DN - War obscuring facts: TWA Flt 800 Shot Down per rep

Well it looks like the next dance after the Monica/Impeachment fiasco, to
obscure facts from public view, like the government confession of drug-for-
weapons smuggling, which experts see as still ongoing, as in Kosovo
situation, [see CIA-IG Report Vol 2,   http://www.copvcia.com ] is the
beginning in Yugoslavia of what likely will become WWIII.  Just for fun,
let's keep an eye out for other information coming out at this time
"coincidentally" when the media feeding frenzy is focused on the Balkans,
eg:
from:

http://www.aci.net/kalliste/twa_clinton_coverup.htm
Cmdr. William S. Donaldson, III - USN, Ret.
Aviation Mishap Analyst
P.O. Box 90, Clements, Maryland 20624
Web site: twa800.com
April 5, 1999
Mr. Philip M. Condit
The Boeing Company
P.O. Box 3707, Mail Code 10-10
Seattle, WA 98124-2207
Mr. Gerald L. Gitner
Trans World Airlines
One City Center
515 North Sixth St.
St. Louis, MO 63101
Re: The unexplained loss of TWA Flight 800

Gentlemen,
Over the last four months our investigation into the loss of TWA Flight
800 has produced information far surpassing that contained in our July
20, 1998 Interim Report to Congress. We can now prove, before a jury or
other independent fact-finding body, that the aircraft was shot down. We
can also explain why the Administration covered it up and expose some of
the methods they employed to do so.
Your corporations are being scapegoated and defrauded by Administration
officials because, had the truth about this incident been reported
before November of 1996, it could have derailed the reelection of
Clinton/Gore. Exposed now, it could send guilty parties to jail for
Misprision of Felony Homicide.
We can provide your attorney's with witnesses, documents, or reference
material that will support the following text:

 
1.The Administration knew that in 1996, surrogates from rogue states had
access to MANPADS (Man Portable Air Defense Systems) or shoulder-fired
missiles in mid-eastern weapons bazaars. $5,000 would acquire the least
capable model, the Russian SA-7. $50,000 would buy the most capable, the
Chinese Vanguard, a deadly new missile upgraded from US Stinger
technology transferred to the Chinese in the early 90's. Superior to the
Stinger, this missile has a much longer range. The Administration also
knew Iran had a limited number of US Stinger missiles in inventory.
 
2.The Administration was aware that, worldwide, MANPADS missiles had
already claimed 26 civil transport aircraft and was only a matter of
time before a U.S. Flag carrier would be targeted and hit. They knew the
Administration had dodged a bullet in 1994 when Maryland State Police
found a fully armed French Mistral MANPADS missile ready to fire on its
tripod directly under a busy northeastern air route.
 
3.In response to sanctions unilaterally levied against Iran by Mr.
Clinton in 1995, Iranian surrogate's car bombed US troops in Riyadh,
Saudi Arabia and later smuggled MANPADS missiles into the US from across
the Canadian border. Iranian officials warned the Administration that
they considered enactment of the Iran/Libya Sanctions Act tantamount to
an act of war!
 
4.When Mr. Clinton signed the Iran, Libya Sanctions Act of 1996, a
decision was made by the Iranian Supreme Council to approve attacks on
major American targets. Terrorist surrogate groups from nine countries
were summoned to Tehran to meet with Iranian officials in June of 1996.
Later that month, a huge truck bomb was deployed against the US Air
Force barracks complex at Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia. Three weeks
later, TWA Flight 800 was shot down only hours after an explicit warning
of an attack was received in London and Washington that taunted the
President.
 
5.The White House, the CIA and the FBI were aware of the threat and they
knew preventing that attack was their primary responsibility.
 
6.We can show the Administration anticipated incorrectly that, if the
missiles were used, they would be targeted against Olympic air traffic
landing or taking off in the Atlanta area.
 
