On Tue, 17 Sep 1996, Jeff Davis wrote:
Just so this isn't hanging in cyberspace forever, my $5,000 bet for anyone to prove the TWA 800 flight was downed by a U.S. missile is now *off the table*.
I heard through the family grapevine that they have pictures of a Stinger taking out the plane they're analyzing in the Pentagon. There are 220+ Stingers *missing* in the US, so its not like they have to smuggle them in... (That's not proof by any means, but *my* family grapevine has always been very reliable. The cousin who told me this has a Dad who flew as the intelligence officer observer on Bronco flights out of Quang Tri for 18 months, rotating out just before the base was over run in May of '72.)
Does this cousin also have an aunt who lived next door to Joe Montana's babysitter? I might know his father ...
Ask your family grapevine about the stinger's op altitude, and the altitute of the TWA when it broke up - I don't have Jane's lying around, but it seems that the TWA plane was a tad bit high for a stinger.
- r.w.
I recall that Tom Clancy, who has written a number of military fiction novels, for which he has done endless notebooks full of research for, made a statement about this. He said, simply, that the TWA jet's explosion was at such an altitude, that even if someone did it from a boat directly under, it was still far too high for a Stinger missile to reach, much less dammage. Just thought I would throw that out there. Tom Clancy is not a military-hired brain, but to make his novels realistic and to do justice to the people he portrays, he does a LOT of research. He is a highly respected author, and I have no doubt that his statement is based on his personal findings, collected for a previous novel. -- If in fact we are the only intelligent life on this planet, why the fuck are we in this goddamn mess? -- Find my public key on the World Wide Web -- point your browser at: http://bs.mit.edu:8001/pks-toplev.html