The Downing of TWA Flight 800

By James Sanders

NOT THEORY—FACT!
A MISSLE SHOT DOWN FLIGHT 800!

On July 17, 1996, minutes after take-off, TWA Flight 800 was blown out of the sky, killing all 230 people on board.

What happened?

It took federal investigators nearly a year and millions of tax dollars to point to a fuel tank explosion. But the investigation was riddled with questionable procedures. Was the government hiding a huge military embarrassment? Was the plane shot down by a missile?

The Indisputable Evidence. . .

Reddish residue from missile fuel on passenger seats
Clean entry and exit hole in forward cabin
34 certified eyewitnesses to airborne projectile not allowed to testify
FAA radar tapes or projectile in path with Flight 800
Government documents confirm Naval testing in area that night
And more!

Who launched the missile? How much did the government know and when? Was it simple bureaucratic incompetence or the most massive cover-up in U.S. history? Ex-cop turned acclaimed investigative reporter Jim Sanders exposed the shocking truth in 1997. Despite unremitting threats to his life, he has recovered even more evidence the FBI tried to suppress about the true history of TWA Flight 800.

Include explosive photos!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pinnacle Books
• Release date: Jul 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9780786034956

Book preview

The Downing of TWA Flight 800

REVISED AND UPDATED EDITION

JAMES SANDERS

ePINNACLE

Kensington Publishing Corp. www.kensingtonbooks.com

All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

This book is dedicated to the 230 innocent people who died aboard TWA Flight 800.

Thanne is it wysdom, as it thynketh me, To maken vertu of necessitee.

—Geoffrey Chaucer, The Knight’s Tale

Table of Contents

Title Page

Dedication

Acknowledgments

INTRODUCTION - Overview of a Tragedy

CHAPTER ONE - A Flash of Light

CHAPTER TWO - Anatomy of a Tragedy

CHAPTER THREE - The News Breaks

CHAPTER FOUR - Hangarman

CHAPTER FIVE - Reconstructing the Event

CHAPTER SIX - St. Louis Canine Scheme

CHAPTER SEVEN - Inside Aviation Week, Inside Edition, and a Swatch of Cloth

CHAPTER EIGHT - The Dole Campaign Jockeys for Position

CHAPTER NINE - The Air National Guard and the CEC Program

CHAPTER TEN - Another Meeting with the Source

CHAPTER ELEVEN - This Is Journalism?

CHAPTER TWELVE - The Crash Scene Signature

CHAPTER THIRTEEN - The Story Finally Breaks

CHAPTER FOURTEEN - The Residue Is Publicly Exposed

CHAPTER FIFTEEN - Is Network News an Oxymoron?

CHAPTER SIXTEEN - The Missile Scenario and the Questions It Raises

APPENDIX I - Navy FACSFAC indicating military activity in Zone 5 on July 17,1996

APPENDIX II - Classified NTSB Chairman’s Briefing/ Status Report: November 15, 1996

APPENDIX III - NTSB Sound Spectrum Study

APPENDIX IV - Overview of Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC)

APPENDIX V - NTSB Controlled Metallurgy Structures Sequencing Group Report, 1/24/97

APPENDIX VI - Sonia Sotomayor, while a 2nd Circuit appellate judge, altered trial transcripts in order to avoid having to vacate the conviction of Elizabeth Sanders

APPENDIX VII - U.S. District Court Grand Jury subpoena, delivered by FBI, March 24, 1997

Bibliography

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Copyright Page

Notes

Acknowledgments

To my wife, Liz, who was drafted into this fight. Females are supposed to be noncombatants, but the government decided to harass her because her husband was investigating them.

Bill Birnes, my agent. What began as an interesting project soon turned into a mission against abuse of power at the highest levels of government. An agent is supposed to get the best possible contract, then run for cover when the shooting starts. He stayed for the fight. Thanks.

Paul Dinas, editor-in-chief, Kensington Publishing Corp., had the same reaction to FBI abuse of the power with which it has been entrusted. CBS caved when threatened. Paul Dinas and Kensington Publishing stepped up to the challenge.

David E. Hendrix knew what he was getting into, but he did it anyway.

Mel Opotowsky, managing editor of The Riverside Press-Enterprise, and Norman Bell, assistant managing editor, who gave the approval to launch the story, knowing the storm it would create. Out west, journalists seem far less concerned with the wrath of the federal government.

Carolita Feiring, editorial art director, Bob Nash, copy editor, and Loren Fleckenstein, who spent countless hours shepherding the story through the maze.

