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- WASHINGTON (AFP) - An independent
panel of experts on Monday lambasted the results of an official investigation
into the 1996 fatal TWA Flight 800 crash, and maintained its theory the
plane was downed by a missile.
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- According to the Flight 800 Independent Research Organization
(FIRO), the official investigators had concealed crucial pieces of information
from a final report to be presented Tuesday and Wednesday.
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- The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) report
is expected to argue that the crash which killed 230 people off Long Island,
New York, was most likely caused by an explosion in the plane's central
fuel tank.
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- Many former investigators, military experts, and airline
pilots continue to insist the Boeing was shot down by a missile.
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- "Thirteen witnesses have seen an object strike the
plane," FIRO president Tom Stalcup said in a press conference here.
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- Stalcup also argued against the investigators' theory
that the plane had gained altitude following an initial explosion.
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- "The magic climb theory contradicts the laws of
physics, the radar data which recorded the flight path, and the witnesses
accounts," he said.
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- Moreover, Stalcup continued, there were numerous ships
within five kilometers (3.6 miles) of the area, but only one that had never
been identified and which continued on its path as if nothing had happened.
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- Aviation consultant engineer Glen Schulze, who analyzed
the so-called "black boxes," also claimed that information was
missing.
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- "Four seconds of data has been removed from the
Flight Data Recorder when the FBI was in charge of the investigation,"
he said.
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- Lending his weight to the argument of possible foul play,
retired United Airlines pilot Richard Russell claimed he had received a
copy of radar data showing a small object flying next to the plane that
indicated a possible missile.
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- "An (air traffic) controller has identified the
target as potentially being a missile," Russell said, declining to
identify his source of information.
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- NTSB investigators have explained that bystanders may
have been looking at an arc of fire in the sky that occurred after the
airplane broke in two and a part of the fuselage was briefly hurtled into
the sky in flames.
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- The FBI initially tried to probe the missile theory,
but later abandoned it and withdrew from the investigation altogether in
the fall of 1997.
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- Six months after the catastrophe, the NTSB concluded
that chemical analyses of metal from the fuselage showed no proof of damage
caused by a bomb or missile.
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- Nevertheless, after four years of recovering debris from
the ocean floor and partially reconstructing the plane in a huge hangar,
investigators are preparing to close this most mysterious chapter in aviation
history -- but without giving a definitive answer.
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- "It's a mystery, but a manufactured mystery,"
insisted Graeme Sephton, a projects engineer at the University of Massachusetts
office of Information Technologies.
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