INTERNET NOTE ON TWA 800 EXPLOSION The latest rumor.
The message came to me from a man who was Safety Chairman for the Airline Pilots Association for many years and he is considered an expert on safety. He would not ever spread idle rumor. In short, he is usually quite certain before saying anything!
The following information about TWA Fight 800 was received this afternoon: (08-22-96)
TWA flight 800 was shot down by a U.S. Navy guided missile ship which was in area W-105. W-105 is a warning Area off the SouthEast coast of Long Island and is used by the military for missile firing and other military operations.
Guided missile ships travel all over the world defending the US and they were conducting practice firings up over the top of a Navy P-3 radar plane who was on a Southwest heading about over the top of TwA 800. Evidently the missile is suppose to go over the top of the P-3 and the accuracy of the missile is being measured by instrumentation in the P-3.
There was a USAir flight coming from the Southeast descending towards Providence, RI that had been cleared to 21,000 feet and the TWA 800 aircarft was restricted to 13,000 feet. The air traffic controller requested the USAir flight to turn on his landing lights with the idea that TWA might see his lights and identify him. At that point, he would clear the TWA flight to continue his climb.
The P-3 was a non-beacon target (transponder OFF) flying southwest in the controlled airspace almost over TWA 800 and made NO calls to ATC. After the explosion, he continued his flight to the west and then called ATC and asked if they would like him to turn around and assist with the "accident!"
You will remember that the first announcement about this accident came from the Pentagon. The spokesman mentioned that they were sending the Navy to the crash site. They immediately sent a Navy Captain who was replaced the next day by an Admiral. That Admiral is still on the scene.
The FBI has conducted at least 3,000 eyewitness interviews and the NTSB has not been able to be a part of these interviews not have any access to the contents of them. Some of those eyewitnesses reported seeing lights. Those were probably the landing lights of the USAir plane.
It has been a cover-up from the word go. The NTSB is there in name ONLY. All announcements made by Mr. Bob Francis say absolutely nothing and notice that the FBI is always standing beside or behind Mr. Francis and it would appear that his job is to make sure that nothing is said that would give away "THE BIG SECRET!"
It is time to end this farce and tell the public the real truth as to what happened to TWA 800.
My source shall remain my own but the above information is true and I believe it will all become known soon, now that all of you know the real truth.
GOVERNMENT COVERUP IN TWA 800 CRASH ALLEGED
News AnalysisWhen the Paris-bound flight TWA 800 crashed in the Atlantic shortly after takeoff from JFK airport in New York, it started investigations on both sides of the Atlantic. While U.S. investigators say they still have no clue as to what happened, information from French intelligence has been more forthcoming. A French intelligence official gave Pierre Salinger, an American living in Paris, a copy of a document he said he had received from a U.S. Secret Service agent.
The document claimed that TWA 800 had accidentally been shot down by "friendly fire," by a US Navy guided missile ship which was in the area.
Salinger, a press spokesman for President John F. Kennedy and later Paris bureau chief for ABC News, took the information seriously and after the election started talking about it publicly. He believed there was a government conspiracy to cover up the information until after the election. He was interviewed by a French television station, and the broadcast was picked up by Reuters and by AP, which spread Salinger's claims worldwide.
When contacted by CNN, however, Salinger discovered that the note he had received from the French intelligence was similar or identical to a note that was distributed on the Internet in the beginning of September. We received this note by email on September 10, but had no way of verifying the claims it made. In fact, it bears the hallmarks of a lot of the disinformation that unfortunately is floating around the Internet: it cites an anonymous source and is poorly written. A copy of the note is included in the Information section of this issue. Since Salinger has refused to release his note, it cannot be verified whether it is an independent statement of the same facts presented in the Internet note.
Salinger claims that "There is a lot of proof for the document. I have since talked to several individuals who have upheld what the agent said."
The Paris-based Intelligence newsletter in its September 23 edition covered the TWA 800 crash in its front page story. In addition to reviewing the Internet document, it cited French intelligence sources when it said that "U.S. Navy divers recovered the serial number of the missile which destroyed Flight 800, but the Pentagon immediately had the number erased from its inventory. All radar track recordings have supposedly been seized and the NTSB has allegedly not been given access to some 3,000 eyewitness interviews by the FBI." The Intelligence newsletter further speculated that "the Clinton administration apparently has forbidden the release of any information that would implicate the U.S. military ... at least until the presidential elections are over."
The FBI, Navy and Secret Service on Friday held a joint news conference to strenuously deny the allegations. No U.S. government or airline official has stepped forward to confirm the allegations.
Saturday, Salinger stood by his information and told CNN that he had received new information from a passenger aboard an Air France flight that was in the area at about the same time.
So it is not possible to determine at this point whether the "friendly fire" cover-up allegation is true, or whether it is disinformation spread by French intelligence.
But one thing is certain: Salinger, Reuters, and the Associated Press have all become conspiracy theorists!
Published in the Nov. 11, 1996 Issue of The Washington Weekly
Copyright (c) 1996 The Washington Weekly (http://www.federal.com)--Used with permission--
Back to Chuck's "Must Read List"
Back to Home Page