The conspiracy theorists who have been swearing for years to an alleged terrorist plot as the cause of the TWA 800 crash off the Long Island sound might just get a reprieve.
A new movie purports to show new evidence that the flight crashed not due to the tank igniting, which was the cause published by the NTSB in its final report of the findings and reconstruction of the plane, but because of direct action by international terrorists.
There had been several testimonials of people who had said they saw what looked like a surface to air missile, or shoulder fired missile which honed in on the large plane. The movie however, goes one step further, saying that there is radar evidence of such missile strike.
One of the things that the movie wants to highlight is the fact that none of the witnesses on the ground has ever been allowed to testify during the course of the investigation into the incident.
The moviemaker in addition, intends to propose this movie as a vehicle to reopen the investigation, citing the possibility that evidence has been suppressed.
But the movie does have one important fan: an accident investigator with the NTSB has come forward to say that he too believes that foul play was involved. Hank Hughes, now retired, was no simple stand by: he was a senior investigator direclty involved in the probe. And there are others in the field similarly skeptical. Bob Young, a TWA investigator who was also involved int he investigation, and Jim Speer, an investigator from the Airline Pilots Association.
None of these investigators were allowed to testify or speak with the public or make or refute any comment made by the NTSB and FBI. What the movie now says, is that these officials and investigators, have had to wait until their retirement to come forward and tell how the official conclusions offered by the NTSB were falsified to obscure the true cause of the crash.
The movie producer has every intention to file for reconsideration of the board findings by the NTSB. But the NYSB has already responded that they are not obligated to reopen the investigation unless there is concrete 'new ' evidence that warrants it. They also add that a petition for reconsideration has not even been filed with the Agency yet.
But the spokesperson for the NTSB has also issued a statement which asserts the agency's willingness to review the matter, since in their words "investigations are never closed".
As far as conspiracy theories go, there will never be a quelling of the belief that the streak people on the ground saw on the night of the crash was some ordnance or terrorist weapon. But the NTSB has already eliminated that probability by saying that the illuminated streak they saw as going towards the plane, was none other than fuel exiting the tank and then igniting.
It remains to be seen if the film truly does have something to offer, or whether, as has happened before, it is merely a way to market a documentary.
Source : CNN 6.19.13
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