7.We can provide testimony that immediately after Flight 800 was shot
down, Mr. Clinton called an FBI command post supporting the Olympics and
informed them Flight 800 was downed with shoulder-fired missiles.
 
8.The White House, the CIA and the FBI political leadership have waged
an unrelenting disinformation campaign from the onset. This has ranged
from the White House spokesman stating, "Anyone in government that says
this was a missile only has half a brain", and to the CIA cartoon that
libeled hundreds of eyewitnesses.

 
1.The day after Flight 800 was shot down, the Justice Department, helped
by 1,000 FBI agents, began the process of converting hundreds of
witnesses into the first American "untouchable cast". The political
leadership of the NTSB aborted its mission in one surrender of its
responsibilities after another. When the Justice Department illegally
ordered the NTSB crash investigators to have no contact with witnesses
or their statements, and the NTSB complied, the investigation was over,
the cover-up and Misprision of Felony Homicide had begun.
 
2.At the NTSB Public Hearing in December of 1997, the word "witnesses"
was not even mentioned. Before and since, they have been ridiculed,
slandered and liabled in official videotapes and statements made by
government spokesmen.
 
3.On March 15, 1999 the derailment of the Spirit of New Orleans after
she hit a steel truck at a railroad crossing in Bourbonnaise IL,
prompted a media wide call for witnesses by NTSB officials. It seems a
witness was needed to prove the truck had driven around the safety gate.
Apparently, investigations are much simpler and witnesses more
creditable for the NTSB when there is no White House interest.
 
4.We have access to 107 witnesses on 4 aircraft, 19 boats, and 31
locations ashore. They were located in a 360° circle around the missile
engagement. Their live testimony alone will prove the aircraft was shot
down. This is why the Justice Department has kept air crash
investigators away from witnesses for 2 1/2 years and also one reason
they are conducting a malicious show-trial prosecution of author and
outside investigator James Sanders and his wife. It's hard to interview
witnesses from a Federal prison. The FBI failed to identify and
interview 17 of these people. Among these 17 are witnesses on a boat who
may have seen the escaping shooter.

 
1.It appears, aggressive FBI missile-team field agents eventually solved
the problem as to the cause of the crash, but had no support in the FBI
leadership. In fact, the FBI leadership seems to have deliberately
withheld vital information from their own agents.
 
2.George Gabrial, the senior FBI Agent on Long Island and personal
friend of Mr. Kalstrom, was a close witness on his boat. We can provide
witnesses who overheard him say he believed what he observed was a
missile. FBI missile-team members did not know he was a witness until we
informed them.
 
3.The FBI has videotape that was shown to military experts of a missile
shot from off the coast of Long Island that failed to engage a target.
This first attempt was nearly coincidental to the Khobar Towers attack 3
weeks before Flight 800’s loss.
 
4.By late September, 1996, FBI missile-team members had established
informal liaison with military missile guidance experts. By that time
the FBI knew witnesses at sea on all sides were pointing to a missile
launch a few miles southeast of Flight 800's explosion point. What they
observed fit the profile of a MANPADS missile engagement.
 
5.In December 1996, FBI missile team members told military experts that
two separate commercial fishermen dredged up and threw back a MANPADS
first stage, the missile ejector-motor can. The ejector motor, about the
size of a Coke can, fires in the tube, ejecting the missile, then drops
in the water when the missile 2nd stage booster ignites.
 
6.The fishing vessel Alpha Omega recovered one of these motor cans in
early October, 1996, while trawling for scallops about 2 nautical miles
from Flight 800's explosion point. The crewman, not realizing the
importance of his find, noted the two distinctive ignition wires
attached to the can before he threw it overboard.
 
7.Despite overwhelming forensic evidence of a weapon impact in the
number 2 main tank of the left wing and witness testimony of a missile
attack, the Administration would not fund military missile experts or
allow the FBI to trawl for missile parts until after the November 1996
elections.
 
