A terror group from Egypt advised the FBI it was answerable for downing TWA Flight 800 and killing all 230 folks aboard, in accordance with newly surfaced FBI data featured in a brand new documentary marking the thirtieth anniversary of the tragedy.
An explosive declare buried in a trove of newly obtained Freedom of Info Act paperwork is reviving decades-old questions on whether or not a missile or bomb introduced down the Boeing 747-100 off Lengthy Island on July 17, 1996.
Among the many data obtained by the transparency nonprofit Judicial Watch is a New York teletype dated two days after the crash, case file 265A-NY-259028: “FBI headquarters obtained faxes generated from Cairo claiming credit score for the destruction of the plane,” the cable states.
The doc doesn’t identify the phobia group or in any other case present an evaluation by investigators on the time of the veracity of its declare to have introduced down the jet. A 14-month FBI and Joint Terrorism Activity Pressure probe, together with a four-year Nationwide Transportation Security Board investigation, finally rejected that idea.
However it’s existence is prompting a collection of questions from Judicial Watch, which filed go well with in federal court docket this week in opposition to the NTSB to get extra data and whose findings will likely be featured in a brand new 45-minute documentary, “Judicial Watch Investigates TWA 800 – 30 Years Later,” which debuts Saturday on YouTube.
“Let’s see the faxes. Did you pursue it? To what diploma? Was it a fraudster? Was it legit?” requested the group’s chief investigator, Chris Farrell, who has spent years making an attempt to untangle the proof.
“That’s fairly alarming contemplating there was a large effort to swat that idea down again in ‘96,” he added. “Cairo at that time was a hotbed for all types of militant Islamist supremacists.”
TWA Flight 800 departed JFK Worldwide Airport in New York at 8:19 p.m., certain for Paris, and blew up 12 minutes after take off over the Atlantic Ocean close to East Moriches, New York.
All 18 crew and 212 passengers died immediately.
One other partially redacted line states that “one of many crew on board flight 800, working as a flight attendant was [redacted].” The rationale for the redaction isn’t identified however James Kallstrom, the FBI New York discipline workplace chief who was positioned in control of the probe, was shut pals with a fellow FBI agent whose spouse was a member of the crew on the doomed flight.
The NTSB decided after its investigation that the “possible trigger” of the accident was “an explosion of the middle wing gas tank (CWT) ensuing from ignition of the flammable gas/air combination within the tank.”
The $40 million probe, which included painstakingly reassembling the plane from items recovered from the ocean flooring, couldn’t decide the supply of ignition, however mentioned the “most probably” perpetrator was a spark brought on by a brief circuit.
The FBI dropped its probe in 1997, with then-assistant FBI Director Kallstrom telling reporters: “Following 16 months of unprecedented investigation we should now report that no proof has been discovered which might point out {that a} felony act was the trigger.”
The documentary raises different questions on investigators’ conclusions, together with why current 747s have been by no means grounded after the incident, and why no different 747s ever suffered an analogous explosion within the succeeding years.
One other doc obtained by means of one of many group’s 13 FOIA requests is a February 1997 inside FBI memo for briefing members of the family greater than six months after the occasion that references the “three most probably theories” for the reason for the explosion – the bomb idea, the missile idea and mechanical failure.
“Regardless of a wealth of circumstantial proof indicating that the plane was struck by a missile fired from a sea-borne platform, the precise reason for the explosion stays a thriller,” it states.
Quite a few eyewitnesses mentioned they noticed streaks of sunshine earlier than the explosion. A CIA video simulation mentioned witnesses have been seeing burning, leaking gas.
Additionally featured within the movie is Dr. Tom Stalcup, a physicist who consulted on a number of lawsuits introduced by members of the family of the passengers killed. He described figuring out a chunk of the fuselage with a curved finish that he mentioned indicated there was an exterior supply of the explosion — and made the alarming declare that it had been bent again throughout the investigation. Quite a few members of the family of victims settled with the airline and Boeing within the years following the crash, with some taking $2.5 million in compensation.
“The curl was gone, they flattened it like a pancake. And they also altered the proof to make it like there was no inside harm brought on by an exterior drive,” Stalcup mentioned within the documentary.
Requested to touch upon Stalcup’s claims, the NTSB referenced its earlier report.
“The supply of ignition power for the explosion couldn’t be decided with certainty, however, of the sources evaluated by the investigation, the most probably was a brief circuit outdoors of the CWT that allowed extreme voltage to enter it by means of electrical wiring related to the gas amount indication system,” it mentioned.
“Contributing components to the accident have been the design and certification idea that gas tank explosions might be prevented solely by precluding all ignition sources and the design and certification of the Boeing 747 with warmth sources positioned beneath the CWT with no means to cut back the warmth transferred into the CWT or to render the gas vapor within the tank nonflammable.”
The Publish has reached out to the FBI and CIA for remark.
Farrell refuses to just accept the official rationalization.
“I can let you know that the official rationalization — this guess {that a} spark of unknown origin in some way ignited the middle gas tank is preposterous,” he mentioned.
The group is hoping the documentary renews curiosity within the unusual and tragic story, and prompts authorities companies handy over extra paperwork which may fill in nonetheless extra particulars.
“They haven’t been forthcoming,” mentioned Farrell.
