Transcripts For CSPAN2 TWA 800 20161022

[inaudible] i meant to take off my jacket we may have a few late comers but they can go right around through the back. We would like to welcome you to the museum. He is our pride and joy we hope you enjoy it we also if you wanted to or the museum you have to go back out and around and we have a room that might be of interest to you all. Its my pleasure to welcome jack for this presentation you can do questions and answers so he will be doing q a after his speech. Welcome jack. [applause]. This is a great venue i suspect its a first time that book tv has ever done one from an airplane hangar this is my tenth book tv let me just her with a little background. Many of you know on july 17, 1976 the flight 800 left jfk airport in new york bound for paris 12 minutes later it 31 00 p. M. Off the coast of long island it was blown out of the sky 230 people were killed 53 of them were twa employees. Many of you in this room knew only some of those people. There is a memorial in the honor. And if i record here to spread some Conspiracy Theory i would be dishonoring their memory and i would be insulting you. Instead im here to tell you what happened on the night of july 17 in the night and days and months and years thereafter. There people in this room know a whole lot more about aviation than i do and at the end of my conversation i will take questions and answers because i know some of you have a firsthand experience with this tragedy. In the last few years researchers have unearthed a mother load of new information from of all places the Central Intelligence agency. It raises excellent questions. Its what theyre doing involving itself in the domestic airplane crash. We also have some interesting videos and a lot of whistleblowers within the investigation have come forward so the state of our knowledge today is much better than it was 20 years ago. Have to give credit to the people that know how to research. Christina bergeson who came here and spoke. And that United Airline pilot. Including roger. And the investigators and others. They deserve a lot of the credit. I just want to let that be known. Since the book has come out ive heard from at least a hundred individuals within the end of it military aviation. Many of them were four and at the investigation themselves. Many of them are still angry about what they experience. And what happened to them. Kids will be now. According to an air Traffic Controller in fact he just emailed me today email me today saying he loved the book i read about it and did not release his name he worked 38 years as an air Traffic Controller. This is a quote. The primary radar return indicated verbal movement thats what they saw on their screens and that is where the panic in washington dc. That was the first notice. I came out of the air Traffic Control in new york that something have happened to this plane and seconds before did i disappears. In the notation disappears from the screen. Have you ever seen anything like this before. And he said yeah we sought all the time. It wasnt something unknown to him. The next day he comes back and he wants to review the tape. He says now its gone. Its been taken. This is a violation of all protocols. Now the only person that has spoken about what happens next in washington is Richard Clark. He was called a liar and a braggart. At least spend some time on this. Everyone else who writes about that in the administration is completely silent about the event. Even though he is the number one new story in 1986 and it was Richard Clark the almost war of 1986. They convene a meeting of the anti terror group in the situation room in the white house at 9 00. I know Hillary Clinton was there. The clintons returned to the white house just about 8 30 after a routine fundraising nearby. They retreated to the family quarters and that they stayed for the rest of the night. My source i ask him who was with them. He can only come up with one name. It was sandy berger. His boss was a National Security advisor and like you said elsewhere he knew when the conversation got political he left the room among them was the investigation. One of the most helpful people in this book and hes gonna come in for the story later on he was a former nt bs board member. Theres only five members there. On air commentary. I was there with a couple of hours. I know this is unprecedented and illegal where they were set up to be independent and then at that point a sacrifice their independence in the yielded to the fbi. No one knew at that time i was taking place on the very first day. Heres what we know. According to the documents the director of intelligence became involved in the missile theory a day after the crash occurred. They have absolutely no business being involved in this kind of event especially since since the year before in 1995 the department of justice sent out a memo often known as a wall memo and with that it says there is a wall between the intelligence in the cia. In the investigators and the fbi. They cannot collaborate because it would be a way to violate peoples rates. And in 2004 at that point was the director of the Central Intelligence. And he told the commission he was the first one to introduce that notion to the public about the wall. He was not the only want to talk about it but he was the first one to do it. As the document proves the cia and the fbi for the next 16 months would corroborate on the investigation. What they do not say outright is that the collaboration was there. The cia had no other role its become probably incredibly clear within the first three hours. We know there was one image amateur video taken of the complete sequence of events. Some of you may have seen it. It was aired on ms and bc. I talked to one of the fellas he who was the technical director he said they told us to keep her mouth shut or else. That was the end of that. The best part the elaboration of what we seen. He was willing to give me his name. It is a sign of some confidence. He was laid up to hong kong