-Caveat Lector-
Vol. 15, No. 35 -- September 20, 1999
Published Date August 27, 1999, in Washington, D.C.
www.insightmag.com
New Radar Data, New Questions
By Kelly Patricia O'Meara
The National Transportation Safety Board has released radar data
from the night TWA Flight 800 crashed that reveal radar-blip
activity omitted from earlier reports.
New radar data relating to the July 17, 1996, explosion of TWA
Flight 800 that went down off the coast of Long Island, N.Y.,
inexplicably have just become available. The well-publicized
previous data focused narrowly on a 20-nautical-mile circle
centered on the crash site and was the basis of the FBI's
conclusion that there was little air or naval traffic in the
selected area at the time of the crash. But that restricted data
pattern, it turns out, is only a subset of a larger radar field.
The new data just obtained by Insight from sources at the
National Transportation Safety Board, or NTSB, show that between
the perimeters of a 22-nautical-mile circle and a
35-nautical-mile circle, a concentration of a large number of
radar blips appears to be moving into a well-known military
warning area closed to civilian and commercial traffic.
The anomaly presented by the additional data is as yet
unexplained. The Clinton administration previously has stated
that no concentration of military vessels was in the area that
night. Indeed, the Department of the Navy specified that the
closest naval vessel was the USS Normandy, 185 nautical miles to
the south.
The two radar charts accompanying this story are a representation
of official data supplied by the NTSB, one of the federal
agencies tasked with investigating the crash of TWA 800. The
original data, plotted by the NTSB, is from Exhibit 13A,
contained on a CD-ROM which included the entire Aircraft
Performance Group Chairman's Factual Report released to the
public at December 1997 hearings in Baltimore. But the additional
data are found on a floppy disk obtained by Insight from the NTSB
-- a disk which has the complete database of Exhibit 13A. Chart B
was plotted for Insight by independent radar technical experts.
Chart A focuses on the area within a circle of 20 nautical miles
centered on the crash site. NTSB identified only a Navy P-3 Orion
antisubmarine airplane, U.S. Airways Flight 217, TWA Flight 900
and four unidentified tracks moving at 30 knots, 15 knots, 12
knots and 20 knots as the only vehicles and/or objects noted
within a 10-nautical-mile radius of the crash site. The NTSB has
concluded that the unidentified tracks in Chart A all were
consistent with the speed of surface vessels.
The newly obtained data in Chart B include the same information
available in Exhibit 13A, but present additional data showing
that the level of surface vessels and aircraft activity increases
significantly outside the 20-nautical-mile boundary set by the
NTSB review.
Chart B shows the identical tracks of the aircraft and
unidentified surface vessels revealed in Chart A. But Chart B
also shows in excess of two dozen surface vessels and aircraft
detected by radar just beyond the 20-nautical-mile mark. Of
interest to experts who have reviewed the data plot is that most
of the surface vessels in Chart B appear to be heading in a
parallel movement toward Whiskey 105, or W-105 -- a military
warning area highly publicized to mariners and aviators, designed
to keep commercial aircraft and surface vessels out of harm's way
during military exercises. On the evening of the explosion, W-105
was activated for military exercises along with several other
warning areas along the Atlantic Coast.
Furthermore, Chart B reveals two aircraft just outside the NTSB's
20-nautical-mile boundary, one traveling at 475 knots in an
east-southeast direction heading toward W-105 and a second
aircraft that, in a span of approximately 30 minutes, appears to
fly into and out of W-105 on two separate occasions. When the
earlier data were released, both FBI and NTSB investigators said
that they were unable to identify all surface vessels and
aircraft within the area of the crash.
Radar technical experts who reviewed the data on Chart B for
Insight identify the tracks of approximately 30 surface vessels
and at least two aircraft that were outside the narrow perimeter
of the previously announced results and have not been made public
until now. When questioned about the newly released radar data,
Bernard Loeb, director of the Office of Aviation Safety at the
NTSB, said, "There are lots and lots of things out there, lots
and lots of surface vessels and airplanes. It's New York City."
However, when specifically asked whether the NTSB was aware of
any apparently synchronized parallel movement of vessels, Loeb
replied, "We don't see some large number of vessels running in a
parallel track in the same direction."
