TWA 800 New News

For years have thought that the official NTSB explanation of the loss of TWA 800 off the New York coast was caused by a fuel tank explosion was not correct. My service career in the Air Force as an avionics technician made me very familiar with the working of and aircrafts fuel quantity system. This coupled with my background as a firefighter I know how difficult it can be to ignite Jet-A especially in an enclosed container like a fuel cell.


The other thing that has always bothered me about the incident was the fact that there were many eye witness’s that claimed they saw a streak of light come up off the water then the explosion of the aircraft. One of these eye witnesses was a USAF Reserve MH-60 Pave Hawk crew. I believe these guys if anyone would recognize the launch signature of a Man Portable Air Defense Missile. Along this theme, after the investigation Aviation Week published some infrared pictures of a flying 747 showing the various heat sources. Most people would automatically assume that the hottest source would be the engine exhaust. The reality is it the air conditioning pack that resides in the center fuselage right below the fuel tank that the NTSB tells us was the explosion source.

A MANPAD will home on the hottest source so if it turns out to have been a shoot down by a MANPAD there will be yet another scandal involving the U.S. government and their lack of transparency.

There should be no surprise if it turns out to have been a MANPAD attack, there have been many shot s taken at commercial jets some of which were shot down. One of the more recent hits was the cargo aircraft that got hit in in 2003 at Baghdad; you can search for the pictures on line, these guys were fortunate to get this plane back on the ground.

Time will tell on this one.

Here is some of the breaking news and a link:

http://www.foxnews.mobi/quickPage.html?page=22995&content=94179930&pageNum=-1

A group of whistle-blowers, including a number of aviation experts, have come forward in a new documentary to claim that the official explanation for the crash of TWA Flight 800 was wrong and a gas tank explosion did not bring down the flight off the coast of Long Island 17 years ago.

However, the six whistle-blowers, all part of the original investigation team, stopped short of saying the plane was shot down.

Flight 800, a Boeing 747, had just taken off from JFK airport with 230 people aboard on July 17, 1996, en route to Paris when it exploded and crashed off the coast of nearby East Moriches, Long Island, killing everyone on the plane.

"..This team of investigators who actually handled the wreckage and victims' bodies, prove that the officially proposed fuel-air explosion did not cause the crash," reads a statement by the producers of the film, which will debut on cable network EPIX next month. "They also provide radar and forensic evidence proving that one or more ordnance explosions outside the aircraft caused the crash." However, the statement said they did not speculate about the source or sources of any ordnance explosions.