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