- The explosion of a Russian airliner over the Black Sea
on Oct. 4 has raised an interesting question relating to the crash of TWA
Flight 800 off Long Island five years ago. Both planes exploded and crashed
into the sea. Flight 800 was still in its ascent, at 13,800 feet, and it
was only 10 miles off the shore of Long Island. Its crash was witnessed
by hundreds of people who have been questioned by the FBI about what they
saw. Many of them said they had seen what must have been a missile either
rising from the surface or high in the sky streaking toward the airliner
just before it blew up.
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- The Russian airliner was over 30,000 feet above the Black
Sea, and as far as we know, no eyewitnesses saw the crash. But U.S.
satellites
apparently did. It was reported the next day that Defense Department
satellites
equipped with infrared sensors detected a missile launched by Ukrainian
troops on the Crimean peninsula which U.S. intelligence officials believed
hit the airliner. The government of Ukraine acknowledged that a training
exercise involving missiles was being conducted at the time, but insisted
that none of its missiles could have shot down the Russian plane. Russian
investigators have found small metal balls from the missile's warhead in
the bodies of the victims. President Kuchma of Ukraine now says he will
accept the findings of the investigation.
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- In 1996, the U.S. had two KH-11 satellites in polar
orbit.
Their infrared sensors have a resolution down to a few inches. Ray Lahr,
a TWA Flight 800 aficionado, has pointed out that if one of those two
satellites
was over New York on July 17, 1996, there is a lot of information about
TWA 800 that has not been released. Apparently one of them was able to
record images of the TWA 800 crash. Request for that imagery or
descriptions
of it have been made under the Freedom of Information Act to both the
Department
of Defense and the CIA. Both have acknowledged that they have the images,
but they have refused to release them or descriptions of them to the
public.
-
- In rejecting a FOIA request last January, the CIA claimed
that information was exempt from the Freedom of Information Act. It cited
exemptions (b)(1) and (b)(3), which cover material that must be kept secret
in the interest of national defense or foreign policy and for the
protection
of intelligence sources and methods. The CIA has actively propagated the
government's claim that the TWA 800 crash was the result of a fuel-tank
explosion. It is hard to see why releasing satellite images of an airliner
fuel tank exploding would imperil national security, damage our foreign
relations or reveal anything not already known about the use of
satellites.
-
- The CIA devoted a lot of time and money to the production
of a video that was crafted to prove that the hundreds of eyewitnesses
who thought they saw a missile streaking toward the airliner actually saw
nothing but the airliner itself. The CIA claims that it rocketed upward
after its entire front end was broken off and that the eyewitnesses mistook
it for a missile. That claim and the video that presented it have been
the subject of a lot of ridicule by people who are knowledgeable about
aeronautics. It was not at all convincing.
-
- If the CIA has satellite imagery of what transpired and
the pictures show that there were no missiles anywhere near the airliner
when it blew up, they could have used those pictures to make their case.
It would have been far more convincing and would have cost them nothing.
The speed with which the government released the information about the
Ukrainian missile, which no doubt offended the Ukrainians and showed them
our intelligence capabilities, exposes the absurdity of the CIA's excuses
for not releasing the pictures.
-
- The press officer for the National Transportation Safety
Board says that they examined the satellite images but they were of no
help in determining the cause of the crash. He said they did not retain
them or keep any records of what they showed. The member of the staff who
gave him that information refuses to be interviewed, and Mrs. Marion
Blakey,
the new NTSB chairman, also seems to think that not returning calls is
the safest policy.
-
- Apparently the satellite imagery is not being released
because it does for TWA Flight 800 what it did for the Russian airliner.
It tells the truth that governments want to hide.
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- Reed Irvine is chairman of Accuracy in Media.
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