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- 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.
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- 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.
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- . . . . 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.
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- . . . . 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.
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- . . . . 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.
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- . . . . 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.
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- . . . . 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.
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- . . . . 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.
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- . . . . 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.
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- . . . . 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."
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- . . . . 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].
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- ____________
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- The Anatomy of a Mystery By Paul M. Rodriguez
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- 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.
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- Where 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.
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- . . . . 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.
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- . . . . 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?
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- . . . . 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.
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- . . . . 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.
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- . . . . 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.
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- . . . . 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.
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- . . . . 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.
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- . . . . 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.
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- . . . . "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."
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- . . . . 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.
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- . . . . 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.
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- . . . . 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.
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- . . . . 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?
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- . . . . 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?"
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- . . . . 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.
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- . . . . 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?
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- . . . . 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.
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- http://asia.yahoo.com/headlines
8-28-99
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- SP: http://asia.yahoo.com/headlines/280899/world/935799960-90828002606.newsworld.html
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- WASHINGTON (AFP) - Two groups
that claim a missile brought down TWA Flight 800 in July 1996 said Friday
that just-released radar data showing an unidentified ship near the blast
back their theory.
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- Officials have stated that mechanical failure, not a
terrorist attack, brought down the Paris-bound Boeing 747 off New York's
Long Island, killing all 230 people aboard.
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- The data, obtained in June from the National Transportation
Safety Board (NTSB), show many ships in the area, including one five kilometers
(2.9 nautical miles) from where the plane went down.
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- "There were 30 surface vessels in the area. Only
one, the closest, has not been identified," Tom Stalcup, the director
of the Flight 800 Independent Research Organization (FIRO), told a press
conference.
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- "After the explosion that everyone could see 20
miles (30 kilometers) around, the ship, about 2.9 nautical miles away,
did not turn around," he said, showing an animated re-creation of
ship and airplane travel when the Boeing crashed.
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- Some 130 witnesses said they saw a glowing arc climb
into the sky -- like a rocket or a missile -- seconds before the aircraft
exploded, he added.
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- NTSB investigators explained that phenomenon by saying
that part of the Boeing's fuselage had broken off and briefly climbed before
slowing down and falling.
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- But Stalcup said the radar data contradict the NTSB because
they show acceleration, which corresponds with a rapid fall towards the
ocean, adding "the plane did not climb after the explosion."
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- The aircraft went down near a military warning area,
in which military exercises such as missile and artillery fire are undertaken.
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- The radar data also show an unidentified airplane flying
back and forth over the warning area.
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- Commander William Donaldson, a former US Navy fighter
pilot and crash investigator who heads the Associated Retired Aviation
Professionals (ARAP), said he believed the US government was covering up
the true cause of the accident.
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- "The plane was shot down by a short-range shoulder-fired
kind of Stinger missile, from the surface," he said. "We've tried
to get these radar data for two years. It's a cover-up."
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- ARAP and FIRO called on the US Congress to open an inquiry
into the crash.
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- According to the NTSB, which has yet to render its final
report, kerosene fumes in the airplane's central fuel tank ignited, causing
an explosion.
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- The Federal Bureau of Investigation pulled out of the
investigation in November 1997, ending a probe into whether Flight 800
was brought down by a terrorist.
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