Investigators say TWA 800 crash not an accident

[1990 UM fan]

via CNN

A documentary on the 1996 explosion that brought down TWA Flight 800 offers "solid proof that there was an external detonation," its co-producer said Wednesday.

"Of course, everyone knows about the eyewitness statements, but we also have corroborating information from the radar data, and the radar data shows a(n) asymmetric explosion coming out of that plane -- something that didn't happen in the official theory," Tom Stalcup told CNN's "New Day."

A number of people have come forward, "all saying the same thing: that there was an external force -- not from the center wing tank, there's no evidence of that -- but there is evidence of an external explosion that brought down that plane," Stalcup said.

He cited "corroborating information from the radar data" and complained that "not one single eyewitness was allowed to testify -- that's unheard of."

"The family members need to know what happened to their loved ones," he said.

Asked why such information might have been suppressed, Stalcup said, "That's a question that should be answered when this investigation gets reopened."

The National Transportation Safety Board acknowledged receipt of the filmmakers' petition -- signed by a number of former investigators -- requesting that the investigation be reopened.

"As required by NTSB regulation, a petition for reconsideration of Board findings or a probable cause determination must be based on the discovery of NEW evidence or on a showing that the Board's findings are erroneous," said board spokeswoman Kelly Nantel.

"We assign petition responses to the relevant modal office for drafting. The NTSB's Office of Aviation Safety will assign staff, to the maximum extent practicable, who did not work on the original investigation to carefully prepare a response. The response will be presented to the full Board for their consideration and vote."

The board's investigation of TWA 800 lasted four years and "remains one of the NTSB's most extensive investigations," Nantel said.

Investigators "spent an enormous amount of time reviewing, documenting and analyzing facts and data, and held a five-day public hearing to gather additional facts before determining the probable cause of the accident," she said.

But her statement leaves open the possibility the case will be reopened.

"While the NTSB rarely re-investigates issues that have already been examined, our investigations are never closed, and we can review any new information not previously considered by board," it said.

Former Department of Transportation Inspector General Mary Schiavo expressed skepticism about the film's assertion.

"If this really troubled them at the time and they had this conclusive evidence -- they said they kept quiet to keep their jobs -- well, there's a duty beyond that and there's ways to report this," she told CNN. "I was the inspector general. They could have reported it to the Office of the Inspector General, to say the least. We protect whistleblowers. So, I'm very critical of them not coming forward before now if what they have is really new."
Schiavo added, "I think that the NTSB got it right."

The NTSB ruled that the explosion was caused by an electrical short circuit, most likely originating in a fuel gauge line, which found its way into the center wing fuel tank, where it detonated fuel vapors and caused the B-747 to fall in pieces into the waters off Long Island.

Skeptics have long theorized that TWA Flight 800 was brought down by sinister forces.

They include Hank Hughes, who served as a senior accident investigator with the NTSB and helped reconstruct the aircraft. Others include Bob Young, a TWA investigator who participated in the investigation, and Jim Speer, an accident investigator for the Airline Pilots Association.

"These investigators were not allowed to speak to the public or refute any comments made by their superiors and/or NTSB and FBI officials about their work at the time of the official investigation," a news release announcing the documentary said.

"They waited until after retirement to reveal how the official conclusion by the (NTSB) was falsified and lay out their case."

The documentary, "TWA Flight 800," will premiere July 17, the 17th anniversary of the crash.

Stalcup is co-founder of the Flight 800 Independent Researchers Organization and has been a longtime and passionate critic of the official investigation.

Suspicions that criminals or terrorists were behind the TWA 800 explosion are not new. The FBI conducted a parallel investigation, but concluded that the incident was not a crime or terrorist attack.

The NTSB said Tuesday that it was aware of the pending release of the documentary, which will air on EPIX TV network, and of the producers' intent to file a petition to reopen the investigation.

The documentarians said they have a "trifecta of elements" that will "prove that the officially proposed fuel-air explosion did not cause the crash." That trifecta includes forensic evidence, firsthand sources and corroborating witnesses, and the new statements from retired investigators.

The evidence proves that "one or more ordnance explosions outside the aircraft caused the crash," the producers said. But it does not identify or speculate on the source of the ordnance explosions.

All 230 people aboard TWA 800 died when the plane, headed for Paris, exploded and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean shortly after takeoff from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. Scores of witnesses observed a streak of light and a fireball, giving early rise to suspicions that the terrorists had struck the plane with a rocket.

Investigators concluded the streak was likely burning fuel streaming from the plane's wing tank.

[tiredmike59]

I don't think there was anything wrong with the plane,nor was it terrorists.

[1990 UM fan]

Originally Posted by tiredmike59

I don't think there was anything wrong with the plane,nor was it terrorists.

Elaborate?

[tiredmike59]

It was a military accident like the Iranian airbus and the Korean airliner. You have a tense situation when your radar picks up something and there could be confusion and very nervous people. Do you remember the movie The Bedford Incident ?