My attorney, Jeff Schlanger, who stepped into the breach amid the exploding legal shells of an FBI salvo while I finished the manuscript.

Thanks to Liz’s support system, Lee Taylor, Lucille Collins and TWA Norfolk agents.

Mark Sauter, a reporter with Inside Edition, who verified the NTSB document that plays a prominent role in the manuscript.

Billy Dale, a hero I’ve never met. The FBI and the Justice Department framed him on orders from the White House. His reputation was destroyed by unnamed government leaks reported in the press. He ran up $500,000 in legal bills fighting the might of an out-of-control government. Billy Dale was exonerated by a jury after visiting hell. He has been an inspiration.

To everyone in the NTSB, FBI, FAA, Justice Department, and Task Force who risked the wrath of the government: thank you.

INTRODUCTION

Overview of a Tragedy

July 17, 1996, about 2030 hours, a nice Long Island summer evening. The lady identified by the FBI as witness 73, from Madison, North Carolina, was standing on a beach on the south side of Long Island near Moriches Inlet, her feet in the cool ocean water, watching TWA Flight 800 about eight miles away over the Atlantic Ocean at 13,800 feet, heading east toward Paris, France. As she watched the 747 she wondered where its lucky passengers were going. Then, while keeping her eyes on the aircraft, she observed a ‘red streak’ moving up from the ground toward the aircraft at an approximately 45 degree angle. The ‘red streak’ was leaving a light gray colored smoke trail. The ‘red streak’ went passed [sic] the right side and above the aircraft before arcking [sic] back toward the aircraft’s right wing. [She] described the arck’s [sic] shape as resembling an upside down Nike swoosh logo. The smoke trail, which was light gray in color, was narrow initially and widened as it approached the aircraft. The interviewing FBI agent’s handwritten notes said the missile struck the 747 right in front of right wing.

She then observed the front of the aircraft separate from the back....

[She] was then asked if she had any opinion about what it was that she observed that evening. She replied that she believed that she witnessed a missile, which had been fired from a boat which was located somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean.

At the same time witness 73 was observing TWA Flight 800 from a beach near Moriches Inlet, William Gallagher, a commercial fisherman, on his boat about eight miles due west of TWA Flight 800, observed the 747 heading east. He then observed an orange streak rise from the ocean, travel upward at an approximate 45 degree angle, approaching TWA Flight 800’s right side. Gallagher initially thought the missile would miss the 747. At the last second, however, the missile turned sharply upward into the plane.

The fisherman, drawing a sketch of the 747 from an overhead view, Gallagher told me the missile struck the aircraft at the point where the leading edge of the right wing meets the fuselage.

These key eyewitness statements, along with approximately three dozen more, were criminally altered during a cooperative FBI-CIA effort to come to a mechanical conclusion. Each key statement was altered without permission of the witness to indicate the witness observed fire cascading down from the 747 and not missile fire traveling upward to TWA Flight 800. The criminally altered statements were forced out of the CIA by retired United Airlines pilot Ray Lahr under a Freedom of Information court action he initiated. With an engineering background and aircraft crash experience, Captain Lahr knew the taxpayer-FBI-CIA animation released in November 1997, alleging to be an accurate recreation of what the key witness actually observed, was factually and demonstrably false. In this cartoon the FBI and CIA said that in addition to the falling fuel fire, key witnesses observed the stricken 747, now without a first class section and cockpit, somehow climbing more than 3,000 feet. This, said the FBI and CIA, is actually what the key witnesses observed.

Captain Lahr did the math and knew the 747 could not climb 30 feet, much less 3,000. The explanation was so absurd that even the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) ran from the FBI-CIA cartoon, broadcast across the nation on November 18, 1997. This, however, was the best cover-up explanation the criminal cabal directing the TWA Flight 800 investigation could come up with.

Actions have consequences. Unintended consequences drove the U.S. government’s criminal cabal to ever increasing lawlessness as they tried to get ahead of the information curve rapidly approaching them.

The 747 debris field provided an excellent map of the sequence of events after the TWA wide-body, for reasons I shall set forth, became distressed and began to come apart. Generally, what falls first into the ocean is what first exited the stricken aircraft.

The United States Navy filmed the portion of ocean floor containing debris. As the debris was brought up by military diving teams, a longitude, latitude, and tag number were recorded and attached to each recovered piece. The debris field told a story, but it was not the magical mechanical story being cooked up by the FBI-CIA.

