With Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff
                               For the story behind the story... 
 

                        Monday July 10, 2000: 7:21 PM EDT

                        New Photographs Show TWA 800 Cover-Up,
                   Independent Prober Says

                        Independent investigator James Sanders has new evidence that
                        could amount to smoking-gun proof of a cover-up in the
                        investigation into the 1996 crash of TWA Flight 800.

                        While on Long Island this week to interview eyewitnesses to
                        America's worst unexplained air disaster, Sanders tipped
                        NewsMax.com to his latest find - photographs of crash
                        investigators tampering with key evidence as they reassembled
                        the plane's carcass at Long Island's Calverton air base. 

                        It was four years ago next Monday that the jumbo jet exploded in
                        a ball of flame off Center Moriches, Long Island. Hundreds of
                        eyewitnesses said they saw something streaking toward the
                        ill-fated airliner just seconds before the fireball erupted.

                        Sanders himself was prosecuted last year for receiving seat
                        fabric from the reconstructed plane from a TWA employee, which
                        he promptly had analyzed by a California lab. The result? The
                        red streaks on the fabric were found to be consistent with
                        rocket fuel residue.

                        When the government claimed the residue was glue, the mainstream
                        press looked the other way - denying Sanders the vindication
                        that would have rendered any prosecution moot. Both Sanders and
                        his wife Elizabeth were found guilty of conspiracy by a New York
                        court last April. They are currently appealing their
                        convictions.

                        But after Sanders goes public with his new TWA 800 evidence next
                        week, government officials may find they have a lot of
                        explaining to do.

                        For four years the FBI and NTSB have maintained there was no
                        compelling physical evidence that showed the plane was hit by a
                        missile, arguing instead that TWA 800 went down after the center
                        fuel tank exploded.

                        But Sanders told NewsMax.com late Monday, "I now have photos
                        showing investigators in the process of bending the metal down
                        so that they could say the explosion was caused by an internal
                        event." 

                        The new cache of evidence sounds voluminous. "It's stacks of
                        pictures and documents, I think it must be about a half-pound
                        worth of material," Sanders said.

                        Next Monday, on the anniversary of the crash, the Association of
                        Retired Aviation Professionals is holding a press conference in
                        Washington, D.C., where Sanders will reveal the photos and other
                        compelling documentary evidence pointing to a cover-up. 

                        If the photos are as dramatic as they sound, it may not be so
                        easy this time for the mainstream press to bury its head in the
                        sand.

                        Sanders has authored two books on the TWA 800 crash, which can
                        be purchased at NewsMax.com's bookstore: The Downing of TWA
                        Flight 800 and Altered Evidence.