This article from the September 1, 1996 Newsday was part of the astounding coordinated effort to disparage and impeach ALL of the eyewitnesses to TWA-800. To believe this, NOTHING reported by a witness can be at all reliable in any way.
The true method of evaluation of eyewitnesses is to compare and contrast the various reports... not to totally discount everything stated and ignore the qualifications and training of those who are making the reports. ALL observations are filtered through the mind of the observer... and initial reports are best for raw data, however INTERPRETATION of that data requires input from other sources.
Now, let's look at your introduction to the article and see how you are less interested in presenting an objective discussion than you are in attacking anyone who disagrees with you. You said:
You've given a classic example of "shootdown" tinfoil hat blabberbabble on a subject you know NOTHING about.
Expert - "A person with a high degree of skill in or knowledge of a certain subject.
Objective readers are encouraged to compare the following with your wacky "analysis".
Your introduction is filled with "loaded" words... all designed to attack your oponents and are therefor ad hominem" argumental fallacies. They are intended to insult the person you are addressing and prejudice the idle reader against anything they may say.
YOU have no information at all about my background or fields of expertise... yet you, based on some articles in the popular press, call a well thought out analysis and opinion "tinfoil hat blabberbabble" and "wacky." It is neither.
Our system of justice DOES NOT RELY on experts. It relies on the judgement of ordinary people, weighing and evaluating the evidence presented which may include the OPINIONS of experts. In the case of TWA-800, the testimony, the evidence, offered by hundreds of eyewitnesses, regardless of its probitive value, was systematically distorted, devalued, obfuscated, and finally, uniquely, BANNED from presentation before the probitive panel effectively preventing that panel from evaluating and weighing that evidence. Instead, they were given an "expert's" opinion and interpretation of that testimony that in most, if not all, instances was FALSE TO FACT and was based soley on what THIRD PARTY interviewers recalled of the statements sometime after the interview! The FBI 302 system does not lend itself to accurate reporting... it relies on the memories of the FBI agents as to what the witness reports. The NTSB was then presented with an "expert's" recollection of what the FBI agents wrote down of what they recalled the witnesses said instead of hearing what the witnesses have to say themselves. Absurd.
You continually present yourself as an "expert" on this case... I suggest that there is another definition of "expert" that fits:
Expert - "An unknown drip under pressure."