The FBI, which took the lead on the criminal investigation of the
downing of the Boeing 747 aircraft, was unaware at first that the
new radar data from NTSB had come to light. When the differences
in scope between the earlier data and the new data were presented
to Joe Valiquette, an FBI special agent in the New York City
office, he responded, "This is ancient history. There is no one
who is willing to make one of our agents available here to talk
about the radar data. Everything we have to say about the TWA 800
investigation was said on Nov. 18, 1997" [the day the FBI put its
criminal investigation on an inactive pending status].
. . . . The Anatomy of a Mystery
By Paul M. Rodriguez
Intimidating the press and carping about bold reporters are old
tricks. But rarely do government officials seek out rival news
organizations to malign a writer before a story even is written.
Here, ruining people is considered sport." So wrote the late
Vincent Foster, the deputy White House counsel whose body was
found in Fort Marcy Park in Northern Virginia, dead by apparent
suicide due to complicated reasons only he knew -- among them,
perhaps, the relentless hounding of junkyard dogs in the
Washington press corps.
I know a little now about how he must have felt. Until recently,
reporters avoided launching public smear attacks against one of
their own. And certainly in my experience as a veteran newsman,
journalists would never roll over and allow government
bureaucrats to use them to slime their colleagues.
Yet that precisely is what recently happened to an Insight
reporter whom I asked to unravel a new mystery involving the
doomed flight of TWA 800. Specifically, the reporter -- Kelly
Patricia O'Meara -- was detailed to find out why recently
unearthed radar tapes never seen before showed significant
numbers of "hits" compared with previously released government
radar tapes. And why were so many of the new blips passing beyond
the crash site into a military no-fly/no-sail zone?
Government investigators for the National Transportation Safety
Board, or NTSB, the FBI and the military previously had said such
data didn't exist or stated bluntly there was no such traffic.
The blind reporting of potentially new data refuting the
government would have been an irresponsible thing for this
magazine -- or for any bona fide newsmagazine -- to do. But just
as certainly it probably would have fueled cries of cover-up from
the so-called black-chopper crowd. One of the favorite theories
still buzzing around Internet groups and skeptics is that a
missile from friendly or hostile fire brought the plane down,
although no evidence has been forthcoming proving that happened.
Armed with documents -- interestingly, at one point supplied by
an NTSB employee -- O'Meara's assignment was simple: Ask the NTSB
why the "new" radar data had not been previously released and
determine what the data actually showed.
Notwithstanding the dog-eat-dog mores now prevailing in
Washington, it still came as some surprise to me how NTSB
officials managed to convince a legitimate writer at a competing
news organization -- the Washington Post -- to try through
innuendo to intimidate the Insight reporter for leveling
aggressive questions about the data at testy and flippant
bureaucrats.
Maybe it was O'Meara's gender or her tailored pantsuit that
provoked the attack. Or perhaps it was her background as having
worked for a member of Congress who initially disbelieved
government reports that TWA 800 blew up due to mechanical
failure. Then again, perhaps it was a former stint working for an
Oliver Stone production company hired by ABC to do a
since-dropped documentary on the doomed flight that may have been
the reason.
But regardless of the excuse, NTSB Managing Director Peter Goelz
decided not to complain to any of Insight's top editors --
including me -- about what he felt were "extraordinary
antagonistic" questions from the magazine's reporter. Instead he
went to Washington Post media writer Howard Kurtz. And while Matt
Drudge is known to report on stories about to be printed by
competitors, Kurtz reported on a "story" that had not even been
written nor was going to be written as slyly suggested by Goelz
in the Post article.
"Kelly O'Meara was questioning Goelz about secret government
radar reports that she said show plenty of activity nearby on the
day in 1996 that TWA Flight 800 crashed," Kurtz wrote in the Aug.
23 issue of his newspaper. "The government says it found no
evidence to support theories that the plane was downed by a
missile," Kurtz continued. And later he quoted Goelz as saying:
"She really believes that the United States Navy shot this thing
down and there was a fleet of warships."
