The Mammoth Book of Cover-Ups

The Trilateral Commission is the executive committee of the US: ALERT LEVEL 8

Further Reading

Jim Marrs, Rule by Secrecy, 2000

James Perloff, The Shadows of Power, 1988

Anthony C. Sutton and Patrick M. Wood, Trilaterals Over Washington, 1979

Twa Flight 800

At 8.31 on 17 July 1996, 12 minutes after take-off from New York’s JFK airport, a catastrophic explosion caused TWA Flight 800 to disintegrate over the Atlantic. All 212 passengers and 18 crew aboard the Boeing 747–131 were killed.

After 90 per cent of the plane’s remains were dredged from the Atlantic, an investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board concluded that the explosion had been caused by an electrical short circuit near the centre wing fuel tank. The NTSB issued 15 safety recommendations, mostly covering fuel tank and wiring-related issues, notably the development and installation of fuel inerting systems. «The 230 men, women and children on board TWA800,» said the NTSB, «lost their lives not as result of a bomb or missile or some other nefarious act but the result of a tragic accident.»

Note the word «missile». No fewer than 38 witnesses had come forward to say they’d seen missile(s) streaking towards the plane just before it exploded. (Another 220 had seen a «streak of light», variously characterized as a shooting star, a flare, or something similar near the TWA800.) The witnesses even formed themselves into an action group, running full-page ads in national US newspapers: «We the eyewitnesses know that missiles were involved … for some reason our government has lied and tried to discredit us.»

If it was a missile, who fired it and why? In The Downing of TWA Flight 800 (1997), journalist James Sanders proposed that the Boeing was shot down by a Stinger missile from a US Navy cruiser on a training exercise nearby; instead of locking on to a Navy drone, the missile mistakenly locked on to the Boeing. Sanders further claimed that the FBI suppressed Federal Aviation Administration radar records which showed «an unexplained blip» near TWA800. Sanders’s book has photographs of reddish residue, supposedly of missile fuel, on retrieved seats. When the NTSB began its public hearings into the TWA800 disaster, FBI deputy director James Kallstrom requested that the residue not be discussed.

Led by William Donaldson, a retired naval officer, a number of conspiracy theorists have proposed that TWA Flight 800 was downed by terrorist action. In the «Interim Report on the Crash of TWA Flight 800 and the Actions of the NTSB and the FBI» (1998) Donaldson stated that TWA800 was struck by two missiles, and subsequently the FBI, NTSB and Justice Department covered up the fact to save the Clinton administration embarrassment. Donaldson noted: «In the history of aviation, there has never been an in-flight explosion in any Boeing airliner of a Jet-A Kerosene fuel vapor/air mixture in any tank, caused by mechanical failure.» Another former US military man, Colonel Robert Patterson, speculated in Dereliction of Duty (2003) that TWA800 had been downed by a US Navy Stinger — but that the Stinger had been launched to intercept a terrorist (read Iraqi) missile heading towards the plane. In yet another variant of the terrorist-attack theory, Peter Lance concluded in Cover Up: What the Government is Still Hiding About the War on Terror (2004), that TWA800 was blown up by a bomb with the intention of disrupting the trial of terrorist Ramzi Yousef for conspiring to blow up US airliners.

As of 2007, the NTSB, the Senate and the FAA all maintain that TWA Flight 800 crashed due to some form of mechanical or electrical failure. But can 38 independent witnesses all be wrong? Witnesses that even the FBI calls «credible»?

TWA Flight 800 crashed due to «friendly fire»: ALERT LEVEL 7

TWA Flight 800 crashed due to terrorist attack: ALERT LEVEL 5

Further Reading

Peter Lance, Cover Up, 2004

Robert Patterson, Dereliction of Duty, 2003

James Sanders, The Downing of Flight 800, 1997

Waco

If the results had not been so tragic, the story of the Siege of Waco could be rewritten as a routine for circus clowns.