hospital with a back surgery and his wife came to visit him and they have nothing to do but watch tv for several weeks. They watch the video over and over again. And then they see and this is a lot of other people that say the same thing. Theyre taking it out to see. And then i disappeared for a second. Another flash. And the plane falls out of the sky. He saw the video. They were and novel around this video. Its worth reading. Into the documents they get real interesting. On july 3013 days after the crash the cia analysts meets with the fbi. He tells the superior the missile team has already interviewed excellent eyewitnesses. The evidence for the missile attack is overwhelming. These people are mainly professionals in their testimony to consisted the cia analysts bragged to his superior how he discovered the fbi from Going Forward with this report which is just about ready to be published. And it was successful. The report never came forward. Between july 30 and august 17 someone gets to the fbi. They came to the job intending to do justice. On august 17 they speak for the first time to the New York Times about eyewitnesses now the fbi it would speak almost exclusively to the New York Times. He became very dependent on that relationship. At the heart of the story is the media scandal. We meet with the New York Times they probably met on the h or 16th. After the missile team met with the cia. In the New York Times as told that there are fewer than a dozen credible eyewitnesses and they are allowed to interview just one of those eyewitnesses its a good witness. He is doing hes doing some surveillance work. Hes pretty knowledgeable he sees a bright white flash. Theres two things that they would later deny. It served the purpose. The purpose then was to switch the scenario from missile to bomb. The administration decided with the bomb that it wasnt as scary as a missile. This crash took place two days before the start of that. Theres a lot at stake in keeping airlines find and keeping commercial traffic in gear. In keeping them away from feeling insecure about it. Now, in total the New York Times would interview them. They would interview 258 eyewitnesses they hit the airplane. Ninetysix of them sought come up the horizon. And tracked it all the way up. Of those 2580. They are still there. Thousands more sought. And the reason it turned out. There running more stories. The traces of missiles. They ran this headline. Above the fold. Prime evidence found. It exploded in the cabin. That was above the fold. They are not ruling out missiles. Above the fold on the Democratic National convention. One of those headlines had to go. And it was this one. And then it started going away. The day before the 23rd im sure the Justice Department was aware that the fbi had been talking too much so the have of the fbi investigation is called to washington first first meeting in washington. Heading up this meeting with the information they suggest is Deputy Attorney general. They keep track of that. They worked around it. There is no record of what took place. They all began to change immediately after that and then they notice it later. We know on the 23rd the faa started searching all over the world. They could find that with a polluted was used with the training aid. It took them several weeks to find that in the series of events begin to happen between the 23rd of the 19th of september the New York Times didnt know quite what to take. The fbi didnt know what direction to take. The stories and now the ntsb leaving the direction. And what they say is that perhaps it was a mechanical failure after all. They said a mechanical failure alone might just explain what happened. We have all of that traces of explosives found over the plane. How do we reconcile these two. The next day the fbi puts out a press release that it has been used for training exercise. On the 21st of september they say the same thing and basically it kills the investigation. As can be hard for us to make our case now that there was this thing. By the 21st near the fbi had talked to the cop who have the training. The first person in the media to talk to that cop was me. Six years after the fact. Nobody have talked to them in that time. And what they decided was he did his exercises he was pissed off about that. They ruined the reputation. They concluded that it was a sloppy exercise. Those are what accounts. Carlo was not capable of getting out there and doing that. And that didnt matter. It didnt matter. They just went with it. Heres what they could offend out with an hours worth of investigation. All that they told him was a time of exercise when the exercise that. They might be leaving the gate. What they did not say is that the there were 400 people on board now they had worked on loading International Flights no you cant know you cant do that in 15 minutes. They did this on a different plane. There was no one on board they couldve proved that an hour. Now you cant even disputed. They wanted to go to honolulu. They were supposed to believe that it was an hour and a half exercise. It just didnt make any sense. It was obvious that they in no way matched the competition. Nor does it match where they placed it. The plane is wrong. As a total lie. They sacrifice this guys career to get it done. And it was still humiliated to this day. And he have to live with us. That was what they needed. Now from that point on the government moved into a fully different mode and that was the mechanical failure mode. It was like getting punched in the stomach when they heard that. The fuel tank people would have to bear the brunt of that story if there was something wrong with the fuel tank and it blew up. When i get email people reading the book. The fuel take people are the angriest. At that point they had been totally shut out. They are supposed to review the statements. They were not even let them look. They handed the interviews over to the cia. Who else. To examine interviews decide what they saw. There was no experience in this. They have no