8.The Alpha Omega was one of five trawlers contracted by the Navy
Supervisor of Salvage for trawler operations. When FBI agents finally
came aboard in November 1996 to begin trawling and brought pictures of
three objects they were looking for, it was that point the crewman told
them they were too late, he had already found and discarded an ejector
can!
 
9.Responding to the previous findings, Special Agents Bongardt and Otto
took a live ejector motor can from a Stinger missile aboard all the
trawlers under contract, showing it to captain and crew.
 
10.Interrogated for hours, the Alpha Omega crewman insisted the can he
found had the same features, ignition wires, etc. but was somehow
different.
 
11.That interrogation should have prompted the FBI leadership to suspect
they may have been dealing with the longer-range Chinese Vanguard or
Russian SA16/18 missiles.
 
12.It is clear from the Supervisor of Salvage's operational trawling
maps depicting "missile firing zones" and the FBI Trawling Operations
Manual in our possession, that the Justice Department's intent was to
find and hide from "other Interested Parties", missile ejector cans,
missile battery cooling units and the last Flight 800 Scavenge Pump the
NTSB was trying to blame as a source of a spark.
 
13.The $ 5 million trawling operation was funded by NTSB, contracted to
civilian scallop boats through the Navy Supervisor of Salvage from 4
November 1996 until it was suddenly terminated on 30 April 1997, yet the
trawlers were manned 24 hours a day by teams of FBI agents. Up until 30
April 1997 the scallop boat captains had been told the operation would
continue indefinitely for months or even years. FBI agents got the word
via cell phone to shut down the operations. On two of the boats, when
the captains refused to stop until the Navy contractor on board told
them to, the agents threatened force to make the captains shut down. The
first agent backed down when the captain told him he would go anywhere
at gunpoint, but the agent could expect to be charged with piracy on the
high seas when they got ashore. The second agent backed down when the
captain informed him that he was armed also and he was the captain and
they weren't going anywhere!
 
14.The FBI's trawling plan was flawed in the following ways.
a. The missile firing zones depicted on the charts were 1.75 NM and 2.7
NM radius circles. These distances are accurate for two types of MANPADS
but the Chinese Vanguard exceeds those ranges.
b. They used the last transponder response from the aircraft as the
aircraft explosion point. The aircraft was travelling east over 2,900
feet between each transponder response. A two-second error would move
the trawling off by 1/4 mile.
c. They failed to notice, until December 1996, a recorded surface radar
contact only 2.9 NM from Flight 800 when it exploded!
d. They failed to identify that boat!
e. They failed to adjust the trawling lines to cover that boat's surface
track while it was in range of TWA Flight 800.
 
15.The FBI told military experts they had a witness who perfectly
described a MANPADS engagement terminating in an impact on Flight 800’s
left wing root. It includes boost; sustainer-motor burn and total
missile fly-out time typical of the US Stinger and its copies.
 
16.Military thermal imaging of B747-100’s provided to the FBI by China
Lake Naval Air Weapons Facility, indicate a MANPADS missile fired from a
low forward quarter would guide toward the three air pack exhaust ports,
directly under the center wing tank and not, as publicly stated for the
engine nacelles. See attached Thermal Imaging.
 
17.Military computer modeling of the TWA 800 engagement, using Stinger
data, shows the missile’s velocity would degrade to 400 meters per
second as it climbed through 13,700 ft. This would cause the circular
error probability (CEP) to expand to 20 ft. or more, allowing an impact
almost anywhere on the aircraft.
 
18.Stinger guidance technology provides a last instant steer-forward
command to avoid a miss by flying through an engine exhaust plume. Such
a command would explain a missile, fired from in front, steering for the
air pack exhausts under the center wing, impacting forward on the left
wing root leading edge.
 
19.The Stinger, for example, has a two-pound warhead with three fusing
options, contact, penetration and time-out.
 