Richard Widmark " If they fire one we'll fire one "

James Macarthur " FIRE ONE ! "

I don't know why they just don't admit it was a mistake instead of trying to cover it up.

[Steve_uk]

Originally Posted by 1990 UM fan

Elaborate?

It's a mystery which may never be solved now after 17 years. The only fact which can be evinced is that the official verdict of faulty wiring causing an electrical short-circuit was wrong.http://rt.com/usa/twa-800-flight-investigation-954/

[Necco]

I know they did a LOT of legwork on this incident. The FBI called people who had a captain's license in the area to ask if they had been on the water and seen anything.

[freshwater]

One thing all terrorists do is take credit for their "work". This wasn't terrorism. I'd be far more likely to buy into the whole Naval training accident angle.

[soilentgreen]

The accidental missile strike theory isn't impossible (like Tiredmike said, it's happened before), but more improbable than not in this case, imo.

Other commercial liners have had similar explosions of fuel vapor in wing tanks, a good article that discusses fuel vapor explosions and cites other cases is here: http://www.aviationtoday.com/av/mili...l#.UcIZVJzjxEM. It sounds like the source of the ignition in the central wing tank of the 800 couldn't be determined with certainty, but the article mentions some interesting similarities in the conditions of the three airliners prior to the explosions/fires. Barring some irrefutable evidence that there was a coverup of information, I'd apply Occam's razor.

[Necco]

I'm bumping this up because someone mentioned elsewhere that they believed it was brought down by the US government.

At the time of the crash, I lived in CT and got New York City and Long Island television stations. Some of the immediate coverage that I saw was therefore local, a bit scattered and pretty early.

I don't remember if they broke into broadcasting, but I suspect they may have.

What I do remember very clearly is that officials were asking for people with boats to look for survivors. I remember this because I have a weird pseudo-dyslexia* thing about Long Island in relationship to Connecticut. As a result of this, I initially believed that TWA 800 went down in Long Island Sound and I was getting ready to call some people I knew with boats when I realized I had reversed north and south.

So, search and rescue officials were asking for help.

As I mentioned above, the FBI did a lot of legwork/phone work on this case. I know people who had captain's licenses (not an average boat owner, but people who were actually education and trained to be captains and then passed a test) who came home from vacation to an answering machine full of messages from the FBI. I believe they contacted captains in Connecticut, New York and possibly Rhode Island.

Pierre Salinger's information has been completely discredited. The once noble and respected journalist and reporter suffered from dementia in his later years. The beginnings of dementia can go undiagnosed for years. I (and many others) are convinced that his theories about both Pan Am 103 and TWA 800 were fueled at least in part by his mental decline.


It should be noted that the USS Normandy, the ship conspiracy theorists believe shot down TWA 800 is the same Ticonderoga class cruiser as the USS Vincennes that shot down IranAir 655. Even in the midst of high tensions and skirmishes with gunboats, the Vincennes made a number of efforts to identify the flight. Unfortunately, a perfect storm of tension, human error, a delayed flight, a disregard of orders Surface Warfare Commander and equipment shortcomings resulted in the loss of a commercial plane and 290 civilians. However, the Capt of the Vicennes did make repeated efforts to identify the airliner. If an action hungry captain (and other navy personnel have called him that including the captain of a nearby ship AND the surface warfare commander) in the throws of a gun battle waited so much time to try and identify the airliner, why would a similar ship wantonly fire a missile in peaceful waters?

Records have the USS Normandy 180 miles from the crash site. The missile range isn't half that. In addition to that, a naval ship doesn't just "lose" a missile. They're expensive. And people would notice. And someone on the ship would have talked when they left the Navy. The Vincennes incident happened in the heat of a skirmish, during a war and during the Cold War and the real story eventually came out. And the victims of that incident would have been considered to many as unfortunate collateral damage as they were citizens of the other side. TWA flight 800 was full of Americans. In peacetime. There is absolutely no way a missile incident could be kept secret this long.

PLus, you know, it wasn't in range. The crash location was too far out to sea for it to have been a shoulder launched missiles. The FIM-92 Stinger, the one still in use today by the US military, has an effective range of 3 miles. So that's out.

I can assure you that in the middle of summer someone would notice a mobile missile launcher cruising down the Long Island Expressway to a location where it could have been used against TWA 800.

That leaves one possible missile source left, a Navy sub. And there is no way a sub returned to the Subase in Groton and was like "Oh, yeah, we seem to have misplaced a missile. Don't worry about it. We have more."

There have been incidents where US Navy ships have accidentally shot missiles. In 1981, for example, the USS Coontz accidentally launched a missile towards St Croix. It was secret for a maximum of 24 hours. And that didn't even hit anything.


