On July 17, 1996 an event occurred which gradually made me lose faith in many of our government institutions.  That event cost the lives of 230 people, many of whom were close personal acquaintances and professional colleagues.  It was the crash of TWA 800, a Boeing 747-100, which I had flown, only a few weeks before, from Athens to New York with my wife and daughter aboard.  That hot July evening it was bound from Kennedy Airport in New York to Charles De Gaulle in Paris.  It was a light load, only just over half full of passengers.  Because of that fact, all non-revenue pass riders received seats and boarded the flight.  Twelve minutes after the flight became airborne at 8:19 PM, they were all dead.  The aircraft had exploded in mid-air off the southern coast of Long Island, NY in the vicinity of East Moriches.

After the violent explosion which detached the front third of the aircraft, the scene in the cockpit must have been of unspeakable horror.  The pilots, if still alive, would have had no idea that their control yokes and throttles were connected to nothing as the nose of the aircraft pitched over and began a descent to the water that lasted nearly a minute.  They had a front row seat to their impending doom, and there was absolutely nothing they could do about it.  The passengers in the remaining portion of the aircraft had longer to wait for death, but their fate was sealed.  The lucky ones had been killed by an explosion so violent that it drove pieces of human bone through the skin of the aircraft.  The rest, many screaming, could feel the aircraft roll, descend and finally plunge into the Atlantic ocean.  That took much longer, probably several minutes, which must have seemed an eternity. Autopsies performed by the Suffolk County Coroner indicated that most of the victims had died of severed spinal cords. Whether that happened as the result of a violent explosion, or upon impact with the water, we may never know for sure.

On the ground, numerous observers had seen a light and smoke trail appear to rise from the water offshore and zig zag towards the airplane, easily visible in the light of the setting sun.  They witnessed an initial explosion on the left side of the aircraft, followed by a much larger explosion and fireball, which tore the 747 apart.  Two of those observers were military pilots flying a New York National Guard Blackhawk helicopter.  Major Fred Meyer, the pilot in command of the helicopter, had flown in Viet Nam and had witnessed surface to air missiles in action.  He had no doubt about what had happened.  The 747 had been downed by a rocket fired from the ocean below.  There were many other credible witnesses to the event.

When the transponder code of TWA 800 disappeared from their radar screens, air traffic controllers attempted to contact the flight.  Shortly thereafter another airliner reported seeing the aircraft explode in mid air, and first responders were dispatched to the scene.  It was quickly apparent that there were no survivors, only burning wreckage on the water.  The National Guard pilots had turned directly towards the scene and were horrified to observe objects falling from the sky which they realized were human bodies from the aircraft.  Since the pilot of the airliner which had witnessed the explosion from above hadn’t seen the initial explosion below the right wing, it was initially theorized that a bomb had destroyed the aircraft.  Because of the proximity to the New York Metropolitan area, divers from the New York City Police Department were dispatched to the scene.  They joined private boats already there, in a debris field of luggage, aircraft parts and bodies.

Because a terrorist bomb was suspected, the White House and Department of Justice were informed, and members of the FBI, including Lead Agent James Kallstrom, were assigned to the investigation.  A “go team” from the NTSB was alerted and on the way in a few hours, to take over the investigation, which was standard protocol.  That protocol was quickly violated, and the FBI under Kallstrom took over in a heavy-handed manner never before experienced by any member of the NTSB team on site.  Kallstrom stated that since terrorism was suspected, it was now a criminal matter, and the FBI would control every aspect of the investigation.

Now reports began to surface about witnesses, many very credible, seeing what appeared to be a surface to air missile rise off the water and explode on or near the aircraft, causing a secondary explosion which brought it down.  The focus of the investigation moved in that direction. But where did the missile come from?  Was it possible for a shoulder fired rocket to reach an altitude of approximately 13,000 feet, the last known altitude shown on the transponder trace from TWA 800?  Or, was there indeed another possibility?  Reportedly, there were naval training exercises going on off the southern shore of Long Island at the time of the crash and a  vessel was observed visually and on radar rapidly traveling AWAY from the scene after the crash, a complete violation of the laws of the sea which require all vessels in the vicinity of an accident to render aid.  Could this have possibly been a so-called “friendly fire” incident?

