (less than a second) ruled that out. Immediately thereafter a large fire ball emerged from the bottom of the initial fireball, accelerating straight down, as if it had just started to fall. Like a teardrop it drew with it a tail of fire down to the water surface. We watched intently as the descending fire fell closer to the water. ... We proceeded to fly over to the smoke cloud.

I am merely pointing out that Faret and Wendell reported the observed cloud that they were flying over to as moving North Northwest.

Based on the actual reported winds aloft. Their observation of the direction of movement of the cloud is WRONG.

How do you explain that. And if this is wrong, what else is wrong in their witness statement?

In regards to your babble about Fritz Meyer...

Are you and some of the other tinfoil hats going to try to discredit him too - after touting him as a grizzled unflappable air combat veteran who knows what he saw?

...Heck no...Nobody has to tout anything about Meyers military experience, it's pretty well a matter of public record, contrary to your un-documented allegations of honorable service.

Us tin-foil hats will just keep you wondering...;^)

Oh...Since you're using addendums to Ferat and Wendell's original statement, then surely you won't find fault in my using addendums to Fritz Meyer's testimony...Will ya...Huh?

[Tymesup]

Let me see if I understand your timeline.

The initiating event happened in the fuel tank at 8:31:12, which led to the decapitation process. (What do you mean by decapitation process?) The plane went up for a while, which is the fiery streak the witnesses saw. Thirty five seconds later, the massive fireball happened. Eight to ten seconds later, the fireball flames splashed down.

Is this correct?

[Tymesup]

Maybe there's another explanation that we haven't thought of yet.

[Asmodeus]

Try this.

[Asmodeus]

Did Richard Hirsch ask witness Faret if he saw the Massive Fireball smoke cloud and the smoke from the fire trail it left when falling to the surface disappear and then get replaced by a second smoke cloud and trail from the surface flames? That's what interviewing witnesses is about - determining what they saw and what they didn't see.

The following is from Richard Hirsch's website - "The Flight 800 Investigation Papers".

_____________________________

"Sven Faret and his AC-12"

Richard Hirsch interviews Sven Faret

[Beginning of transcript - which appears to be only part of the recorded conversation - why some comments are in parenthesis is not explained][emphasis added]

Q: Were you aware that the military holds exercises off shore of Long Island?

A: Sure, on a regular basis.

Q: Do you know of any live fire exercises held during those maneuvers?

A: No. Q: Have you ever seen any live firing offshore during your flights along the Atlantic shore of Long Island?

A: Lot of strange stuff, mostly harmless.(??) Remember I have 30 years flying over Long Island. I don't even give it a second glance any more, and just go about my own business.

Q: Have you ever seen any missile launches during the live fire exercises.

A: Can't say for sure, I'd have to say no.

Q: Were the reports of the pin like flashes in your first descriptions of what you and your passenger saw?

A: Remember it was right after July 4th. It looked like a typical rocket shooting from the black ground. Again never gave it a second thought until the next day.

A: How much time did the FBI take in giving you your debriefing?

Q: 8 minutes

Q: Do you think they gave you a thorough interview?

A: Ha!

Q: Was the NTSB interview separate from the FBI interview?

A: Yes, chit-chat type interview with a fellow NTSB investigator/pilot extremely informal. (seemingly apathetically concerned)

Q: You mentioned seeing a white light or light just before you saw the explosion of FLT800. Do you think the lights were brighter than a normal landing light?

A: Seemed bright, but so do landing lights.

Q: How long was it between the time you first saw the bright landing light/lights and the large explosion?

A: 10-15 seconds +/-

Q: Did you see any explosions preceding the large explosion?

A: No

Q: If you were to make an estimate about the size of the large explosion from your perspective, would the explosion appear to be larger than the sun?

A: about 2.5 times larger.

Q: What was your altitude when you were flying over to the burning debris field?

A: 8100 feet (+/-) down to 7700 (+/-) directly toward it.

