[ruddct]

The lawsuit[0] is worth a read and goes into quite a bit of detail about the claimed timeline. Roughly:

* Upgraded missile defense systems were deemed a national security priority around this time

* Navy ships compatible with these systems were 5 years out, so…

* Live missile testing happens at a compatible land base in New Jersey, under congested airspace

* Multiple civilians report seeing missile tests in & around the date of the TWA crash

* Missile test hits TWA jet. Instead of the NTSB running the investigation (like normal), the CIA and FBI are immediately put in charge

* CIA/FBI confiscate records, run PR campaign claiming the crash was “NOT A MISSILE”, mislead the families and general public about the incident

* Missile tests continue post-crash

Damning if true, to say the least.

[0] https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/Massachusetts_District_Cou...

[woodruffw]

I feel terribly for these families, but the evidence presented in this filing is circumstantial at best: it adds nothing to contradict the overwhelming evidence (including the recovered fuselage) that nothing collided with the aircraft.

It’s easy to see ghosts everywhere, and sometimes they really are there. But TWA 800 probably isn’t one of those cases.

[csharpminor]

They’re not just claiming circumstantial evidence. The plaintiff says they have FOIA documents describing confiscated Navy radar tapes that show an object striking TWA 800.

Damning if true, but a lot hinges on documents we haven’t seen.

[2OEH8eoCRo0]

A radar that was under test. Could it be clutter or ghost track? Was it detected independently by other systems?

[woodruffw]

That would indeed be damning if true! I suppose we’ll see if and when those are made public.

[dontknowwhyihn]

It seems pretty damming that the evidence was withheld in the first place.

[woodruffw]

Not really. The NTSB (or FBI, or CIA) is not compelled to release any particular piece of material, especially not if all already public material sufficiently explains what happens.

I don’t particularly trust the FBI or CIA, but that alone is not good enough, nor is circumstantial evidence that is adequately accounted for.

[onionisafruit]

Those documents would be circumstantial evidence because they only show that the author claimed that there were radar tapes showing something hit TWA 800.

If the radar tapes still exist and can be presented as evidence, that would still be circumstantial evidence because they only show what the radar measured. The meaning of those measurements require interpretation to come to a conclusion that a missile hit TWA 800.

I’m not saying this would not be strong evidence, just that it would be circumstantial evidence and not direct evidence.

[mike_d]

They are represented by a top tier litigation firm, not some random lawyer trying to make a name for himself. I'm sure they have expert witnesses lined up.

[onionisafruit]

I’m sure they do. I wasn’t trying to imply they don’t have good evidence. I was only taking issue with the description that it isn’t circumstantial and secondarily the misconception people have that circumstantial evidence is weak evidence.

The only direct evidence in this case is eye witness testimony, and the government has done a pretty good job of undermining that with their typical “your lying eyes” argument. So this will be a battle of circumstantial evidence.

[bitexploder]

Expert witnesses always agree with whomever hired them. Just a point to consider.

[naniwaduni]

The real filter is, of course, on being able to hire credible expert witnesses who agree with you.

[dontknowwhyihn]

It would directly contradict the claim that a fire caused the crash

[Gamecollector]

> If the radar tapes still exist

Read the lawsuit, they have the tapes.

[StanislavPetrov]

As someone who lived on Long Island at the time, I can tell you that there were dozens, if not hundreds, of eye witnesses from both the beach and the water that claimed to have seen a missile fly up and hit the plane. There was explosive residue consistent with a missile found on on the wreckage of the plane. One of the lead investigators thought it was a missile, and he was shuffled out of the investigation.

[jliptzin]

Don’t know why you are being downvoted, I am also from Long Island and remember the same accounts at the time

[woodruffw]

Because it’s exactly the kind of circumstantial, already-mediated evidence we’re talking about: can you, as a civilian, reliably distinguish a missile arc from a burning fuselage at dusk from miles away? I know I can’t.

[cool_dude85]

The one's going up and the other's coming down.

[woodruffw]

If you read the NTSB’s report, you’ll note that they address this explicitly: the front half of the plane more or less sheared off, causing the back half to pitch up before descending.

[jrs235]

If you think you know you can't you're probably right. I would think and give credibility to the idea that people can distinguish between something moving up/away from the horizon into the sky and vice versa.

