It is
an event that should be treated as an ongoing investigation,
and it's still not too late to determine the truth of what
happened. What is not in dispute is that at 8:19 p.m. on
July 17, 1996, the Boeing 747 took off from Kennedy Airport
in New York, headed for Paris. About 12 minutes into the
flight, the plane exploded, killing all 230 people aboard,
as the burning wreckage fell into the Atlantic Ocean off
the coast of Long Island.
Some
260 people, unknown to each other, witnessed an object
flying toward Flight 800, and of those, 92 saw the object
rise from the surface. These are all people who gave sworn
statements to the FBI. The eyewitnesses include highly
reliable people like Maj. Fred Meyer, an attorney and pilot
who is a recipient of the Distinguished Flying Cross for
his service in Vietnam. The night that TWA 800 went down,
Meyer was flying a helicopter for his National Guard unit,
and had perhaps the best perspective of anyone who witnessed
the tragedy. I described in a commentary last
November his frustrating experience trying to describe
to the FBI what he saw, and other examples of the compelling
evidence that strongly indicate that TWA 800 was brought
down by missiles, and covered up by the government. The
evidence includes explosive residue found in the wreckage,
radar data, and testimony of a cover-up by Hank Hughes,
a senior investigator for the National Transportation Safety
Board (NTSB).
The commentary
was in response to a program on the National Geographic
Channel that basically presented the NTSB's theory of what
happened: namely that fuel vapors in the center-wing fuel-tank
exploded when a spark from an unknown source, perhaps faulty
wiring, caused the explosion. In their scenario, the explosion
caused the nose of the jet to break off, and the fuselage
climbed some 3,000 feet. All of the eyewitness, they said,
saw burning fuel coming down, not missiles going up.
Several
recent articles in the mainstream media that refer to TWA
800 do so in the context of the Federal Aviation Administration's
(FAA) failure to equip all new planes with a system that
would prevent them from blowing up in the manner that they
claim was the cause of TWA's demise. The Washington
Post article says that "Investigators concluded that
a spark in the center fuel tank of the TWA jetliner caused
vapors to ignite and explode. Since the crash, the aviation
industry has focused on eliminating sparks in fuel tanks.
But NTSB officials say pumping nitrogen into fuel tanks—a
process known as 'inerting'—would be more effective."
But such
a "conclusion" does not explain the eyewitness accounts
of missiles hitting the plane.
There
are several people who deserve a lot of credit for digging
for the truth in this matter. One was the founder of Accuracy
in Media, the late Reed Irvine, who worked tirelessly to
press the government and the press to uncover the facts
of the case.
Two other
people deserve credit for keeping this story alive, even
today. One is Jack Cashill, the award-winning author and
documentary producer, who has written a series of articles
for WorldNetDaily leading
up to the 10th anniversary. I particularly recommend his article on
the eyewitnesses, and his article on
the so-called "zoom-climb" theory used to explain what
the eyewitnesses supposedly really witnessed. A more recent article was
a rebuttal of CNN's 10th anniversary special on the subject.
The other
is Capt. Ray Lahr, a former Navy pilot, a retired United
Airlines pilot and a former safety representative for the
Air Line Pilots Association. Lahr has doggedly pursued
a lawsuit seeking to require the NTSB and CIA to show how
they came up with the "zoom-climb" theory. Lahr's most
recent article on
the subject was also carried by WorldNetDaily, and is definitely
worth your time.
Ironically,
June 30 was the 50th anniversary of another tragic plane
crash that involved a TWA plane and a United Airlines plane,
killing all 128 people over the Grand Canyon. It changed
forever the dynamics of commercial flight. According to
an article in
the St. Petersburg Times, "It prompted an outcry that accelerated
the creation of the modern air traffic control system and
the birth of the Federal Aviation Administration."
In that
case, it appears, some lessons were learned. But in the
case of TWA 800, the lesson is that a cover-up, apparently
concocted for political reasons on behalf of the Clinton
Administration, can succeed.
Many
highly credible people who have investigated the story
have concluded that the government lied about the cause
of the destruction of TWA 800. The case should be re-opened.
It's never too late to find the truth. CRO
The America Show