Q: Did you actually fly over the burning debris field?

A: I'd have to say yes. If it wasn't directly over it was a little to the NW, a good viewing angle. As soon as we saw the explosion we didn't take our eyes off of it. I was watching the flames descending through the air waiting for them to contact the water. As the flames spread out on the water surface I could see more "stuff" fall into the flames that had lit up the water. The water was black so our only indication of where the surface was, was when the flames hit it. ...the rest is in the report.

Q: I think I understand the 2:30 o'clock low reference to FLT800's position at the time of the explosion. 2:30 o'clock means the clock face is on a horizontal plane with 12 o'clock being your straight ahead. The "low" means that the position of FLT800 was below your flight level.

A: Yup, that's it.

Q: I noticed that you have a GPS in your aircraft. Did you take any GPS readings of any of your positions that evening?

A: If we only knew what was happening that evening. Ken asked if he should bring a Video camera with us. I said " naa, it's just another evening flight." What would the clip have been worth? No GPS info, sorry. Remember, we had no idea it was a 747. we thought it was a military event. They practice in that area quite often. Although interesting at the time, the real importance of the event came to light later that evening.

Q: I'm assuming that because of the haze layer you could not see your horizon. Correct me if I'm wrong.

A. In a haze situation, flying above, the horizon at night does become the top of the haze, to some degree. It's clear and bright above. That's how we can see clouds so far away. The setting sun lights them up. The ground was very black but the outline of Long Island is very clear due to ground lighting.

Q: Were you squawking 1200 that evening? Were you also on C mode?

A. We were with approach up until 10 minutes before the event. We then started to squawk 1200 mode C.

Q: I believe you said you saw the smoke cloud drifting slowly to the NNW. Do you mean that's the direction of travel of the smoke cloud?

The reason I ask is the NTSB meteorlogical data gives the direction of wind at 123 degrees true. The average speed of the wind was 24 ft/sec or about 15 mph.

A: I suggest that the winds below the haze were moving the plume in a SE direction. What were the winds reported at 6,9,12000' Feet? Nothing is straight forward or simple. We reported what we saw. (2 of us saw the same thing, some credibility must lie there)

Q: You were about 17 NM from the point where FLT800 exploded. Your aircraft was flying at 95 knots. It would have taken your aircraft almost 12 minutes to get to the smoke cloud (a little more if the cloud was moving SSE). Could you have simply under estimated your flight time to the cloud?

A: I travel at 152 kts at that altitude. It took 5-6 minutes. We never took our eyes off of it. The direction of travel was apparent from the stretching "tornado type" plume leaving the cloud and going to the fire. What's also interesting here is that you could clearly see where the plume transitioned from clear sky into the haze layer. 6000' that night. Our viewing perspective was perfect. I have to stand by our report 100%.

Q: I assume that 152 knots is your airspeed. What would be your ground speed?

A: Close to the same, that evening.

Q: What was the approximate climb rate of your aircraft as you approached Riverhead at 00:31:12?

A: 500-700 FPM

[End of transcript] Source.

[Asmodeus]

"Since you're using addendums to Ferat and Wendell's original statement, then surely you won't find fault in my using addendums to Fritz Meyer's testimony"=."

Complete copies of Faret & Wendell's report include their Addendums. If you have any "addendums" to witness Meyer's presentation, why haven't you presented them to the readers?

Can you explain how Meyer could have seen a "shootdown" of Flight 800 at 13,800 feet at 8:31:12 only 3-4 seconds before he saw the Massive Fireball explode at 5500-7500 feet at about 8:31:47 which he says he and his crewmates agreed at the time took approximately 10 seconds to fall to the surface?

If he's so unflappable and knows what he saw, how do you explain his following statement while being interview by an NTSB Witness Group?

"I saw a streak of light in the sky. I have no idea what it was. And my reaction when I saw it was, what the hell is that?"

[acehai]

Tsk Tsk, Elmer...

