Sunday, June 04, 2006
TWA 800: 10 years later, feds' coverup story still suspect By Capt. Ray Lahr
What really happened on the evening of July 17, 1996, off the shore of Long Island?
With sincere apologies to those who may not wish to be reminded, this is what I believe happened.
On a pleasant summer evening, TWA 800 was making a normal climb on its flight to Paris. At about 13,800 feet, it was hit by one or two missiles. A missile ignited the CWT (center fuel tank). The explosion blew off the nose section, ruptured the front wing spar (which is also the front of the CWT), and broke the keel beam that runs under the bottom of the CWT. The wing separated and the aircraft fell in two flaming balls, each ball fed by the fuel from the separated wing.
Does this sound at odds with the CIA/NTSB scenario that says that a spark of unknown origin ignited the CWT and blew off the nose, and that the crippled aircraft then made a zoom-climb that the eyewitnesses mistook as a missile? Yes, in my opinion there was no zoom-climb. However, a missile was politically unacceptable, so the CIA invoked the zoom-climb in a desperate attempt to dismiss the missile seen by the eyewitnesses.