20.Using stinger missile fly-out data provided to the FBI by military
experts, the combined velocity of missile body and aircraft at impact
would be 1950 ft/sec.
 
21.If the cockpit voice recorder hasn't been tampered with, an audio
laboratory should be able to discern this velocity through its analysis
of recorded frequencies. This may be why the NTSB has refused to allow
the Cockpit Voice Recorder group to convene and study the data generated
from the Bruntingthorpe tests done in England.
 
22.E =   MV2 would predict kinetic energy available at impact of over
1.2 million foot pounds.
 
23.The kinetic energy from a missile body entering the number two main,
  full of fuel, at mach 1.8 would cause the tank to burst from hydraulic
overpressurization.
 
24.Fused for penetration, the two-pound high explosive warhead, bursting
in the fuel could impart an additional 200-PSI spike of hydraulic ram
overpressure.
 
25.Jet fuel is over 700 times the density of air. A MANPADS missile
warhead’s fragments would be stopped in a few feet of fuel, negating
high velocity fragment damage to aircraft components. Mr. Kalstrom’s
public statements repeatedly used the lack of high velocity fragment
damage as an excuse to ignore witnesses and shutdown the investigation.
 
26.The Navy China Lake missile impact "Quick Look Engineering Study"
identified 4 criteria for expected damage if a shoulder fired missile
hit a 747-100 inboard main fuel tank. All four are caused by hydraulic
over pressurization of fuel tanks. All four are in evidence on the left
wing. None of these criteria have ever been seen in previous air
crashes.
 
27.The China Lake report’s first two recommendations were to detonate
shoulder-fired missile warheads in fuel tanks to determine if the
fragments would be trapped and to do live firing of these missiles at
inboard main tanks to compare to left wing damage on Flight 800.
 
28.Mr. Kalstrom ignored all seven recommendations; cherry picked
statements out of the China Lake report and used them out of context in
the media to argue the aircraft was not shot down.
 
29.When Mr. Kalstrom was faced with having to take action on the China
Lake report he chose to shut down the investigation.
 
30.At the time the FBI investigation was prematurely shut down in
November of 1997, the FBI had failed to identify a fast moving boat
captured on radar only 2.9 nautical miles from Flight 800 when it
exploded. Mr. Schirilo, who replaced Mr. Kalstrom, admitted that fact in
a letter to Congressman Traficant.
 
31.After his retirement, Mr. Kalstrom was taped stating the boat
captured on radar was really a helicopter. Considering the radar target
was non-transponder and was tracked on the surface at speed below 36
knots for 35 minutes prior to disappearing over the horizon, even FBI
agents have acknowledged Mr. Kalstrom’s excuse is nonsense.
 
32.Witnesses afloat and ashore observed a six second missile burn
(Stinger rocket burn is 6   seconds) coming from the near vicinity of
the unidentified boat.
 
33.Senior Justice Department officials need to be compelled to answer
under oath why testing essential to determine if Flight 800 was brought
down by a shoulder fired missile was not funded and why they ignored the
forensic evidence, military experts, witnesses and their own FBI field
agents.

 
1.Discovery of the plight of the Flight Data Recorder and Cockpit Voice
Recorder and their two Ducane pingers, after water entry, may be the key
to unlocking the cover-up. We can show a Grand Jury how Mr. Clinton
personally involved himself.
 
2.The NTSB is extremely sensitive to the subject of Black Boxes. They
opened the boxes without any investigators from the Interested Parties
present. They refused to allow TWA's investigator to listen to the voice
recorder more than once.
 
3.The Voice Recorder has a "sound like damaged tape" precisely seven
seconds prior to its end. Seven seconds prior to missile impact would be
coincidental to MANPADS booster ignition. A visually bright event that
could be seen by the First Officer.
 
4.Dr. Loeb has refused to release Addendum number two to the Flight Data
Recorder Analysis that was written to rebut our interpretation of the
last data line. The NTSB even refuses to let the Voice Recorder Analysis
group reconvene!
 