All that dancing around and waste of band-width to avoid answering one simple little question... That question being:

Is Faret and Wendell's statement of movement of the observed cloud opposite from the measured winds aloft?

A simple YES or NO will suffice, Fudd...

Oh...If you'll kindly provide all the folks with the URL of the specific NTSB Witness Group you're referencing; so they can read Meyer's comments first hand, in context, without your artistic input, (or deletions) perhaps I'll endeaver to reply to your last question...Or, perhaps I won't have to...

[Asmodeus]

The burden of proving the "second smoke cloud" notion to try to discredit Faret & Wendell rests exclusively with the tinfoil hats. Nobody has to disprove that nonsense, much less respond to demands to answer questions from tinfoil hat skinheads.

The answer to your 2nd question about the source of Meyer's statement - "I saw a streak of light in the sky. I have no idea what it was. And my reaction when I saw it was, what the hell is that?" - can be found in the following:

TEXICAN II via email: "looks as if the late Cmndr Donaldson knew a great deal about aviation in general & accident investigation in particular."

Donaldson brothers twa800 forum: CDR. Donaldson has extensive experience as a Naval crash investigator.

LSoft Flight 800 Forum Archives Sun, 16 Nov 1997
Bill Donaldson: "My First official aircraft crash investigation was of an accidental air to air missile shootdown of a Navy A4 in 1977, I am a Graduate of crash analysis training from the Naval Post Graduate School.

Was there ever a second? He couldn't seem to recall during congressional testimony. The transcript will follow shortly but let's continue with his posted comments first.

For the record AIM has funded me on two occasions and I will be a credentialed investigator for AIM at Mr. Hall's public relations show in Baltimore next month. Also for the record I am NOT officially attached to the Aviation Sub-Committee in any way nor have I represented myself as anything other than an Independent investigator of this incident. It just so happens what I discover is shared with them RATHER QUICKLY. Rest assured I've based my last letter on hours of eyewitness conversations, including one who watched a missile all the way to Detonation. [caps emphasis his]

Crash scool graduates are trainees, not experts.

ex·pert n. A person with a high degree of skill in or knowledge of a certain subject.

Thursday, May 6, 1999 - House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Aviation, Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, Washington, D.C.

Mr. LIPINSKI. Excuse me, Commander, but how many military air crashes have you participated in as a lead investigator?

Commander DONALDSON. Lead investigator, one or two.

Mr. LIPINSKI. How many overall?

Commander DONALDSON. Because of the way that the military is structured, I have supervised probably a dozen. I go through and critique in the superior-the wing safety officer, for instance, reviews every squadron crash in detail--

Mr. LIPINSKI . So as lead, one or two, and you were involved in 12 other ones. Have you ever participated in an official investigation of a civil air crash?

Commander DONALDSON. No.
Source.

It would accordingly appear that prior to the Flight 800 disaster Bill Donaldson personally investigated one Navy crash, maybe 2, had a supervisory role in the review of the paper work of perhaps 12 other Navy crashes investigated by others and no experience as a civil air crash investigator.

Unfortunately, Congressman Lipinski failed to ask the most important question of all - approximately how many witnesses did Bill Donaldson personally interview and appropximately how many witness reports obtained by other Navy crash investigators did he personally analyze? In short, when did he obtain the experience necessary to expertly interview the Flight 800 witnesses or to expertly analyze their reports?

So let's look further:

Accuracy in Media - PRESS RELEASE
Washington, DC - July 14, 2000 For Immediate Release
TWA EyeWitness Alliance to Hold Press Conference on the 4th Anniversary of the TWA Flight 800 Crash
When: Monday, July 17, 2000 at 10:30 a.m. Where: National Press Club, Zenger Room
Eyewitnesses - Three of the 755 eyewitnesses interviewed by the FBI will relate what they saw — Dwight Brumley, who from an airliner 5000 feet above TWA 800, saw a missile blow it up; Fred Meyer, veteran helicopter pilot, who saw a missile strike the plane from his National Guard helicopter; Michael Wire, who was falsely described by the CIA as having provided the evidence on which its absurd video simulation of the crash was based. All three agree that this simulation bears no relationship to reality.

