What Caused Tragic Downing of TWA Flight 800?

• In spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the U.S. government insists that mechanical failure was the cause of the 1996 crash of a 747 jetliner.

A catastrophic event occurred on July 17, 1996, at 8:31 p.m. when Trans World Airlines Flight 800 was struck by at least one, and possibly two, missiles at an altitude of 13,700 feet.

There were innumerable eyewitness testimonies plus films, radar and satellite evidence, and reports carried in such prestigious papers as the July 29, 1996 Aviation Week and Space Technology confirming this. The official government verdict, however, was that a mechanical/electrical failure triggered the gigantic explosion, which tore the 747 into three parts almost immediately.

A July 19, 1996, Associated Press story asked a highly pertinent question: was it an accident or a terrorist act?

Initial signs pointed toward an "outside force," either a particle beam weapon using the electro-magnetic effect, or an air-to-air missile launched from a helicopter or ground-to-air from a surface craft.

'Early reports from reliable Air National Guard pilots in the air at the time indicate that the aircraft was "cut in two."

Retired Air Force General Benton Partin's studied opinion is that a continuous rod warhead was the implement of destruction, and that ti was done deliberately and maliciously for its terrorist impact on the public.

Partin is probably the nation's leading expert on explosive devices. The official government report scrubbed the incident with the usual "mechanical failure" brush.

An exceptionally well-documented video tape by Cdr. Bill Donaldson, and Maj. Fred Meyer, the helicopter pilot immediately on the scene, reveals that TWA 800 was probably taken out by two missile shots.

Consider the report from Richard Russell, a retired United airlines 747 pilot and a 30-year aircraft accident investigator.

Russell's report stated:

TWA flight 800 was shot down by a U.S. Navy Aegis missile fired from a guided missile ship which was in area W-105 about 30 miles from where TWA 800 blew up...{W-105) is a rather large area, budget constraints have dictated that missile firings be done closer to land so that the flight time for the P-3 monitor and tracking aircraft can be reduced.

A recording of the flight path of the Navy's P-3 Orion anti-submarine aircraft shows that it had passed about 6,000 feet above TWA 800 just seconds prior to the explosion.

On Aug. 20, 1996, Newsday reported that the Navy had revealed that the P-3 was communicating with a submarine off the coast of Cape May.

Pierre Salinger, veteran journalist and press secretary for President John F. Kennedy, spoke to a group of airline executives gathered at Cannes, France, in mid-November 1996. Salinger revealed that he had information from the U.S. Secret Service by way of his "French intelligence sources that the U.S. Navy accidently shot down the plane."

Both Salinger and Russell were attacked by the mainstream media, claiming that they got their information from the Internet. Russell later met with Salinger and stated that there is no doubt that Salinger's information came from official U.S. sources.