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...
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.
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.