Cmdr. William S. Donaldson, III - USN, Ret.
Aviation Mishap Analyst
P.O. Box 90, Clements, Maryland 20624
Web site: twa800.com

Press Release

Federal Court, Uniondale, Long Island, for release on or after April 5, 1999

The Sanders Trial: Prudent use of prosecutorial discretion or cover-up of Felony Homicide?

James and Elizabeth Sanders begin trial in Federal Court April 5, 1999 on charges stemming from Mr. Sanders acceptance of a worthless swatch of stained interior fabric recovered from TWA Flight 800. The senior TWA Check Pilot in New York who was also serving as an official crash investigator representing TWA gave it to him.

The motive for this transfer of potential evidence to a published investigative journalist was to get a suspicious stain checked by an outside laboratory. The TWA representative had lost all faith in the integrity of the FBI / NTSB investigation into the loss of dozens of his close associates.

The Justice Department discovered the essential facts of the transfer but waited 7 months, until just before the NTSB Public Hearing, to arrest the Sanders and parade them before the media, handcuffed behind their back, on the way to their arraignment. The Sanders have now lost all of their savings, their home and are now bankrupt in their effort to defend themselves against this malicious Federal prosecution.

Ironically, the man who ordered the arrest and insulting treatment of the Sanders', James Kalstrom, past Deputy Director of the FBI, is guilty of exactly the same act. In his case, he gave away fabric from TWA's interior cabin (a stained American flag) to an outside civilian as a souvenir in a tawdry publicity stunt to further patronize the surviving family members.

Both cases involve a small piece of worthless fabric from the aircraft. Why are the Sanders' being persecuted for something so trivial? Was the purpose to intimidate the Government's critics? If not, why all the fuss over something the Government claims is worthless? Why is the media allowing the Government to persecute this Journalist? If the Government succeeds in this prosecution, the media's 1st Amendment protections will be severely diminished.

A second and more significant irony is the outside investigation that Mr. Kalstrom so bitterly tried to kill with this malicious prosecution, may eventually show that he participated in 230 counts of Misprision of Felony Homicide!

In an investigation that has "left no stone unturned", isn't it a little strange that the FBI and NTSB have never questioned Cmdr. Donaldson who has been a vocal critic of their investigation. In fact, when questioned by the media about Cmdr. Donaldson's Interim Report of July 20, 1998 which is publicly available on the Internet, they claim they have never read it! This is the same group who publicly supported the "possibility" that Electromagnetic Interference was the cause of the crash and commissioned a study that has since proven it to have been ridiculous. Why have they never questioned Cmdr. Donaldson?

We encourage the media to pay close attention to this trial, read our letter to the CEOs of Boeing and TWA and ask the Government for answers to the following questions:

  1. Why have aviation crash experts been denied access to witness for over 2 1/2 years?
  2. Considering overwhelming inside evidence of missile attack, why did the Administration wait over 3 1/2 months until after the 1996 elections to call in military missile experts?
  3. Why did the Administration wait until after the elections to allow the FBI to trawl for Stinger ejector-motor cans and Stinger battery coolant units?
  4. Why does the "FBI Trawler Operations Manual" list the finding of the last Flight 800 scavenge pump as one of three items to be kept secret from the Interested Parties?
  5. Why did the Administration characterize the trawler operation as a search for aircraft parts and human remains when the trawling line maps clearly depict the grids oriented inside a red circle annotated "FBI Suspected Missile Firing Zone"? The 2.7 nautical mile circle is the range of many shoulder-fired missiles.
  6. Why was the $ 5 million trawler operation characterized as an NTSB project when it was manned by FBI agents and when less than 5% of the subject area is annotated as being of interest to the NTSB?
  7. Why did the Administration cover-up the October 1996 finding of a shoulder-fired missile ejector can with its distinctive two ignition wires? It was found less than two miles from TWA Flight 800's explosion point by the Alpha Omega, a boat trawling for scallops.
  8. Why did the Administration cover-up the fact they were unable to identify a high speed boat 2.9 nautical miles from TWA Flight 800 when it exploded?
  9. Why did the Administration cover-up the fact that witnesses located 360 degrees around that boat pointed to its position as the source of the "streaking flare"?
  10. Why did the Administration misrepresent the distance witnesses were to the crash?
  11. Why didn't the Administration allow Captain McCord, the Navy's Supervisor of Salvage, to answer questions at the Public Hearings?
  12. Explain why there was no apparent effort or urgency on the part of NTSB to locate the recorders after Captain DeBow of the NOAA ship Rude began radioing NTSB the positions of all the debris fields @ 1930 on 18 July 1996?
  13. Explain why Navy divers, 6 days after the crash, found both recorders on a hard sand bottom 30 feet apart, free of any other wreckage and neither Ducane Pinger was operating?
  14. Explain how both Ducane Pingers fixed themselves miraculously while in FBI custody? They operated and were found to be defect free in the laboratory!
  15. Why has the NTSB remained mute, and failed to even notice the alleged dual-failures of these vital Pingers. Are not their failures a major air safety issue?
  16. Ducane Pingers can only be silenced underwater by unscrewing the battery connection. Who tampered with these Pingers? When were the Recorders actually found?
  17. On the morning of 22 July 1996, the NOAA ship Rude and motor vessel Pirouette (under Navy contract to find the recorders) were operating side scan sonar, searching the main debris field (where the recorders were later found). At 10:00 hours, both ships were ordered on a 5-mile "wild goose chase" by the NTSB to pinger-search and side-scan search the extended flight path. Why? Who initiated that order?
  18. From 10:00 hours on 22 July 1996 when R/V Rude and M/V Pirouette were ordered away from the major undersea field, until USS Grasp arrived at 20:45 hours that night, there were no ships with undersea surveillance capacity near the debris field. What surface vessels were over the debris field during those hours?
  19. The Coast Guard "Rescue Event Log" notes the official recovery of the Flight Data Recorder and the Cockpit Voice Recorder as 23:30 on 24 July 1996 by Navy divers from the USS Grasp. Those divers actually recovered the boxes during Dive #2 and Dive #3 on the 23rd of July, a fact so stated in the Supervisor of Salvage Report and confirmed by interviews with the divers.
  20. The Coast Guard Rescue Event Log also shows the recorders on deck at Washington DC's National Airport at 03:55 on 25 July 1996. Considering this arrival time was controlled and staged by the NTSB/FBI, was this time frame specifically selected to ensure Boeing and TWA investigators would not be present to observe the condition of the boxes prior to opening?
  21. 23:30 is precisely the time East Coast late television news ends. Was that artificial discovery time selected to ensure Interested Parties would not be informed by mass media until the next morning?
  22. On the morning of 18 July 1996, the NOAA ship Rude was the only ship on scene with underwater surveillance capability. Her best mission was location of the recorders with side-scan sonar, why did the NTSB order the Rude to take Flight 800's floating starboard wingtip in tow, interrupting this mission when there were six Coast Guard cutters available on scene at dawn?
  23. The Supervisor of Salvage Report indicates the first Navy divers arrived 21 July 1996, but 39 scuba divers from the FBI and various New York Police agencies began operations using small boats the morning of 18 July 1996. The TWA senior maintenance representative was asked for and supplied the frequency of the Ducane Pingers early on the 18th. He was approached by a Coast Guard Petty Officer that afternoon and advised the boxes had been found. At nearly the same time, Long Island's Representative Forbes was also notified the boxes were found. What was the source of these reports? Which dive team really found the boxes?
  24. Did the President of the United States order the covert recovery and examination of the black boxes on 18 through 22 July 1996?
  25. We have a sworn statement from a citizen who maintains that a specified high official informed him that the recorders were recovered by 20 July 1996. Is he lying? Our polygraph operator says no! Is the NTSB staff willing to take Polygraphs?
  26. Why have the NTSB staff attorneys allowed NTSB officials to repeatedly slander the motives, the credentials and even the cognitive ability of ARAP members?
  27. Why did the NTSB mislead the families and the American people feigning difficulty finding undersea debris, when the NOAA Research Vessel Rude, using side scan sonar, had located and radioed to NTSB the dimensions of the field as well as large piece locations less than 24 hours after the crash?