Kurtz wrote these words without interviewing O'Meara. And he
wrote it after being told by me that the reporter hadn't yet
returned from the Goelz interview, so there was no basis to judge
the accuracy of the bureaucrat's rendition of events. Moreover, I
recall telling Kurtz, missiles and such were not the issue for
the magazine, but the issue was what may be on never-before-seen
radar data. "If anyone has questions about [the reporter's] bias,
wait 'til they see a printed product," I was quoted by Kurtz as
saying. Otherwise, "it's just carping about an aggressive
reporter." Kurtz seemed to be assuaged sufficiently, at least to
the point of waiting to find out what actually did happen at the
allegedly aggressive interview -- especially since neither one of
us knew fully. That was about 5 p.m. on a Friday. Then, in
Monday's Aug. 23 Post, Kurtz, without hearing back from this
editor, went ahead and printed a one-sided story that had been
cleverly placed with him by the bureaucrats three days earlier.
An examination of the transcript of the reporter's interview,
however, paints a different picture from the one Goelz portrays
and Kurtz displays. It also puts into context the so-called rude
reporter's tactics. It demonstrates, perhaps, how nervous,
worried and reactive bureaucrats become when faced with tough
questions and persistence. Challenged with straightforward
questions, they evade or turn flippant.
Curiously, O'Meara never brought up in her Aug. 20 interview the
theory that the plane had been shot down. It was the NTSB
officials themselves who raised it, as they did in subsequent
interviews with me on Aug. 23 and Aug. 25. They were the ones who
also brought up errant-missile theories -- only, admittedly, to
mock them.
Some exchanges from the O'Meara interview with the NTSB officials
perhaps show best what transpired. For example, when asked where
the latest data showing significantly larger numbers of
previously unknown radar hits have been -- at least since the
NTSB issued an interim report 18 months ago, along with CD-ROMs
-- NTSB's Bernie Loeb said: "It's not on the CD, but it's on the
floppy disk. All you had to do was ask for it. It's been
available since last April." Floppy disk? What floppy disk?
According to NTSB sources and officials who spoke privately to
Insight, no one knew about the floppy disk -- a point even Loeb
suggests could have happened because "the public-inquiries office
shifted locations at some point and it may have been a period of
time simply because they had misplaced it." When asked whether
the newly obtained disk from the NTSB showing the expanded data
could have been the wrong "tape," Goelz replied: "You know it's
hard to believe but, who knows?"
As can be seen by the charts accompanying O'Meara's story in this
issue (p. 24), there are significant differences from the
previous publicly released NTSB reports and the newly acquired
radar data.
And the differences beg questions, such as why are there are two
versions of what supposedly are the same set of data? What does
the new information show? Do the blips represent military,
civilian or commercial boats and planes on the new radar tapes?
Why are so many targets moving beyond the crash site into a
military no-fly/no-sail zone? And, certainly not least, why were
these additional targets scrubbed or otherwise not reported in
previous published NTSB reports?
In response to such commonsense questions posed by O'Meara --
they were not loaded ones nor did they presuppose anything --
NTSB officials speaking to a tape recorder in plain sight were
evasive, mocking and circular in their answers. And, again,
contrary to what Kurtz quoted Goelz as saying, it was the NTSB
officials who first raised the issue of missile conspiracies in
the Post story. In the actual interview they limited the scope of
such off-the-wall chatter to Internet conspiracy theorists.
Loeb and Goelz subsequently confirmed to me that the NTSB had, in
fact, left out much of the additional and "new" radar data
obtained by Insight and that, indeed, it will lead to further
questions. But that said, they also maintained that in the final
analysis it doesn't matter what additional information comes out
because in their judgment nothing will change: A mechanical fault
brought the plane down.
Fine. Insight was not questioning that or any other conclusion,
but it was -- and still is -- questioning the handling and
release of the radar data.
If conspiracy theories are fueled, it will be partly because the
NTSB saw fit to play fast and loose -- for whatever reason,
innocent or not -- with material that should have been released
to the public promptly, clearly and professionally.
Too bad Kurtz didn't wait to get the full facts himself before
taking a dud-filled potshot. No wonder the public has grown weary
-- and wary -- of a media that rushes into print before it has
the whole story.
Copyright � 1999 News World Communications, Inc.
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Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT
FROM THE DESK OF: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
*Mike Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
~~~~~~~~ <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends
Shalom, A Salaam Aleikum, and to all, A Good Day.
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