Click here for an 18 July 2000 Associated Press article by G. Stephen Bierman Jr. about that Press Conference. Two excerpts read as follows [emphasis added]:

[quote]On the fourth anniversary of the crash of TWA Flight 800, two witnesses criticized investigators Monday for doing too little to determine the source of a light they say they saw in the sky near the doomed plane. [end quote] [quote]Dwight Brumley, who watched as a passenger on another flight 5,000 feet above Flight 800, said he told his story to the FBI but felt it wasn't taken seriously. "I could not positively say that what I saw was a missile. What I saw was a very bright flame of light moving parallel to my aircraft", Brumley said at a news conference. [end quote]

The same clickable reference source includes the transcript of a recorded inept interview of witness Brumley. It isn't clear if it was at that press conference. Note the elapsed time between the fiery streak and the Massive Fireball explosion in the falling wreckage at 5500-7500 feet was only 1-2 seconds.

Meyer apparently didn't appear at the Press Conference but he stated as follows to an NTSB Witness Group: "I saw a streak of light in the sky. I have no idea what it was. And my reaction when I saw it was, what the hell is that?

Click here for Meyer's detailed report. He obviously could not have seen a "shootdown" of the airliner at 13,800 feet only 3-4 seconds before he saw the Massive Fireball explode in the falling wreckage at 5500-7500 feet.

If you have a report of Michael Wire you want to post, do so. The following is from the Archives of the LSoft Flight 800 Forum: [excerpt][quote]That one eyewitness is Michael Wire, a machinery expert who was working on a new drawbridge on Beach Lane, a road running from Westhampton, Long Island, to the beach. Wire's FBI report says that standing on the bridge, looking toward the beach, he saw a white light just above the rooftop of a house about 900 feet away, ascending from the ground at about a 40 degree angle. It "sparkled" and he thought it was fireworks. It "zig zagged" as it traveled upward and was going south-southeast when it "arched over" and disappeared from view. Two or three seconds later he saw an orange light that appeared to be a fireball in the sky about half a mile away. It was falling at about a 30-degree angle, with a fire trail burning behind it. According to Wire, the fireball disappeared behind a house two houses away from the one where he saw the white light. He then heard the first and loudest of four explosions. It shook the bridge. Eight or nine seconds later he heard two more explosions followed by a fourth a second later.

[end quote] Note that the elapsed time between the fiery streak and the Massive Fireball explosion in the falling wreckage at 5500-7500 feet is two or three seconds.

None of those 3 witnesses could have possibly seen a "missile shootdown" of Flight 800 at 13,800 feet. The sequential timeline tells the tale. Yet, the Donaldson brothers' website and Reed Irvine contend they are "missile witnesses".

The timeline and location of the major events of the disaster was approximately as follows:

8:31:11 Intact and climbing 747 approaches 13,800 feet.

8:31:12 Initiating Event at 13,800 feet followed immediately by the commencement of the decapitation process.

8:31:47 explosion of Massive Fireball in the falling wreckage at 5500-7500 feet. 8:31:55-8:31:57 splashdown of the Massive Fireball flames.
Source.

[acehai]

The burden of proving the "second smoke cloud" notion to try to discredit Faret & Wendell rests exclusively with the tinfoil hats.

Elmer, Elmer...

Why are you trying to cloud the issue (no pun intended) by saying we are trying to prove the "second smoke cloud" notion. I didn't even know a second smoke cloud theory was ever proposed, until you brought it up!!!

I am not talking about a second smoke cloud: The question is very simple, and calls for a simple answer.

Did Faret and Wendell report THE smoke cloud they describe in their personally prepared witness statement as moving NNW?

Is this cloud movement reported by Faret and Wendell in a direction not consistent with the upper air wind data the NTSB published in the final report?