WABC New York local news, August 6, 1996, did a story about how engine number three, inner engine on the 747’s right wing, was the last engine to be located and recovered. It was in the Red Zone area closest to JFK airport from where TWA Flight 800 had lifted off twelve minutes before it began to come apart. The number three engine was the first significant piece to be blown away by the warhead blast that began expanding at least 42 feet before the blast force and the remains of the missile struck the 747, creating a vibration traveling through the stricken 747 fuselage at about 2,000 feet per second. This told the investigators the cause of the crash was a missile. Had the cause been a low order explosion or overpressure caused by a few gallons of jet-A fuel in the center wing tank, the vibration would have been about 350 feet per second.

Missile was not the politically correct conclusion for a presidential administration looking at the 1996 reelection campaign, so the vibration analysis done by a British firm, one of only two in the world in 1996 capable of doing such analysis, has never been declassified and released to the media or public—evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that its conclusions did not fit the magic cooked up by the criminal cabal.

Key witness statements were altered and vibration analysis was hidden. The criminal cabal controlling the creation of a magical mechanical reason for the crash was not yet safe. The unaltered debris field told the story of a missile attack.

The number three engine, the first major piece to fall from the 747, so early that it fell into the part of the newly expanded Red Zone where the earliest debris fell, virtually screamed missile. So it was moved by paper from its actual resting place on the ocean floor, to a location about 3,000 feet east, deep in the Green Zone where the last pieces to exit the 747 were found. Recall that witness 73 and the commercial fisherman both observed a missile explode within a few feet of engine number three. An honest investigation would expect to recover engine number three at the very beginning of the debris trail. That is where it was located. The criminal cabal, within days, moved it in official records to where the magical mechanical story being concocted would expect to recover the engine.

It was a nice start, but much more movement by paper was required. During the final days of the July diving operation, Navy divers recovered two seats from row 18, seats 8 and 10. These seats were directly inboard from the number three engine, probably the first seats to feel the missile warhead blast as it penetrated into the passenger cabin within a few feet of the number three engine. Recovered on July 30, 1996, at longitude 72-39-16.1, latitude 40-38-44. 9, they were too far west in the Red Zone to fit the criminal cabal’s developing mechanical cause of the crash. So they were moved 1,500 feet east. I, by virtue of being indicted by the criminal cabal for investigating them, obtained a federal court order mandating that the FBI permit me and two attorneys access to Calverton hangar where the 747 reconstruction and some—but not all—de—bris was located. When I observed a red tag on debris, my 35mm camera took a close-up photo. When the tag was too far for my eyes to read, I used a telephoto lens to get a readable view of the red tag. This is how I was able to uncover some of the alteration of the debris field. Every piece moved benefited the criminal cabal mechanical and at the same time masked missile damage.

The first one hundred A-TAGS (Red Zone), affixed to the first hundred pieces of debris removed from the ocean floor between July 18 and August 2, 1996, provide an excellent example of the extent the debris field was tampered with. The first three A-TAGS were not entered into the Supervisor of Salvage database, and only forty-seven of the next ninety-seven A-TAGS were logged in. All tags mandatorily must be used or accounted for. So fifty-three of these one hundred A-TAGS, issued at the onset of debris recovery in the most sensitive western end of the Red Zone, closest to JFK Airport, were issued to debris too sensitive to be placed in databases accessed by most of the Flight 800 investigators. Investigators later told me 20% of parts recovered were never logged in.

A-TAG 004 was issued to one of the four forward cargo containers, AKN7415, found August 2, 1996. In the NTSB database it was moved 3,000 feet east, away from JFK Airport, and placed with the last debris to fall into the ocean.

The DME (distance measuring equipment), located in the electronics bay underneath the forward part of the 747, A-TAG 051, was recovered in the west end of the Red Zone on August 2, 1996, and moved 3,000 feet east, deep in the Green Zone. Seat 6, row 11, A-TAG 068, was recovered the same day from the same area as the DME. It was also moved about 3,000 feet east.

A-TAG 051 is particularly interesting. Because of the tag number we know it was located in the same area of the western Red Zone as the other early A-TAG debris. The forward right side lower cargo door, just to the rear of the cockpit area, was blasted into two major pieces. A-TAG 051 was affixed to one of the two pieces. It was so sensitive that the longitude, revealing its distance from JFK Airport, was not entered into the Supervisor of Salvage log or the NTSB log. The reason is apparent. A tremendous force was required to rip the cargo door in half. This blast force hit the cargo door a microsecond before smashing into the number three engine, so it is highly likely that the cargo door was recovered even closer to JFK Airport than engine number three. The criminal cabal partially solved the problem by not including it in the Calverton 747 reconstruction.