legal justification for this. They werent eager to do this. When they gave them the statements in small doses and in time they only gave them one third of the total eyewitness statements. A 1996 the analyst if youre watching give me a call sometime. Comes to the conclusion that all he needs to do to explain what these people saw is contained within the one plane itself. He decides that the number was blown off and then the plane took off. And then no witnesses. It a child of about 4,000 feet. This can happen. It went from 13,000 feet. We will get back to that in the second they were contracted to get the video. That happened on december 31. By february 1987 george tenet who is now bend promoted they fired the number one guy from lieutenant. It shoots up right. And now a two man missile team. I dont buy this for a moment. It couldnt have been that. Weve ate eyewitnesses who sought the missile hit the airplane. Thats what they told us. I dont buy this. This one guy refused to do it. I dont think he knew this until recently. On that same day he was fighting with the cia either in washington or new york he ends up in North Carolina at least on paper he does. Interviewing one of the key eyewitnesses in this book and its witness number 73. I sought out the book. Some of you read this. I will just replay the story a little bit. In 2009 i get a call out of the blue she said this is witness 73 do you know who i am. Yes i do. They wipe these out. And heres what the fbi from july 20, 1996 says about their interview. Its not the real name. Theyre talking to sandy. She have an interest in aviation. She was right. And then they see them off the horizon. It goes right outside the right wing. And then she just dolls and falls right out of the sky. Now in three days three days after the crash sandy have explained and told the fbi the breakup sequence of that aircraft was before anybody new. It would take them weeks to map out the debris before they can evaluate what they said. No one saw more clearly than she did. She cooperated fully with the fbi. And her two inlaws wanted nothing to do with it. Her husband almost broke off their engagement. She talked to the fbi. The inlaws were really upset that they got the names but they refused to talk it was unknown to him. Thats what they told me. To tommy about the second interview. In the second interview she have just found out about it and several Long Island Iced Tea cocktails that night. I dont even know what a Long Island Iced Tea is. I dont drink it all. And she said there something you dont know. There was no second interview. The cia had fully manufactured it the same day there something you dont know. I said youre not the only one. They did that to several key eyewitnesses. It creates the manufacturing. And the later meeting and this was made public only one witness have actually reported seeing the crippled plane and it is the man on the bridge. And ive got to know them pretty well. And when they quoted the case with the fbi they showed for one time and many of you have seen this the animation showing with the fuel tank explosion. In the plane shoots up. Three or 4,000 feet. Eyewitnesses it sounds like and they built it all around that. And it turns out of course that they based it on the second interview. In the first interview they said exactly that. And they said i did not pick them up off the beach. It couldve been flight 800 of course. They just made that up and put it into the record. There was no second interview was sandy. Who was flying above it in the navy guy. With real missile experience. And they made up a new interview for him. In his things i saw them go from right to left. It goes from left to right. They did this to three that we know of. These are the ones we had been able to prove. And finally, going through the documents we just found a year or so ago we find out that the calculated attitude post explosion was 14,500 feet. They showed that once. When the fbi closed the case in november and no one in the media even ask what is the cia doing here. Let alone the stuff is nuts. It was the early exploring with him. If it was that. They would been sending that request for some time. We get it and we look at it and we realize it is not the video from july 17. Its almost as useful. It was a video of an impairment missile attack. The review them early on. We realize there was more than the smoke coming out. He goes to long island and obvious missile test taking place. That would make that much a difference but when they closed the case they said there has been no missile tests in the area for at least two years. And they know that this happened. They know about this video. They did not enter that video into evidence. And from the cia documents that we also note that many eyewitnesses saw what looked like on july 7, 1986. Itll had to be a math major to see the sequence here. I heard from other people said i dont know this matters but on july 7 it does matter. That was what was going on. From november 1997 on the case is basically closed. Its the most successful coverup. The great story of our time. And 53 of our colleagues died without justice being brought to their families. They add some other useful antidote. They oversaw this investigation. After it was essentially put to bed. It gets a new job. It went to fannie may. The next six minutes the next six years to make 25 million. They stepped up to take one of five democratic positions on the 911 commission she is basically overseeing the events leading up to september 11. And it is a quote. For september 11 was a wall. This is the wall memo. They protested loudly about the wall. And they went public with this protest. And they have an intelligence issue. This is nuts. People in a day full disclosure as they continue. It is in the member of this commission. The offer of that was the news. The aftermath of a 911. They held it on firmly. The closest one last and dope. And then we will take some questions. Keep up because were taking out the ambient noise. With the National Press