YES or NO

[Asmodeus]

Q: Did you actually fly over the burning debris field?

A: I'd have to say yes. If it wasn't directly over it was a little to the NW, a good viewing angle. As soon as we saw the explosion we didn't take our eyes off of it.

____________________________________________

LSoft Flight 800 Forum
Witnesses Faret & Wendell ask Richard Hirsch why he's trying to "spread dis-information" about their report.
From: Sven Faret
Date: Saturday, June 26, 1999 11:59 AM
Rich.
You are discounting the fact that we flew around it, avoiding a flight through it. Any other here-say, is just that. over 3000 hours experience can't be all bunk. You obviously have none. We wonder why you try to spread dis-information on the subject. It's getting old.
... SF & KW [emphasis added]

[Asmodeus]

This is a continuation of #56 above.

"A detailed discussion of the shootdown of TWA Flight 800 is well beyond the scope of this letter, but please be assured my credentials and career experience exceed those of anyone in the NTSB or FBI leadership positions. Ironically, my first crash investigation was the accidental missile shootdown of my assistant aircraft maintenance officer by Marine F4 Phantoms in 1977."

 

Cmdr. William S. Donaldson, III - USN, Ret.
Aviation Mishap Analyst
P.O. Box 90, Clements, Maryland 20624
Web site:  twa800.com

June 18, 1999
 

Honorable Joanna Seybert
Uniondale Federal District Court 
2 Uniondale Avenue 
Uniondale, NY 11553
 

Your Honor,

This letter is offered as a friend of the court statement for your consideration prior to the sentencing of Elizabeth and James Sanders on 9 July 1999.

It is my finding after a two year independent investigation into the unexplained loss of TWA Flight 800 that the Boeing 747-100 was intentionally shot down and that Justice Department actions intimidating Congressman Traficant, prosecuting the Sanders and Captain Stacey, fit a clear pattern facilitating a White House cover-up.

On 6 May 1999 I was invited to testify before the House Aviation Subcommittee hearing into the Reauthorization of the National Transportation Safety Board.  I argued, in the presence of the Chairman of the NTSB, James Hall, three points.  1) The NTSB leaderships should be replaced, 2) the NTSB should be reformed without political appointees, and 3) Title 18 and Title 49 of the US Code should be reformed to prevent future harassment and malicious prosecutions of Parties or their investigators.  My written testimony is Attachment 1.

I brought into the hearing physical evidence (maps and FBI Operational Orders) of a covert missile recovery operation manned by FBI Agents and paid for by the NTSB.  News coverage of that testimony is Attachment 2.

Congressman James Traficant's behavior during those proceedings was theatrically overblown praise for the FBI and NTSB, enough so as to derail meaningful discussion of my testimony.  His inexplicable reversal from strong public supporter to irrational critic of our investigation prompted me to check his motives.  What I found has a direct link to the Sanders case.  Multiple Justice Department leaks of Mob affidavits tying Mr. Traficant's office to organized crime were released in his hometown precisely concurrent to the arrests of Sanders, Captain Stacey and the Baltimore NTSB Public Hearing in December 1997.  Attachments 3, 4 and 5 are news coverage and letters to Chairman Duncan and Chairman Smith about Mr. Traficant.

A detailed discussion of the shootdown of TWA Flight 800 is well beyond the scope of this letter, but please be assured my credentials and career experience exceed those of anyone in the NTSB or FBI leadership positions.  Ironically, my first crash investigation was the accidental missile shootdown of my assistant aircraft maintenance officer by Marine F4 Phantoms in 1977.

MOTIVE FOR COVER-UP, THE WHITE HOUSE
1. White House staff knew when Mr. Clinton signed the Iran/Libya Sanctions Act of 1996 that threats of war and retaliatory strikes against American interests from the Iranian Supreme Council were credible.

2. White House staff knew Iranian surrogates had already car bombed US troops at Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in November 1995.  This act conveyed a warning not to sign the Sanctions Act.  The White House also knew that shoulder fired missiles had been smuggled across our borders by January 1996.