5.The Administration's explanation of the circumstances under which the
USS Grasp" divers found the Digital Flight Data Recorder and the Cockpit
Voice Recorder is highly questionable.
 
6.According to divers we interviewed and the Navy Supervisor of Salvage
Report, Navy divers from the USS Grasp found the recorders during Dive
#2 and Dive #3 on the evening of 23 July 1996. The Administration
maintains these same divers found them more than 24 hours later at 2330
hours on 24 July 1996. East coast TV news coverage ends at 23:30.
 
7.The most probable motive for this deception was to ensure
investigators, who are Parties to the Investigation, were not witnesses
when NTSB/FBI officials were alleged to have first opened the boxes in
Washington during the early morning hours of 25 July 1996.
 
8.The boxes should have been found in the aircraft tail cone section, or
within its debris. Instead, divers from the Grasp found each box 30 feet
apart on a hard sand bottom, devoid of any attached debris and neither
Ducane Pinger was operating. They appeared just as they would if dropped
overboard from a boat!
 
9.Somehow both Ducane Systems fixed themselves while in FBI custody.
They were found to be fault-free in laboratory test days later.
 
10.The small cylindrical Ducane Pingers are mounted on the narrow front
face of each oblong rectangular box. They are protected from damage
because they are bolted firmly to the inside angle of a short piece of
angle iron. Because of their shape, the probability of either free
falling box landing on the bottom with the pinger stuck in the sand,
would be akin to a free falling domino landing on it's end and remaining
standing in that position.
 
11.The only way Ducane Pingers can be silenced under water without
evidence of damage is by partly unscrewing the battery connection.
 
12.The probability of both undamaged Ducane Pingers failing
simultaneously in a shallow open ocean environment, on top of a hard
sand bottom, approaches that of a spontaneous aviation kerosene
explosion in an ignition-free Boeing 747-100 fuel tank.
 
13.We consider the fact the NTSB has remained mute about these alleged
Ducane failures is Prima Facie evidence of either abject incompetence on
the part of the NTSB who should have opened an inquiry into the cause,
or proof of a cover-up of NTSB misconduct.
 
14.Weeks Marine, Inc. was verbally contracted by both the Coast Guard
and FAA officials the night of the crash to position for salvage
operations. They were on site the next morning with the best salvage
equipment available in the Atlantic. It was superior to Navy assets, but
Weeks Marine was stood down by the NTSB. It would be five more days
before Navy divers would be on scene to recover recorders, bodies, etc!
Why the forced wait?
 
15.Holding Weeks Marine, Inc. to standby while ordering Navy assets to
respond from far away points deliberately condemned victims trapped in
bottom wreckage to five additional days of ravage by natural elements.
This grossly compounded the grief of the families and put at risk the
ability of medical examiners to identify all remains. The White House
was responsible for this order.
 
16.Circumstantial evidence indicates the Administration, knowing the
aircraft to be shot down, may have ordered a covert recovery, laboratory
examination and reinsertion of the recorders to ensure the aircrew did
not describe the attack on audio tape. Scuba divers could have recovered
the recorders on the afternoon of 18 July and dropped them back
overboard after 10 am 22 July, before the USS Grasp and Navy divers were
on scene. During that period of time NOAA research vessel Rude and the
motor vessel Pirouette were simultaneously sent 5 miles off the main
debris field on a "wild goose chase" by the NTSB. Both ships had been
mapping that field with side scan sonar!
 
17.Properly done, a scuba team equipped with a Ducane locator amplifier
tube, held over the side, could position a small boat directly over
active Pingers, dive and recover the boxes in a single effort. Active
pingers can be detected by divers 300 yards away.
 
