Twenty years ago, the advertising world was rocked by a simple question, “Whe-e-e-r-e’s the beef?”  With that question, Wendy’s Old-Fashioned Hamburgers — and their senior spokeswoman, Clara Peller — dominated popular culture (and their competition) with their humorous TV commercials.  In presenting today’s question, though, no one is laughing.

As the eighth anniversary of the downing of TWA Flight 800 approaches, questions continue to surround the official government story that a small spark caused a “spontaneous” explosion in the airliner’s center wing-mounted fuel tank (CWT).  In a recent article, I briefly noted that the “spontaneous explosion” story is obviously preposterous.  Efforts to replicate the explosion failed.  The “mainstream” news media repeatedly showed videos of the explosion of a similar Boeing 747 CWT structure, without noting that the “Bruntingthorpe tests” (conducted in England) used a tank filled with propane mixed with jet fuel, and also used a spark that was hundreds of times stronger than the voltage going through the wiring that passes through a 747 fuel tank.

The “mainstream” news media also repeatedly showed the “zoom-climb” video, which was produced by the CIA, to discredit eyewitness accounts of a flare-like object rising toward the airliner at high speed, and making contact with Flight 800 just prior to its mid-air explosion off the coast of Long Island.  The video itself is now the subject of a lawsuit by retired airline crash investigator Captain Ray Lahr.  (NOTE:  in my previous article, I wrongly identified Captain Lahr as having retired from TWA.  He wrote to remind me that he had retired from United Airlines.)  Captain Lahr has repeatedly requested the calculations used to make the video, because he says the scenario shown in the video is aerodynamically impossible.  The CIA and the NTSB have refused to release the information, and Boeing distanced itself from the calculations.

“While we provided  basic aerodynamic information to assist in the CIA's analysis of the airplane's performance, we are not aware of the data that was used to develop the video.

“The video's explanation of the eyewitness observations can be best assessed by the eyewitnesses themselves.”

--  excerpt of official Boeing statement, 18 Nov 1997, in the wake of the NTSB debut of the “zoom-climb” video

But, neither the staged Bruntingthorpe explosion video nor the preposterous CIA video can account for a key item of evidence:  a piece of aircraft wreckage that was large enough to be spotted on radar.  Scientists, including Dr. Thomas Stalcup (founding president of FIRO) have diligently examined radar tapes from several different stations that surround the point where Flight 800 exploded.  The radars consistently show that a large piece of wreckage exited the right side of the airliner, immediately after the explosion.  Two key points make this piece of wreckage significant.  First, it was large enough to have its own radar “signature”.  Second, calculations by several FIRO members indicate that, when the wreckage left the Flight 800 fuselage, this piece of wreckage was traveling at supersonic speed — like a missile.

My question:  “whe-e-e-r-e’s the piece?!”

One of the founders of the Association of Retired Aviation Professionals (ARAP) is Navy Cmdr. William Donaldson (who died in August of 2001 of a brain tumor), nicknamed “Truth Warrior” for his dogged pursuit of evidence regarding the downing of Flight 800.  One of the many critical facets of Donaldson’s research was the fact that the NTSB had originally requested a civilian salvage company to prepare for recovery operations at the Flight 800 crash site in the Atlantic Ocean.  The next morning, that same company was ordered to “stand down”, while the Navy brought in divers and salvage ships from far away.  This was documented in a letter from Commander Donaldson to the presidents of the Boeing Company and Trans-World Airlines.

Donaldson’s letter is lengthy, and thoroughly documented.  Below, paragraphs 14 through 17 of the section on the salvage operations are quoted for brevity:

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 divers300 yards away.

Donaldson’s assertion of a covert recovery dive is circumstantially supported by the fact that President Bill Clinton issued an executive order that specifically exempted the Naval Special Warfare Group (the famed SEALs) from the protections of the Military Whistleblower Protection Act.  The order was issued coincidental with the release of the book The Downing of TWA Flight 800, written by investigative reporter James Sanders.  Because of the order, any SEAL that may have participated in a dive to recover missile evidence could be prosecuted — even if his conscience dictates that he reveal the fact that missile evidence proves that the government lied to the public about Flight 800.  (Sanders’ first book on this topic had asserted that the Navy accidentally shot down the airliner during a live-fire test of missile-control technology.  Whether the shootdown was accidental, or terrorist-related, the cover-up would be illegal.)  Clinton’s order made exemption to a Federal law that was designed to promote “truth in government” by protecting military personnel that expose illegal activities.

Did some specific piece of evidence exist?  Several documents — obtained by Commander Donaldson and other independent researchers — indicate that there may have been several such pieces.  This article focuses on a large piece of wreckage; but, there are indications that parts of a missile or a target drone may be among the items that “disappeared” from the debris field during the time that only Navy divers were allowed near the crash site.  Of course, it is possible that the missing piece of wreckage is a piece of a missile, rather than a piece from Flight 800 itself.  (Initial speculation was that the piece was about the size of an emergency-exit door.  That size would be consistent with the fuselage of certain missiles or drones.)

The “mainstream” news media have long dismissed talk of a missile as “conspiracy theory”; but, it is obvious that even the US Navy was originally told to look for missile evidence.  This Navy chart, obtained by ARAP, clearly shows the caption, “Per FBI:  Possible Missile Launch Zone”.  (The chart is also available in PDF version.)  This evidence is in sharp contrast to the quote by James Kallstrom, who was in charge of the FBI investigation, “There is no missile, there never was a missile, and there’s never going to be a missile.”  (emphasis added)  Kallstrom’s repeated denials of missile involvement also contradict his own public statements that the FBI would pursue all angles to find the cause of the crash.

Both ARAP and FIRO have documented that:  a) a large piece of wreckage left Flight 800,  b) the wreckage flew perpendicular to the flight path of the airliner,  c) the wreckage left the airliner at supersonic speed,  d) the momentum of the wreckage carried it much farther from Flight 800’s flight path that all other pieces of wreckage; and, e) the piece of wreckage was recovered by Navy divers.  But, although the piece was “confirmed recovered” by the US Navy, the piece is not documented on the NTSB’s map of the wreckage field.  Of course, after the Navy’s dive, and before public release of the NTSB’s findings, Kallstrom’s FBI office had commandeered the crash investigation — contradicting Federal law.

If the piece of wreckage was blown out of the 747 airliner by the “spontaneous” CWT explosion of non-misted Jet A fuel (as the government would like people to believe), then why was the rest of the wreckage confined to a predictable debris field on the ocean floor?  If the piece of wreckage came from the airliner itself, why was it not identified as the uniquely supersonic piece in the reconstruction in the Calverton hangar?  (The hangar was later purchased — while the wreckage was still inside it — by Clinton friend and fundraiser Stephen Spielberg.)  And, if the piece came from something other than the airliner, then wouldn’t that make it a prime suspect as the cause of the crash?

The haunting question remains:  “whe-e-e-r-e’s the piece?!”

Tom Kovach