[woodruffw]

Please see the adjacent response: part of the fuselage almost certainly ascended before its final descent. That’s the part that I am not confident I would be able to distinguish.

[rdtsc]

> overwhelming evidence (including the recovered fuselage) that nothing collided with the aircraft.

Anti-aircraft missiles don’t necessarily collide with the target. They can spray sharpnel/fragments at the target. Only a few of those in the fuel tank or engine would be necessarily. So unless they recovered all the fuselage parts, it might be hard to discount the missile as the cause.

Wonder if anyone who confiscated those tapes from the Navy would be willing to come forward after these years and explain why they did it that.

[woodruffw]

I believe over 95% of the airframe has been recovered at this point, with no evidence of an external explosion or collision. I suppose the evidence could be solely present on the 5% that wasn’t recovered, but that requires a significant speculative leap.

[sudosysgen]

The SM-2 has direct-hit capability. If it did directly hit the fuselage without the NTSB being briefed on its capabilities, it could easily be mistaken.

[sumofproducts]

You're thinking of SM-3, not SM-2, and SM-3's minimum altitude is somewhere in the rarefied upper atmosphere when it burns out and can separate the kill vehicle. Not even the abortive SM-2 Block IV was hit-to-kill.

That said, all SAMs without nose proxy fuzing are /theoretically/ capable of directly impacting their targets. Only a scant handful of ABM-specialized interceptors are designed to do so in order to ensure either complete warhead destruction OR a miss that doesn't produce a boatload of shredded debris clutter.

A direct hit would shred a huge amount of of the airplane, the expanding cloud of non-warhead missile bits would blow a hole through the other side, and the entire thing would be LITTERED with shrapnel.

A marginal intercept is unlikely; you'd need the missile itself to fail in some way; airliners are, unfortunately, effortless targets. Even then, it would have to miss by an absolutely humongous distance (probably larger than a proxy fuze could measure, so command-detonated by the launching system) to golden BB one single piece of shrapnel into a vital airplane bit.

There are a nigh-infinite number of ways anti-air engagements can go, but virtually none of them result in splashing the target without poking a telltale quantity/distribution/shape of holes in it.

[sudosysgen]

I'm not. The SM-2 has contact fuze capability in some models. Look it up. This was almost under active development at the time, as the SM-2 Block IV.

I'm not talking about therotically here. The SM-2 was at the time in a development program that involved direct hits.

A test warhead for direct hit capability is something that was tested for the SM-2 repeatedly, and was almost certainly being tested around the time this incident happened.

You would not expect any fragmentation in such test. Since hit to kill capability was under development at the time, and since test missiles often have dummy warhead, you could reasonably expect exactly what I said.

[baryphonic]

Circumstantial evidence is still evidence, evidence by implication. Direct evidence is that which is directly asserted, like eyewitness statements, recordings, or recovered items.

Almost all of the evidence the NTSB accumulated for TWA 800 is circumstantial evidence, apart from things like the flight recorders, the eyewitness statements and physically recovering the aircraft. Even the proverbial phrase "smoking gun" would be circumstantial evidence of a murder, not direct proof.

The NTSB's circumstantial evidence is quite thorough, including literal experiments the Board performed. It's mostly quite strong, and it explains the nearly-irrefutable direct evidence (e.g. cockpit recordings, the state of the recovered instruments at the time of the accident).

Also, direct evidence can sometimes be the most unreliable. Eyewitness statements, for example, are notoriously flawed, as our memories are not perfect hard disk dumps, but are malleable. Even in this case, it's possible that the FBI & CIA or even the NTSB itself "poisoned" the direct testimony of the hundreds witnesses on shore, at sea or even in the air. (My own bias is that I have much more respect for NTSB investigators.)

The NTSB's report is nearly persuasive to me, other than the ignition source. Regardless, I do think the NTSB's recommendations & subsequent FAA action have made air travel safer as a result of their work (again, almost all of it circumstantial).

[Gamecollector]

> overwhelming evidence

Well yes, of course it would look overwhelming if all the contradictory evidence and testimony was buried. Not to mention any evidence they fabricated to support their cover-up.

You're really missing the main point of the lawsuit.