The NTSB Metallurgy/Structures Sequencing Chairman’s Factual Nose Landing Gear Doors Sequence Report (found in Appendix V), October 31, 1997, recommended that seven pieces of debris found in the Red Zone should be retagged as Yellow Zone because it did not fit the preconceived magic mechanical hypothesis (see section 3.5 on page 268, Appendix V).

As the criminal cabal’s magical mechanical explanation developed, some debris was moved west from the Green Zone. An example is the keel beam, the strongest part of the 747 lower frame, under the center wing tank. The criminal cabal decided the NTSB animated version of the demise of TWA Flight 800 would allege that an explosion, also referred to as overpressure, caused the bottom of the center wing tank to explode downward. If this actually happened, the keel beam would have been among the first debris in the western part of the Green Zone. It was, however, located deep in the Green Zone, tagged C-061. C means Green Zone. Via paper movement, the keel beam was first moved to the Yellow Zone and given tag number B-061. This was determined by the criminal cabal to not be the ideal location for the magical mechanical story under development, so the keel beam was moved once again, by paper, to an unidentified location in the Red Zone, and tag A-061 was attached.

This new criminal cabal magical mechanical story required even more alteration of the crime scene. As the 747 was reconstructed, the center wing tank floor told the wrong story, so it was massively altered to conform to the magical mechanical story. The actual center wing tank floor was on the right side (CW201), blown upward into the right side of the business class passenger cabin, between rows 17 and 27, where massive damage, including fire, was located. This was conclusive evidence identifying a missile-blast entry point.

Once again, by virtue of being indicted by the criminal cabal for investigating them, I took many 35mm photos of the altered floor of the center wing tank. Standing at the right side of the reconstruction, looking down at the center wing tank floor, I had to laugh, then whisper the joke to the two attorneys protecting me from the criminal cabal’s representatives inside Calverton hangar at that moment. A bush-league alteration stared me in the face. For a moment the stupidity and crassness of the criminal cabal cover-up was a joke.

Instantly visible were significant cutlines made by powerful tools that removed the upward bending metal I knew existed because I had FBI photos showing the pre-altered look of the debris pieces constituting the floor of the center wing tank. Using powerful tools that left shiny metal cutlines at the alteration point, the criminal cabal had removed the offending upward bending center wing tank floor debris, making it conform to the new criminal cabal version of the magical mechanical story.

The black boxes—the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and the flight data recorder (FDR)—most assuredly held information and data that would unravel the cover-up in its infancy. That July 17, 1996, evening when many civilian boats went out to assist in searching for survivors and bodies, they could hear the distinct sound of the black-box pingers close by, in only 130 feet of water.

Early morning July 18, the Fox News team at the scene was told by a Marine Corps major that the White House had ordered the military to stand down while a decision was being made on how to handle this disaster. One thing was certain, no significant decision could be made until the FDR and CVR were analyzed. If civilian boaters on site could hear the pingers, it is certain the Navy divers on scene that night were able to quickly locate them.

The morning of July 18, at 10:00

A.M.

, a Coast Guard officer told Long Island Congressman Michael Forbes, in the presence of two of his congressional staffers, that at least one of the two black boxes had been found. Forbes then gave CNN this information. The NTSB’s Robert Francis, head of the TWA 800 NTSB investigation, rushed to the media and denied the black box story. This circumstantially confirms that those who would become the directors of the criminal cabal, at the earliest moment, reached out for the evidence they must have to begin to design an investigative conclusion that could be politically tolerated.

With the mass of information and documentation we now have established it was and still is beyond a reasonable doubt that a criminal cabal controlled the TWA 800 investigation. We need not wring our hands and pray for a saintly Navy diver to come forward. It is impossible for the black boxes not to have been lifted from the ocean floor before dawn, July 18, and rushed off to a secret location where the black(actually orange) boxes were listened to and analyzed. The facts are still kept under wraps to this day.

