Conspiracy Classics: TWA Flight 800

Twelve years ago today, a routine flight from New York to Paris became anything but when it plunged 2-1/2 miles out of the sky and into the Atlantic Ocean, near the shore of Long Island, New York.

At 8:02 p.m. on Wednesday, 17 July 1996, TWA Flight 800 took off from Kennedy International Airport, with 212 passengers, 14 flight attendants, two flight engineers and two pilots. Among the passengers were business professionals and young students headed for a cultural exchange in France. The flight was supposed to last seven hours and land at Charles de Gaulle International Airport. At 8:32 p.m., the Boeing 747-100 exploded in a massive fireball and rocketed toward into the ocean.

The remains of all 230 aboard were recovered, along with 95 percent of the plane's debris. The National Transportation Safety Board conducted the usual investigation that follows crashes, concluding that the explosion originated in the central fuel tank. The NTSB interviewed 670 eyewitnesses, analyzed the cockpit voice and data recorders and examined the debris, which today is still kept in a hangar in Viriginia and used to train aviation accident investigators.

Where conspiracy theorists see a cover-up or lack of truth is in the explanation of what caused the jet to blow up and drop like a rock out of the sky.

The two main organizations for Flight 800 truth on the Web are The Flight 800 Investigation and Flight 800 Independent Investigators Association. Flight 800 Investigation is the Associated Retired Aviation Professionals and was formed in early 1997. Membership consists of "former military, civilian, and aviation professionals who are committed to independently investigating the mysterious crash."

The Independent Researchers group was formed in 1999 by "citizens concerned with the course of the official investigation into the crash of TWA Flight 800 ... ," and says that "...during the investigation, the FBI unlawfully denied the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) access to forensic results and eyewitness interview documents."

Conspiracy theorists believe the U.S. government covered up the actual cause of the crash. The most common theory is that Flight 800 was shot down by a missile, either by the U.S. Navy during a training exercise on the night of the crash, or by terrorists wielding a shoulder firing missile launcher. A second theory is that a bomb made it aboard the jet and caused the disaster.

Many witnesses, first to media on the scene and later to the NTSB, said they saw a streak of light or a flash moving toward the jet before the explosion. This serves as the main basis for the missile theory. People described the object as a red streak or flare moving toward the plane, that there was horizontal travel and that it turned in midair before striking the aircraft, as noted on this page.

The page also notes that the Navy later admitted there were three submarines in the Long Island area, all equipped with missiles. Another page on Hidden Mysteries quotes James Sanders' book on the disaster that the Navy was in the area on 17 July 1996, testing a new secret missile system.

Hidden Mysteries also presents a letter sent by a retired Navy officer that he and a team had assembled evidence that Flight 800 had been downed by a shoulder fired missile. Known as a MANPAD, or Man Portable Air Defense System, this device dates to the 1950s and can shoot a surface to air missile at an airborne object. In this post-9/11 environment, the greatest concern is of MANPADs being used by terrorists to knock out planes, particularly those of the United States and its allies. Flight 800 Investigation notes that the FIM-92 Stinger MANPAD could have easily taken out the TWA jet, if indeed terrorists had caused the explosion and the crash.

The NTSB investigation concluded there were no explosives aboard the jet, but even mainstream media, such as The New York Times and CNN, carried reports that explosive residue was found on the wreckage. Their explanation? It was left behind by bomb sniffing dogs that had gone through the plane.

Some CT's have declared something was even more sinister about the flight, that perhaps Bill Clinton and Al Gore thought passengers were carrying damaging evidence on board that could have doomed their re-election that fall -- in this case, two Arkansas state troopers who wanted to talk about Clinton's evil ways. This was later found to be a hoax. A second suggestion was that terrorists really had destroyed the plane, another factor that could have affected the presidential election.

The NTSB's accident report is also available online, with the conclusion that a short circuit by the central wing fuel tank set off the explosion.

But a dozen years later, that explanation still does not hold water with the conspiracy world, and to this day they demand that the government tell the truth about TWA Flight 800.