[woodruffw]

I’m not missing that. My point is that the actual evidence is pretty threadbare, and vaguely gesticulating about a conspiracy does not actually conjure stronger evidence.

Is it possible a missile really did blow up TWA 800? Sure. But I am not convinced by arguments that are effectively appeals to my latent distrust for the CIA, much less arguments that boil down to fill-in-the-dots conspiracy pattern matching.

[some_random]

I'm really not convinced, the linchpin of the missile argument is that the CIA and FBI were put in charge to cover up a missile shootdown, but it's pretty well documented that they were put in charge because it was a suspected terrorist attack. Everything else is circumstantial evidence at best. I'm certainly interested in what shakes out of this court case, but as of right now it just seems like a typical conspiracy theory to me.

[leetrout]

From the paperwork:

45. Two other eyewitnesses, Air National Guard pilots, Captain Christian Baur and Major Frederick “Fritz” Meyer, similarly stated that they witnessed events that indicated a missile struck TWA 800. 46. On the day TWA 800 went down, Captain Baur and Major Meyer were flying in a Black Hawk helicopter near the area of the TWA 800 incident. Captain Baur recalled seeing an object with a “rocket type motor . . . moving quick” toward TWA 800. After the crash, Captain Baur flew to the area and conducted a search and rescue.

[jeffbee]

None of that is new. They said that at the time. Dozens/hundreds of witnesses said same. Exactly zero of whom have ever seen a missile before and would know what one looks like.

[13of40]

Ah, I'm finally in my element here. I went through a few years in which I saw many anti-aircraft missiles, and there's nothing so unintuitive about them that a layperson would confuse them with, say, a cloud. In other words, it's a thing in the sky with fire and smoke coming out one end, traveling way faster than you would expect. Probably making a loud, high-pitched roar, depending on where you're sitting. I can't imagine 40 people giving the same mistaken testimony. On the other hand, mass hysteria is a thing, so who knows.

[jeffbee]

The witness accounts of the supposed missile cited in the official account all describe the missile as ascending, but to fit the theory of this lawsuit it would have been fired from 120 miles away - let's just ignore that this is far out of the effective range of the rocket in question - and would have appeared to have been travelling horizontally to observers on the ground.

[closewith]

> In other words, it's a thing in the sky with fire and smoke coming out one end, traveling way faster than you would expect.

With respect, by the time a patriot missile reaches a target like an airliner at altitude, the motor is long burnt out. No fire and no smoke (until the fuze detonates), just kinetic energy being bled for terminal guidance.

[phkahler]

Sure, if it was a patriot missile? And since it obviously hit the wrong target who says the range was long enough to reach engine burn out. The deniers here are just making shit up.

Sometimes the government and its contractors would do better to own their mistakes, take the financial hit, and move on. Yet here we are 25 years later still dealing with it and burning credibility.

[ceejayoz]

> I went through a few years in which I saw many anti-aircraft missiles...

How many exploding, breaking-up 747s, though?

[13of40]

I don't think we ever had the training budget for that.

[salawat]

Come now. If you've seen one detonation compromosing a man made structure, nevermind one that is carefully constructed specifically to repeatedly take off under its own power you've seen about all you need to see.

[synu]

I’ve now seen hundreds of missiles striking their targets thanks to the Ukraine war. It looks pretty much exactly like you would guess it looks like.

[PraetorianGourd]

In person or via videos online? I have to imagine a video, where you know ahead of time what the topic content are, is different than mowing the lawn one evening and seeing an explosion with no context or immediate explanation.

[tgflynn]

> None of that is new.

What appears to be new is the claim that they have FOIA documents describing radar tapes that show something hitting the plane.

> Exactly zero of whom have ever seen a missile before and would know what one looks like.

I think the two Air National Guard officers cited in the parent comment likely had seen missile launches before.

[fortran77]

> Exactly zero of whom have ever seen a missile before and would know what one looks like.

I'm very skeptical of these claims, but many, many people--including people on Long Island--have seen missiles.

I've seen many, and I've seen them get diverted out of the air by anti-missile systems, and I've seen them strike the ground near me. (This is all from spending at least 4 month/year in Israel over the past 59+ years.)

[ErikVandeWater]

Pretty sure plenty of people have seen missiles on the evening news at some point in their lives.