3. White House staff knew Iran called a summit meeting in Tehran with terrorist surrogates from nine Mideast countries on 2 June 1996.

4. The White House failed to warn of, or prevent, Iranian attacks before they came.  The first was against the Khobar Towers Air Force barracks complex in Saudi Arabia on June 25, 1996.  The second was on TWA Flight 800 on July 17, 1996.

The White House justifiably believed a counterstrike against Iran would unleash a world wide terror campaign just before the 1996 elections and that public understanding of these events would jeopardize the Clinton/Gore reelection.

JUSTICE DEPARTMENT COMPLICITY IN COVER-UP
By the time of the NTSB Public Hearing, 8 December 1997, eighteen months after Flight 800 went down, the Justice Department was signaling that the Riyadh and Khobar Towers bombings were unsolvable due to lack of Saudi cooperation and the White House was scapgoating our own military commanders.  The FBI had already declared the TWA loss a non-criminal event, illegally quashed the testimony of TWA witnesses, and illegally sealed indefinitely real evidence and laboratory testing.

At enormous expense, the NTSB political leadership had convinced a technically inept media that its nonsense mechanical failure theory was plausible.  In early December 1997 three problems remained: 1) disgruntled inside investigators who might go public during the Baltimore Hearings, like Captain Stacey; 2) investigative journalist James Sanders who was talking to an interested producer, Oliver Stone; and 3) James Traficant, the sole Congressman looking into the Federal investigation who's questions were embarrassing the NTSB and FBI.

The Justice Department solved all three problems by taking direct action against those individuals between 5 and 12 December 1997.

MALICIOUS PROSECUTION
The Sanders' conviction should be vacated and all felony stigma expunged because they were victims of a malicious prosecution undertaken to facilitate a political cover-up.  Your Honor, the Constitution provides you immunity from political pressure through life tenure on the Federal bench.  In cases like this, you are the people's lifeline, a constitutional check and balance with the power to stop in its tracks, politically motivated assaults on private citizens.

In the TWA investigation the government has clearly acted as a partisan and proactive interested party, silencing witnesses, distorting facts and striking down its critics by all means available.  Please restore the Sanders' full citizenship rights and rebalance the scales of justice.

IMPROPER PROSECUTION UNDER TITLE 18
The Sanders' conviction should be vacated because they were prosecuted outside the intent of Title 18.  The statute is designed to protect aircraft crash debris from loss to souvenir hunters, scavengers or other parties whose pilfering would prevent qualified aircrash investigators from physical examination and laboratory analysis of real evidence.

In this case the only scavengers or pilferers who were preventing qualified aircrash investigators from examination and laboratory analysis of real evidence were FBI agents acting without due regard for the controlling Federal Statute, Title 49 of the US Code.  Testimony at Senator Grassley's hearing clearly proved that FBI agents were guilty of far more serious violations in removing evidence without authorization, evidence that remains missing to this day.  Non response of the FBI to NTSB / Party Investigators was a constant impediment to progress.  The FBI has no professional crash investigators.

Captain Stacey's transfer to James Sanders of a small sample of suspicious material for laboratory testing may have been overzealous, outside of normal protocol and actionable under Title 49 by sanctions such as being severed from the investigation.  Prosecution under Title 18 for either man, however, is totally inappropriate because their actions were taken within the broad scope of a Title 49 aircrash investigator's mission, which is to develop evidence and to expeditiously discover the cause of an air disaster.

SUBVERSION OF TITLE 49
The Sanders' conviction should be vacated in order to restore Title 49 to the status intended by Congress.  Allowing the Sander's and Stacey convictions to stand would set Judicial precedent subjecting Title 49 aircrash experts to the whimsy of the Justice Department and would render Title 49 authority moot.

