- The TWA Flight 800 Independent Researchers Organization,
FIRO, has taken the unusual step of filing a petition with the National
Transportation Safety Board, NTSB, asking for reconsideration of the findings
on the probable cause of the [1996] crash of TWA Flight 800 [in the Atlantic
after take off from New York]. Such petitions are entertained only if new
evidence has been found or a showing that the NTSB findings were erroneous.
FIRO claims that some evidence that the NTSB kept secret and which has
now become available for public scrutiny is new evidence that shows that
the official findings were erroneous.
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- Their petition cites as one important example metals
of "unknown origin" that were found in the bodies of many of
those who died in the crash on July 17, 1996. The FBI asked the Brookhaven
National Laboratory to analyze pellets found in the bodies. They contained
zirconium and barium, indicative of an incendiary device foreign to a Boeing
747 airliner. The NTSB acknowledges that the source of these pellets is
unknown and that the FBI did not try to determine the source.
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- The Suffolk County coroner, Dr. Wetli, found shrapnel
in 89 of the bodies he examined. The FBI compiled a secret eight-page list
describing the metal found in each of the bodies. FIRO has sued under FOIA
[the Freedom of Information Act] to obtain this list. The court ordered
the FBI to release it, but they are trying to get that reversed on privacy
grounds, claiming it invades the privacy of the dead. That is a spurious
argument because the dead have no privacy rights, but FIRO is not arguing
that point. It says it is not interested in the names of those in whose
bodies the shrapnel was found. What it wants is its description of the
metal found in each of those bodies. It is believed that a lot of it will
be pellets.
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- Retired Brigadier General Benton Partin, who helped design
missiles for the Air Force, has said that the Brookhaven Laboratory's analysis
of the composition of the mysterious pellets suggests to him that they
came from a missile. The FBI and NTSB never showed Gen. Partin or any other
missile experts the Brookhaven analysis. They were content to list the
shrapnel as coming from an unknown source. Their throwing a secrecy blanket
over this evidence and their failure to determine its source indicates
that they knew that sourcing it accurately would undermine their claim
that a spontaneous fuel-tank explosion caused the crash.
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- The penchant of the FBI and NTSB for hiding, altering
and finally destroying TWA Flight 800 evidence is very revealing. Last
summer the NTSB, headed by a Bush appointee, secretly sold all the TWA
800 wreckage that had been kept at the Calverton hangar as scrap metal
to be recycled. The buyer had to promise to keep it secret to get the contract.
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- The NTSB claims that the reason the buyer was asked not
to tell anyone was to keep away scavengers and souvenir hunters. Why should
the NTSB care about that once it was no longer their property? We believe
they were determined to make sure it was all recycled so that none of it
could be used as evidence to challenge their finding of the cause of the
crash..
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- Reed Irvine can be reached at ri@aim.org
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- http://www.aim.org/publications/media_monitor/2002/06/10.html
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