Washington DC -- On July 17, the fourth anniversary of the TWA 800 tragedy, a group called the TWA 800 Eyewitness Alliance sponsored a news conference together with independent investigators of the crash. They want the world to know that TWA 800 eyewitnesses are angry, because the government has not only ignored their testimony, it has even spent a lot of time and money trying to discredit them. They are ordinary good citizens who happened to see something that the government wants to go away. They saw one or more missiles streak up from the surface, strike TWA Flight 800, explode, and knock it from the sky.
Was it an errant missile from a U.S. Navy warship? Was it a terrorist attack on the U.S. airliner? Whichever of these turns out to be true, the government is determined to put a lid on the story, devoting enormous resources to suppressing the 755 eyewitness accounts.
The CIA produced an elaborate and costly video with computer graphics about the TWA 800 crash that claims that not a single eyewitness actually saw a streak of light moving toward the jumbo jet immediately before it blew up. The video claims that all they saw was the flaming plane, badly damaged by a fuel-tank explosion, which -- in defiance of the laws of physics and aerodynamics -- somehow climbed 3,000 feet and then plunged into the sea. A large part of this video, commissioned by the FBI, was aired on all the television networks on Nov. 18, 1997.
According to the CIA, it was an eyewitness named Michael Wire whose statement to the FBI inspired this fantasy interpretation of what all the eyewitnesses really saw. (This was revealed in appendix FF, a document released together with the FBI eyewitness interviews last April.)
The CIA has a problem here. Because at the July 17 news conference, Michael Wire told his story to the media for the first time. And what he said he had seen what looked like a firework going up from the beach near Westhampton and then streaking out to sea. He saw its flight terminate with an explosion so powerful that it shook the 70-ton bridge on which he was standing, and then saw the resulting fireball plunge into the sea. Wire completely rejects the CIA computer graphic version.
After we exposed the falsity of the CIA's claim that their video was based on Wire's FBI report, they changed their story. Now they claim that the it was based on many eyewitness statements. However, they have failed to identify a single one of these supposed other witnesses.
The story told by Dwight Brumley, a retired Navy electronics warfare expert, is totally compatible with Wire's story. Brumley's account is important because he saw what happened from the vantage point of a northbound airliner that was 6,000 feet above TWA 800 when it blew up. Looking out his window on the right side of the plane, he caught sight of a bright light below that was moving north at a high rate of speed. He said that as it peaked and pitched over he saw two explosions, one after the other, followed by a fireball that elongated as it fell into the sea. The passenger in the seat behind him, a Mr. Nugent, told him he had seen the cabin lights of an airliner before it blew up. This demolishes the CIA version.
At the news conference, Michael Wire said that he saw nothing from the bridge that day that would substantiate the CIA video. His story was similar to those told by many other people who were on the shore at that time. Fewer people saw the missile heading north that Brumley saw, because it was launched much farther from the shore.
The eyewitness accounts presented at the press conference was buttressed by a presentation of scientific evidence. Three private investigators, Comdr. William Donaldson of the Associated Retired Aviation Professionals, Dr. Tom Stalcup, chairman of the Flight 800 Independent Researchers Organization and James Sanders, author of "Altered Evidence,"; discussed serious flaws in the government's explanation of the crash. Sanders showed photos proving that the FBI altered evidence in the Calverton hangar. Stalcup confirmed this, citing a report by a senior NTSB investigator who saw an FBI agent trying to flatten pieces of the wreckage. Bill Donaldson discussed the flaws in the government's theory that an explosion in the center-wing fuel tank was the initiating event and his theory that it was a missile penetrating the fuel tank in the left wing, much of which is missing.
Marjorie Gross, whose brother was killed in the crash, appealed to the reporters to examine the evidence that the plane was shot down and not just accept the government line. We have reason to believe that many of the FBI agents -- even James Kallstrom, who headed the FBI investigation of the crash -- believe like all these witnesses and experts that a missile shot down TWA 800. But these FBI agents are not free to say so. Reporters and nine TV camera crews packed the room. Some heeded Mrs. Gross's appeal to report the evidence. Others weren't bothered by the government's dismissal of all eyewitness testimony and its efforts to hide and alter evidence. The national media, with the exception of the Fox News Channel and the Gannett News Service, showed no interest in helping eyewitnesses get their long-suppressed stories known. The TWA 800 Eyewitness Alliance plans to buy advertising space to demand a congressional investigation. You can find their FBI interviews on Accuracy in Media is a nationwide media watchdog group that exposes the uncomfortable facts often ignored or slanted by the mainstream media.