[jonnybgood]

Missile launches perhaps, but not missiles in flight.

[barbacoa]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=B6wsujROvXg

Missile videos like the one above are common. 1996 was soon after the gulf war, tons of missiles were broadcast in the news during that time.

[sudosysgen]

Missiles don't really look any different to what you'd think it would. They look just like very big fireworks until they burn out (and then they are basically invisible, just like fireworks).

[StanislavPetrov]

In fact many of the witnesses were active duty military and military veterans who knew exactly what a missile looked like.

[jeffbee]

Just like in civilian life, most people in the military are truck mechanics, cooks, and suchlike. Imputing expertise upon such people is misdirection, just the same kind of misdirection this filing is using to impute authority on a person by citing him as "a physicist" and consistently referring to him as "doctor" out of context.

[sudosysgen]

Even truck mechanics, cooks, and the like have plenty of opportunities to see missile launches.

EDIT :

Missiles are far faster, and crucially, are on fire from the ground up. They go much straighter and produce much more consistent light than a burning half-plane, which is not capable of ascending anywhere close to vertically. They also make drastically different sounds, as one is supersonic and the other very much is not.

They really do look and sound very different. I would expect someone who has seen and heard dozens of launches of that exact missile to be able to make it out quite easily. There are plenty of videos of that online and the difference is quite obvious. Especially someone who is used to this exact model of missile would be able to tell them apart.

[icehawk]

What exactly differentiates a missile from any other sort of rocket, that someone who hadn't seen a missile before would not know what it looks like?

[jonnybgood]

A missile in flight looks like a small aircraft from the ground.

[Gamecollector]

> they were put in charge because it was a suspected terrorist attack.

Good thing the US government doesn't have a long history of using terrorism as an excuse to expand its own power beyond all reasonable limits.

Oh wait...

[dontknowwhyihn]

It sounds to me like some legal, social media PR is happening in this case.

[sonotathrowaway]

The linchpin of your argument seems to be that we need to believe the official reason given, and that the CIA would never lie to the American public.

That sounds naïve to anyone with even a passing familiarity with American history.

[thfuran]

Whereas the lynchpin of your argument, inasmuch as there is one, is "pfff, who needs evidence when you can have allegations instead".

[tremon]

Rather, the linchpin of their argument is "a public explanation given by the CIA carries less weight than no explanation at all".

[dTal]

And why was it a suspected terrorist attack?

[2OEH8eoCRo0]

https://www.state.gov/1993-world-trade-center-bombing/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City_bombing

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Beirut_barracks_bombings

Because terrorism exists. If there are reports that an aircraft suffered from an explosion while in flight what would you think?

[growse]

> And why was it a suspected terrorist attack?

Because when a plane explodes with zero warning, or indication of fault, it's the first thing people suspect.

[xhkkffbf]

I distinctly remember how very soon after the crash, the TV announced that the DOD put out a statement that there were no ships nearby and the plane wasn't hit by a missile. Before anyone accused anyone of anything. It seemed a bit too suspicious for that to be among the first things on the news.

[cyanydeez]

Eh, you're aware there's always knowledgeable people tracking activities and just because there's no immediate discussion in public doesn't mean those watchers arnt questioning.

Ergo, this is a useless factoid.

[thaumasiotes]

https://www.unz.com/runz/american-pravda-the-destruction-of-...

[pxmpxm]

Exactly which part of this is new evidence? What you wrote is the basis of the original conspiracy theory, that NTSB rejected.

Also we have multiple recent events of a commercial jet being shot down by a contemporary AA system, in each of those the causality is pretty obvious.

eg: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ENykmLaXkAAGslH.png

[raldi]

I don't understand the New Jersey connection; the plane went down quite far from the NY/NJ border: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWA_Flight_800#/media/File:TWA...

[ok_dad]

There’s a naval weapons station right to the southwest of that track, about 50 miles away maybe. A navy SM-2 missile has an unclassified range of 90 nautical miles. It’s likely that they would have been testing some variant of this missile for vertical launch, perhaps with some new phased array radar experiments and such. Up to the 90s, the navy was still using rail launched missiles and traditional radar emitters and the article talks about ships several years out that can’t be used for these tests, which I assume are thee first of current AEGIS ships.