TWA Flight 800

On July 17, 1996, Passenger airline, TWA Flight 800 exploded in mid-air, and fell into the atlantic ocean, killing 230 people on board. The official story was that the center-wing fuel tank exploded. However, witnesses on the ground saw a streak of light shoot up from the ocean surface and collide with the 747.

A statistical study of a recently released FBI database of 736 witness interview summaries refutes the NTSB's conlcusion. Most significantly, eighty-six percent of the witnesses who described the motion and/or origin of the rising streak reject the NTSB's explanation. These witnesses observed the streak emanate from the surface when Flight 800 was 2.6 miles (approximately 4 km) above it. Others reported seeing the streak moving along a different trajectory from that of Flight 800 and/or seeing the streak collide with Flight 800 (see "FIRO Witness Statistics" on page 8). The remaining fourteen percent offer no information concerning the streak's origin.

Rather than openly address these observations, both the FBI and NTSB on various occasions suppressed the witness evidence:

1) The FBI withheld the accounts of 278 witnesses from the NTSB for more than one year after the crash. All witness accounts with descriptions of a "streak" colliding with an aircraft were concealed from the NTSB in this withheld data.

2) The FBI ostensibly lost the results of a study to determine the origin of an alleged surface-launched object seen before the crash. Those results are officially listed as "unable to locate" by the FBI.

3) At the first public hearing on the crash, the FBI prevailed upon the NTSB to prohibit any discussion of the witness evidence.

4) Official witness sketches that purport to show a surface-launched object cause the crash have never been discussed or addressed in any official report or public hearing on the crash.

5) The witness evidence was withheld from the public until April 2000, almost four years after the crash.

6) At the final public hearing on the crash in August 2000, the NTSB dramatically under-reported the number of witness accounts that conflicted with their proposed crash scenario.