At 09:30 this morning, Mr. James Hall, the chairman of the NTSB and close friend and former political aid of vice president Al Gore is set to gavel open the so called “Sunshine hearing” on TWA 800 in the NTSB’s Washington boardroom.

Flight 800 was lost more than 4 years ago under still very mysterious circumstances.  It went down with all aboard only 7.3 NM off the south Long Island shore on 17 July, 1996 after hundreds of witnesses observed supersonic streaks of light intersect the aircraft just after sundown at 8:31 p.m. EDT.

All appearances are these politicians intend to stick to the first alibi the administration came up with to explain this embarrassing international incident prior to the 1996 general elections.

Their theory depends on faith that the media and therefore the American people can be duped into believing, “the mysterious explosion of what turns out to be a non-flammable center wing tank was lighted by a spark in an electric circuit that does not exist that was caused by a failed part that does not exist. (Cal Tech had to use a super powerful blow torch to even get the liquid fuel to ignite in it’s sealed test tank series)

In order to get the Clinton/Gore administration off the hook for this national defense disaster and put it to bed before the 2000 elections, these appointees will have to ignore the following:

1. Over 800 known witnesses, hundreds of which describe a portion or all of a shoulder fired missile attack and a few telling of it’s hit on the aircraft left wing root (#2 main tank)
2. Two offshore, in range, shoulder-fired missile launch positions that were independently determined to have existed by Suffolk County Marine police inspectors, FBI special agents, and the ARAP air crash investigation.
3. Clear radar evidence of a left to right through and through missile hit on the aircraft and the establishment of a separate missile debris field located 2.8 NM SW of the main aircraft debris field.
4. The secret $5,000,000 FBI Stinger missile recovery effort the NTSB funded while very publicly stating a missile wasn’t the cause.
5. The report the Naval Air Weapons Center produced after a 1-year extensive study of extremely unusual damage to the aircraft’s left wing.  They recommended Stinger missiles be fired at full inboard tanks (#2 main tank) to replicate TWA 800’s left wing failure.
6. The 45 square feet of the forward #2 main tank wall that is missing.
7. The failure of the NTSB to do simple tests to determine which tank exploded first, the center tank or the far more damaged #2 main tank next to the CWT in the left wing root.
8. The finding of debris of RDX and PETN, both high explosive compounds found in missile warheads.
9. The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (who build and service these aircraft) official finding that the aircraft was brought down not by the center wing tank explosion that clearly happened after the aircraft breakup started but by an initial extreme over-pressure event on the left side of the 747 that is not addressed by the NTSB.
10. The scores of millions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of man hours expended by Boeing and the Air Transport Association members inspecting the world’s jet fleet on this wild goose chase not only to find and absence of unsafe tanks anywhere, but also seeing no degradation of fuel systems on high time aircraft as they age.

Cmdr. William S. Donaldson, USN Ret.
ARAP Air Crash Investigations
301-769-3353, cmdrdonaldson@yahoo.com
http://twa800.com