18.We have a witness that has passed a polygraph test and has provided a
sworn affidavit that a member of the NTSB leadership told him the
recorders were found and examined by 20 July. The Coast Guard told both
TWA maintenance and Congressman Forbes that the recorders were found on
18 July. The next day, 19 July, the Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence was told the aircraft was shot down by terrorists. Senators
Hatch and D'Amato made public statements to the same effect.
 
19.White House, NTSB and Justice Department officials need to be
compelled to explain these events and their actions under oath. We also
have other individuals who have asked to remain anonymous who should be
questioned under oath.
 
20.Despite a steep learning curve and the best efforts of some if its
most aggressive field agents, FBI leadership has demonstrated itself to
be functionally illiterate in the critical areas of; military weapons
and tactics, radar interpretation and air crash investigation. The fact
the White House failed to immediately assign appropriate elements of the
Department of Defense as lead investigators in the missile inquiry is
inculpatory.
 
21.Gentlemen, we have the "FBI Trawler Operations Manual" and Operations
Order as well as other documents left behind aboard a contract boat by
FBI agents. If found, the Justice Department intended to hide from your
companies; the last fuel scavenge pump, a missile ejector can and the
missile battery cooling unit!
 
TWA Flight 800 was the 27th civil aircraft shot down worldwide by
shoulder fired missiles. The Administration’s actions have greatly
increased the danger of a recurrence, not only because of the deception
of this case but because administration policy deliberately fails to
link any terrorist act to the government of the Sponsor State. This
provides political cover for the Administration's lack of action and
sanctuary to deadly enemies.
 
I will point out the coincidence of the Clinton Administration's pro
Arab, anti Israeli policy shift and the arrival on our shores of a
creditable anti-aircraft threat under the control of rogue states. In
1994, the Maryland State Police found a fully armed French MANPADS
missile, the Mistral, ready to fire on its tripod, directly under a
heavily used air corridor near Westminster Maryland.
 
Our research also found U.S. Stinger technology transferred to China in
the early 90’s enabling them to produce the Vanguard, a quality shoulder
fired Chinese missile. It was deployed first in 1996. If past history is
an indicator, the China / Iran weapons transfer link bodes ill for
future air commerce.
In a worse case scenario, absent a respected American
Commander-in-Chief, Iran’s Supreme Council, or other rogue state, could
successfully shutdown or disrupt major traffic hubs worldwide by
activating surrogate cells armed with Vanguard. If they can shoot down
one, why not a half dozen on a single day?
 
Gentlemen, the time to act is now, regardless of any arrangements you
may or may not have had to accept. Once the American people understand
the truth, your corporations will be indemnified against any further
political extortion from this administration.
We would ask, in the interest of long term air safety, that you take an
aggressive and public pro-active stance. Challenge the Administration;
educate the media and the electorate. Severance from a politicized and
fraudulent Federal investigation is no penalty and maintenance of the
status quo is certainly no prize.
 
Sincerely,
William S. Donaldson
cc:
The Honorable Slade Gordon
Unites States Senate
The Honorable Orin Hatch
Unites States Senate
The Honorable George Boinovitch
Unites States Senate
The Honorable John J. Duncan, Jr.
U. S. House of Representatives
The Honorable Henry Hyde
U. S. House of Representatives
The Honorable Porter Goss
U. S. House of Representatives
Judge Kenneth W. Starr
Independent Counsel USDJ
District Attorney James M. Catterson, Jr.
Suffolk County Office of the District Attorney
Col. Sommeres
Air Attaché’, Embassy of France
Gen. Bernardis
Air Attaché’, Embassy of Italy
Gen. Avi Barber
Air Attaché, Embassy of Israel
Adm. Jay Johnson
Chief of Naval Operations
Adm. G. W. Prueher
Commander in Chief, Pacific
Vadm. W. J. Fallon
Commander, Second Fleet
Vadm. H. E. Browne
Commander, Third Fleet
Directors
The Families of TWA Flight 800
P.O. Box 1061, Clifton Park, NY 12065