What they heard from the cockpit recorder and flight data recorder mandated that the final four seconds be removed from each black box. This determination was made by flight data recorder expert Glen Schulze, who on June 23, 2013, advised me in writing:

If we had four more seconds from the end of the TWA flight data recorder—FDR—we would have an additional (a) 5 to 6 evenly spaced in time EPRs—Engine Pressure Readings—separately for and from each of the four engines indicative of their forward thrust performance; (b) 15 to 18 evenly spaced in time Acceleration G forces from each of the two shock sensing accelerometers—vertical and longitudinal aircraft axis—which would show shock waves to the aircraft frame; (c) All 6 of these FDR flight parameter sensors were performing well—and being recorded normally—during the entire but short 12 minutes of flight time.

Years ago his analysis concluded that four seconds, or some multiple of four seconds, had been removed from the FDR. The NTSB fought desperately to deny him access to the original tape, even resorting to chicanery. Schulze concluded:

If these 3000 end-of-tape digital bits can be found, analyzed and certified as being directly from the original FDR tape—the game would be over, the eyewitnesses would be confirmed, the CIA 20-second 3000-feet wings-level zoom-climb would be exposed as fiction, and final closure could be provided to the TWA 800 families.

Because of the amateur, ham-fisted nature of the criminal cabal’s alteration of the outcome of the TWA 800 investigation, they had to be concerned. What if, by some stroke of bad luck, I would draw an honest federal judge from those sitting on the federal District Court of Eastern New York. That, of course, presupposes that such a judge actually existed when my case was assigned a judge in late 1997. No overt sign of excessive worry emanated from within the criminal cabal. Whether by accident or criminal manipulation of the federal justice system, the criminal cabal got a winner.

Ask yourself that, federal prosecutor David Pitofsky said to the jury sitting in judgment of me and my wife. What is the government’s motive to falsely implicate these people?

That was the question Pitofsky had spent the previous two years legally maneuvering to prevent me from presenting to the jury. Knowing full well that he sank to the level of the Justice Department criminal cabal when he disingenuously asked that question, Pitofsky went ahead and uttered those words, so false, yet soothing to the Justice Department criminal cabal depending on him to carry the day.

We were prevented from putting on a First Amendment defense. In spite of that, federal judge Joanna Seybert, out of hearing of the jury and with the court reporter taking a break, admitted that no direct evidence had been given the jury during the prosecution’s presentment of its case. The judge continued, stating that the case against Elizabeth Sanders would not be dismissed because the jury had other evidence from which it could determine guilt or innocence. This was factually false. The only other evidence were the words that came out of the prosecutor’s mouth—and that is not evidence in any court in the English speaking world that has not descended to banana republic standards.

The following chapters reveal what I would have told the jury if federal judge Joanna Seybert had presented a level playing field in this political prosecution. Unfortunately, Judge Seybert had joined the criminal cabal. She poisoned the jury pool by personally asking each potential juror if they believed the federal government was covering up. The majority, answering yes, were dismissed by the judge. The court reporter not yet being present, Seybert was emboldened to declare she would not have a jury sit in her courtroom that did not have faith in its federal government.

As a medically retired Southern California police officer whose expertise was in accident investigations, I was conducting an investigation against a criminal cabal within the Justice Department—which includes the FBI. A vital portion of my investigation focused on answering the question: What brought down TWA Flight 800? It was the vital question because it was apparent to me and multiple investigator sources within the federal investigation that a powerful force was manipulating the outcome.

My right to present this evidence was blocked by federal judge Joanna Seybert. So it is not surprising that after poisoning the jury pool and preventing us from putting on a defense, we were convicted. We, of course, appealed.

My wife’s appeal was expeditiously sent up to the Federal Second Circuit where oral arguments were held. Sitting on the three judge panel was Sonia Sotomayor, now Associate Justice sitting on the Supreme Court. Her conduct was extraordinary. She asked: Why can’t they [James Sanders] just walk up and ask for it ... ? When oral arguments turned to FBI harassment of a journalist’s wife, Sotomayor exclaimed: I still haven’t seen the problem with intimidating James Sanders’ wife.

Then came the words out of Sotomayor’s mouth that should have sent America’s media ballistic. Sotomayor stated that the wife of a journalist can be targeted by the FBI-Justice Department without any evidence of her involvement prior to the targeting.

This suggested to my old cop-shop brain the possible inclusion of Sotomayor in the Justice Department criminal cabal. It went from suggested to confirmed when Sotomayor altered evidence from the criminal trial, by altering the trial transcript, in order not to have to throw out my wife’s conviction. My wife’s attorney politely, in writing, pointed out the factually false evidence used by Sotomayor, the only active Circuit Court judge on the panel. A second judge was retired from the bench and a third was