It should also be noted that Naval ships on exercises often have contractors on board. There are also many contractors that work on ballistics and equipment when ships come back in. Even if somehow the Pentagon managed to silence every single sailor on board with the threat of the brig, I find it hard to believe that every single contractor involved with the ship would keep silent regarding the deaths of 171 Americans and 59 others. All they could be threatened with was having their clearance pulled and the cover up would surely make at one contractor become disillusioned enough to sacrifice their clearance for the truth.


The non-beacon target that Salinger claimed was the missile, could in fact have been a number of things, including a private plane with no transponder or that hadn't turned off their transponder. During the summer there is a lot of private plane traffic between NY/NJ/CT and Cape Cod as well as Block Island, Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard.

[DALLASTEXAN!!]

I don't believe in the govt theory at all. It's a good story but that's about it. From an avionics perspective I have a hard time believing in a fuel system short circuit as well because those indicating circuits are designed with low voltage to prevent that from happening. I tend to think it was an outside explosion(civilian) attack or an unexplained aircraft failure. Airplanes of today have sophisticated technology and we are used to finding facts with accident investigation, but not every accident or attack
Is solvable.

[Cori aka ChrisSCrush]

Was this the case where some military man insisted he saw a missile? Who was he and was he discredited too?

[DALLASTEXAN!!]

Ok I looked more into this. My above post was wrong because I didnt have the best info. The investigation from the ntsb makes sense to me and I agree with their findings. It is not 100% and this crash never will be completely solved. I did not know that the cockpit recording had the pilots talking about a fuel issue that is a huge revelation.


As far as military error/cover up or a external terrorist attack I see 0% chance of that. In those cases the truth always comes out instantly. The only other remote possibility is that something foreign aboard the plane exploded or caused an explosion but there is no evidence other than the fuel problem that the pilots themselves discovered right before the crash.

[Orange_Sody_84]

Ah I remember this case. They based the Plane disaster from "Final Destination" on it. A High School French Club was on the Plane IRL. They even used footage from the recovery efforts after the crash for the movie.

[LilMissKryssy]

Was this on UM?

I know all about this case. I did indeed see the documentary (it came out like 2 years ago) which wasn't surprising at all. I studied international political science in college and this was a huge topic in one of my classes.

Yes, the government lied and covered this up. This wasn't terrorist and it wasn't a mechanical failure like the government pushed so hard. It was us more specifically our military. I cant say for certain if they accidently shot down the plane like a previous posted stated. It very well could it that. However, I do know the official explanation was a joke. My friend has his masters for aeronautical engineering and when I showed him the video that CIA created for the FBI to show the public how the plane went up thousands of feet after the nose came off...he laughed. That could never happen. Every pilot or anyone who is in the aeronautical field knows that could NEVER happen. They made this explanation to TRY to explain the over 200 eyewitness accounts of what is without a doubt a missile. However every eyewitness who saw that on TV said it will was nothing like what they saw. I believe that is all covered in the documentary as well. The documentary doesn't say why it happened but it does tell you in a clear and concise form how it happened with high level TSA officials who worked on the investigation who are very unhappy with the cover-up. Its pretty obvious when they catch FBI from another office sneaking into the hanger at night and changing evidence tags/attempting to bend pieces of a plane.

Anyways, yes its a great documentary. Unfortunately in July 2014 they have refused to reopen the investigation despite many former TSA officials who worked on this case wanting to reopen it, the overwhelming evidence that was purposely overlooked, the wrongdoing on the FBIs part, the hundreds of identical witnesses accounts not supporting the official cause of the crash and the FBI not producing the actual cause of what started the explosion.

[LilMissKryssy]

Originally Posted by DALLASTEXAN!!

Ok I looked more into this. My above post was wrong because I didnt have the best info. The investigation from the ntsb makes sense to me and I agree with their findings. It is not 100% and this crash never will be completely solved. I did not know that the cockpit recording had the pilots talking about a fuel issue that is a huge revelation.


As far as military error/cover up or a external terrorist attack I see 0% chance of that. In those cases the truth always comes out instantly. The only other remote possibility is that something foreign aboard the plane exploded or caused an explosion but there is no evidence other than the fuel problem that the pilots themselves discovered right before the crash.

I'm going to respectfully but very strongly disagree with you on this one. Airplane crashes (unless the plane vanishes and is never found) are almost always solved .I have a very good friend who is in aeronautical engineering and he has many friends from college who are now airline pilots and very high up in the aeronautical field. Until you truly know about airplane investigations (its hard to write a full page and detailed explanation on here) I don't think you can understand.

Please fully research this. The explanation the FBI gave makes 0 sense. Also, you're not taking into account the very high and experienced TSA investigators who worked on this (a few with over 30 years) who caught the FBI intentionally switching evidence tags on different aircraft pieces (its on security video from their hanger).

Lastly, I majored in international political science. Military and our governments "indiscretions" do not all come out right away.