This precedent is dangerous to public safety.  Flight 800 was the first American Flag transport shootdown by shoulder fired missiles, but the 27th such shootdown worldwide.  Masking the true cause of any aircraft loss is a compound hazard.  In this case, failing to publicly identify the true cause allows the administration to avoid politically risky national defense responsibilities, leaving the threat in place.  A second hazard occurs if operational or engineering changes are made based on false assumptions.  These types of changes may actually degrade air safety margins.

ABRIDGEMENT OF THE 1ST AMENDMENT
The Sanders' conviction should be vacated to restore their 1st Amendment rights of free speech and free press.

Although the Sanders' were charged under a statute, Title 18, intended to protect physical property, the Administrations actions in this prosecution clearly portray a different intent, suppression of information that by law should be in the public domain.

Sanders, a published investigative journalist, was given this material by a legitimate crash investigator with the express purpose of conveying vital information to the general public.  As agreed, Sanders then analyzed and published the data gleaned from these worthless swatches of seat fabric.  If the government is right and this seat fabric bears no evidence of a criminal act, then it is worthless to the investigation and its removal has caused no harm to the investigation.  Their actions however, portray that the seat fabric was very important to the investigation, either because it did contain real evidence of a crime that they wanted suppressed or because Sanders embarrassed the government.  Neither of these reasons warrants prosecution under Title 18.

Regardless of whether Sanders laboratory analysis was correct or if his published information was accurate or not the Government has no standing to punish him or anyone else exercising free speech or free press.  Indeed, government agencies operating within constitutional constraints should be deaf to what private citizens say or publish.

PREJUDICIAL PROSECUTION
The Sanders' conviction should be vacated to right the injustice of selective and prejudicial prosecution.  Regardless of the outcome of the Sanders' case, an irrevocable punishment process began with the indictment.  Defense costs, stress, loss of jobs and ultimately bankruptcy are imposed immediately.

Since the demise of the Jim Crow laws in the South, Americans have grown accustomed to equal treatment under the law.  They do not expect to be selectively prosecuted for things other citizens are openly doing on a routine basis.  This case is particularly egregious because the other citizens were the FBI.  Agents routinely removed debris without following any semblance of protocol.  Recent Senate testimony established that agents were actually caught by security in the act during early morning hours at Calverton.

The Deputy FBI Director who ordered the arrest of Captain Stacey and the Sanders' thought nothing of helping himself to debris for a public relations souvenir giveaway that was televised nationally.

 Your Honor, you alone have the ability to right these wrongs.  Regardless of what you believe about the fate of TWA Flight 800, you have to ask yourself, "why did the Justice Department go after these two people so rabidly?"  Was it because they did real harm to the investigation or because they embarrassed the government?  The government's actions in this case are completely out of proportion to the act committed by the Sanders and committed by others without penalty.  I urge you to set aside this verdict and rebalance the scales of justice.

Sincerely,
 
 

William S. Donaldson, III

cc: 
The Honorable John J. Duncan, Jr.
U. S. House of Representatives 

The Honorable Lamar J. Smith
U.S. House of Representatives

District Attorney James M. Catterson, Jr. 
Suffolk County Office of the District Attorney Mr. Philip M. Condit 
The Boeing Company

Mr. Jerry L. Gitner 
Trans World Airlines 

J. Bruce Maffeo 
Attorney at Law 
 

[acehai]

Won't work, Fudd...

It appears YOUR reading comprehension skills need a little work. Perhaps you'd better take advantage of your own resources.

The question was NOT:

Q: Did you actually fly over the burning debris field?

The question WAS:

Did Faret and Wendell report THE smoke cloud they describe in their personally prepared witness statement as moving NNW?

Is this cloud movement reported by Faret and Wendell in a direction not consistent with the upper air wind data the NTSB published in the final report?

YES or NO

Are there any other Freepers out there interested in why Elmer "Fudd" Barr (AKA "A$$modius") absolutely refuses to answer this simple question?

Would it have any bearing on the highly touted invulnerability of his "Witness Myth" Myth?