-Caveat Lector-
from:
http://www.ustimesdaily.com/
<A HREF="http://www.ustimesdaily.com/">U.S. Times Daily News</A>
-----
THE NEW AMERICAN
Vol. 15, No. 17
August 16, 1999
More on Flight TWA 800
More Pieces to TWA 800 Puzzle
by William Norman Grigg
Three years after TWA flight 800 exploded in mid-air over the Atlantic
just off Long Island, killing all 230 aboard, evidence is continuing to
accumulate that the federal government has deliberately misled the
public about the cause of the tragedy. After an investigation that
consumed 16 months and devoured $20 million, federal authorities
concluded that an aberrant spark in the plane�s center fuel tank
triggered the catastrophic explosion. However, in order to reach this
conclusion, federal investigators had to discard a significant body of
evidence suggesting that the plane was shot down in an act of terrorism
and mass murder.
The July 14th-20th edition of the left-wing Village Voice quoted an
unnamed "missile expert" who worked in the FBI�s investigation of the
Flight 800 explosion. The expert, a military engineer "who specializes
in infrared missile technology," was "made privy to evidence suggesting
that TWA 800 could have been shot down." In addition to receiving
eyewitness accounts of a "flare-like object" zooming toward the plane
shortly before the explosion, the engineer was permitted to inspect the
assembled debris from the crash. He has also been "in contact with
military labs where, he says, the chemists have been unable to make jet
fuel vapor explode"; this undermines the official explanation provided
by the National Transportation and Safety Board (NTSB), which maintains
that fuel vapor in the ill-fated plane�s center fuel tank somehow
ignited. The engineer concludes that there is a "70-percent chance" that
the plane was shot down by a shoulder-launched missile.
Mystery Boat
The July 12th issue of the New York Observer referred to a mysterious
"30-knot track," the radar signature of a boat "that was the closest
vessel to the 747 when it exploded and that then headed out to sea on a
beeline from right under the burning wreckage." In the immediate
aftermath of the crash, the "mystery boat" headed directly out to sea on
a south-southwest course, "even as other boats rushed to the crash to
help out," explained the Observer account. "It was nearly 9 o�clock at
night, not the usual time for an excursion."
The "30-knot track" is particularly intriguing to retired Navy Commander
William S. Donaldson, a former Judge Advocate General investigator who
has conducted inquiries into 12 Navy air crashes. Upon viewing the data,
"I looked at that and said, �Wow, what is that guy doing leaving the
scene?� And of course I assumed he was identified." However, when he
asked FBI agent Steve Bongardt whether investigators were able to
interview the occupants of every boat in the region of the crash,
Commander Donaldson was told that the question couldn�t be answered
without clearance "from a higher authority."
"It would seem that even the FBI secretly regarded the 30-knot track as
suspicious," said the Observer. "For six months, the government
conducted a $5.5 million trawling operation of the waters surrounding
the crash, using scallop boats. Commander Donaldson obtained documents
left by the FBI on one scalloper, showing that the FBI was specifically
looking for shoulder-fired Stinger missile parts � notably a Stinger
ejector motor � in what the FBI called a �possible missile launch zone�
2.7 miles from the crash. That circle included the mystery boat." The
FBI also seized some boats to inspect their floorboards for burns
typical of backwash from a shoulder-fired rocket. However, investigators
have been singularly incurious regarding the unidentified fleeing boat.
"If it�s a legitimate criminal investigation, with a possibility of 230
homicides," observes Commander Donaldson, "how do you close the
investigation when you haven�t identified the boat that was within
missile firing range? To me that�s egregious. I don�t see how you
justify it."
The FBI�s indifference regarding the "mystery boat" becomes even more
inexplicable in light of the account provided by a witness identified as
Lou Desyron. As previously reported in these pages (see "What Happened
to TWA 800?" in our October 14, 1996 issue), Desyron told ABC News that
"we saw what appeared to be a flare going straight up. As a matter of
fact, we thought it was from a boat." (Emphasis added.)
Prime Suspect
The July 16th USA Today, published on the eve of the tragedy�s third
anniversary, reported that Bill Clinton "was ready to strike back at
Middle East terrorists if they could be linked to the explosion of TWA
Flight 800," but that no strike occurred because "the FBI never made the
connection." According to Associated Press correspondent Pat Milton,
author of In the Blink of an Eye: The FBI Investigation of TWA Flight
800, one of the chief suspects was renegade Saudi terrorist financier
Osama bin Laden, who is suspected of plotting the 1996 attack on Saudi
Arabia�s Khobar Towers barracks, which killed 19 U.S. servicemen and
wounded another 250. Bin Laden has also been accused of masterminding
the August 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
And, lest it be forgotten, bin Laden has provided financial and material
support to the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army, the drug-dealing
Muslim/Marxist terrorists who were NATO�s allies in the war on
Yugoslavia.
USA Today also pointed out that "weeks before the crash [of TWA 800],
Clinton had placed the United States on its highest state of alert since
the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. This was because the White House had
received classified intelligence reports that Iran was planning a wave
of terrorist attacks against the United States." Bin Laden is tightly
allied both with Iran and with anti-American elements of the Afghan
Mujahadeen guerillas who were provided with Stinger missiles during the
war against the Soviets.
According to James Kallstrom, the FBI�s lead investigator in the TWA 800
case, the agency�s "exhaustive" inquiry "left no stone unturned."
Kallstrom testified before Congress that the FBI�s investigation
included "tracking of all air and waterborne vessels in the area at the
time of the explosion followed by appropriate interviews." The sole
exception to this dragnet was the mysterious vessel responsible for the
enigmatic "30-knot track" � and the possible link between the air
disaster and the international terrorist network.
� Copyright 1999 American Opinion Publishing Incorporated
-----
Aloha, He'Ping,
Om, Shalom, Salaam.
Em Hotep, Peace Be,
Omnia Bona Bonis,
All My Relations.
Adieu, Adios, Aloha.
Amen.
Roads End
Kris
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