Now things got truly bizarre.  Navy salvage vessels, First the U.S.S. Grasp, then the U.S.S. Grapple, arrived at the scene and took over the job of bringing the wreckage to the surface.  It was then put on barges, brought to a dock and loaded on trucks for transport to a hangar at Calverton, Long Island where the job of reconstructing the aircraft began.  But not all of the wreckage arrived.  Some pieces were removed by FBI agents at the dock, supposedly to be transported to the FBI laboratory in Washington, DC for testing.  When this total violation of protocol was protested by NTSB members, they were basically told to shut up or face charges of obstructing a federal criminal investigation.  Even though I was the Council Chairman for TWA ALPA Council #024, and represented all the pilots who perished, I was prevented by the authorities from becoming  involved in the investigation in any meaningful  way.  I was even denied access the the Calverton hangar.  A book could be written concerning the numerous egregious violations of accident investigation protocols and procedures which occurred in the weeks that followed.  I have personal knowledge of many of them and was sickened by what I learned.

As more reports of the missile sightings came to the surface, the CIA, under the direction of the Clinton White House, produced a video which purportedly portrayed the aircraft exploding, breaking apart, and the aft section climbing almost vertically from 13,400’ to 18,000’ trailing a stream of burning jet fuel, which supposedly was what the observers mistook for a missile.  That this was impossible due to the aerodynamic characteristics of the aircraft in question was disregarded.  And what was the CIA doing, becoming involved with a domestic incident, completely outside it’s area of responsibility?  Clearly following  directives from the Clinton White House.

Bill Clinton was facing a difficult election campaign to earn a second term.  There had been many blots on his Presidential record, and although the economy was improving, his reelection was by no means assured.  The last thing he needed was to have a United States Flag Carrier aircraft shot down by a missile within sight of the south shore of Long Island, only a couple of weeks prior to the 1996 Summer Olympic games in Atlanta, and less than 4 months from election day.  This scenario had to be quashed, and all the stops, legal and otherwise, were pulled out to do it.  Witnesses were intimidated or ignored.  Evidence was stolen or tampered with.  Locations of aircraft wreckage on the sea bed were purposely changed, and people, including a TWA management Captain, were threatened with being prosecuted for interfering with a criminal investigation, even after it had been cancelled, supposedly due to the determination by the CIA and FBI that the aircraft had not been shot down or bombed, but instead destroyed by a mechanical malfunction, a spark of unknown origin in the aircraft’s nearly empty center section fuel tank.  That fallacy was immediately discounted by all of us who new the characteristics of Jet-A, the standard aviation kerosene fuel used by commercial jets.  Unlike gasoline, it must be ignited by a high voltage source after it has been compressed and misted into the “burner cans” of the engine.  You can literally throw a lighted match into a pool of Jet-A and the match will be extinguished as if tossed into water. But why let such facts get in the way of a good story?  People were tried, convicted and jailed for trying to expose the coverup of what had actually happened.  James Kallstrom of the FBI,  U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, NTSB Chairman James Hall, FAA Director David R. Hinson and CIA Director John M. Deutch (the latter four all Clinton appointees), participated in the flawed investigation and coverup of many facts concerning the TWA 800 crash.

So, 21 years after that fatal evening, we still don’t know for sure what caused the death of the 230 passengers and crew onboard TWA 800. Was it a shoulder fired missile or missiles, or a “friendly fire” strike by a naval missile gone awry from an attack on a target drone?  My educated guess is that it was the former.  A recent attempt to have the case reopened by the NTSB was thwarted by the Obama administration.  Hillary Clinton was thought to be a shoo in for election to the Presidency, and the facts surrounding TWA 800 must not be dredged up and interfere. There is a possibility that the Trump administration will choose justice over deceit if it can ever get free of the creatures of the “swamp”.  The families and souls of the TWA 800 victims cry out for justice.  President Trump, please give it to them.