club. You talk with a the boardmember the night before. We saw that crossing. When you come down. And check it out. He speaks about ten minutes. Tomorrow im having lunch with the chairman of the National Safety board. So i go to lunch and i meet the new chairman is christopher hart. Im looking for a point of connection. Im trying not to push it away. Im just trying to convince him that im saying and this is a story worth looking at. Then i realized what it was. He had been on the board between 1989 and 1992. The interesting thing about that i didnt know anything about that background other than that. He have a physics degree from princeton. And as the Washington Post pointed out he was replaced by jim holt who was the best qualifications. This is what the Washington Post said at the time. I posted that on the wall. Heres a few things i didnt know about. One, is he was a democrat. So we replaced a democrat with a democrat. We replaced one with extraordinary credentials with no credentials. To replace a black democrat with a white tax democrat is an act of the foresight of the clinton administration. People are going to come in handy. He adds two more people. Jim hall was now the chairman and so when the fbi they just roll over and take it. They watch it all happen. That helps them in the sense what was otherwise a bit of awkward improvised coverup that just kicks that can down the road. And now they kick it to 20 years. Lets hope they can do that. I appreciate your comments today. [applause]. [inaudible] i would say i started this investigation, give a certain thing called confirmation bias. You want them to confirm what you hope would be the outcome. I just feel more comfortable with that. That cant be a navy. Unfortunately the evidence points to naval involvement. There may have been some rogue element that may have been in there. And allied ship. I do not know literally who fired the missile but i do know that my muscles were fired. That missiles were fired. They argued for the involvement in the smoking gun was there from the beginning. What everyone acknowledged in the New York Times there was someone hovering right above when it blew up. At the time there were technical manuals easily available. Its used as a communication mode and cooperative engagement capability. And it was right there. Maybe it was there. See was held on the internet. The navy was lying to the fbi, the navy christina witnessed one incident where someone asked why the navy is involved in this investigation when the navy may be the culprit . They picked up this guy and took him out of the room. Two eyewitnesses to that. That said, the navy would not have and could not have covered this up on its own. It had to come from above. And accident a lot of people asked me was there anyone on the plane who deserved his or her own missile . The u. S. Navy would not shoot down one of our own aircraft, in 1988, the iranian airbus. It would be embarrassing. It had to do with the election they might have fudged a little but keeping it under wraps. From your book and others, and performed the autopsy, a large amount, those people large amount of shrapnel for self rocket fuel and how that was covered up and what was going on there. The autopsy. Those of you in july, christina wrote in a documentary, it is excellent, came out three years ago and two of the people, half a dozen highlevel whistleblowers participate. The pathologists, when i was watching that, a separate documentary and the gruesome one, what happened to the bodies . When a fuel tank explode they are going to burn and it will be ugly but they will burn. In this case, in some cases dna was fused from one body to another, pieces of bones flying around like arrowhead sticking into the side of the fuselage and they show some of this. They have tough stomachs to do this. The injuries were not at all consistent with a fuel tank fire, at least those in the place where explosive devices were most damaging. Good question. What did they do with all the wreckage . It was reassembled at the calverton hangar in long island where they do the investigation. The Training Facility in virginia and it is a dumb show and they walk through and they say no missile struck here. I thought it was 91, you said 88. And all four the captain testifies, and accelerating toward his ship, okay, and everything, they said no, 22,000 feet, i am sure no one has ever seen Something Like that. Allegedly three satellites had 500 in its view. One of the parents from pennsylvania whose daughter was killed in a crash, 15 were going to paris. And said there were three satellites malfunctioning. That is what he was told. Nothing seen from them. When the cia created its animation of the nose falling off and flames shooting up, they claim infrared centers on us satellite, they are talking at a school but didnt show anything like that. [inaudible question] let me talk about boeing. Boeing took the fall. Why would they do that . In boeings case it was obvious, in the middle of a merger talk giving them 100 lock on commercial airline market. In the same week, this was at that time. In the same week the department of justice approved that merger, they turn down a merger between office depot and staples, giving them a 6 drop on crucial officesupply market. Boeing if they want to survive didnt have much choice. I heard a lot of stories why peter was involved, probably not a good place to go into it all but i talked to many people, a lot of people, and out of business, merging with american airlines. It is fortunate. [inaudible question] what they did with the rest of the airplane, all rounded up. Had second thoughts and reconstructed it. I work a little on 37. And after that is down. And the fuel pump [inaudible question] yes. [inaudible conversations] at the end of the day, the spark is of unknown origin. And the overheating of the Center Fuel Tank sitting on the runway, 71 , runways in cairo and phoenix. [inaudible questions] after the thing caught fire and whatnot. [inaudible question] what do you think of that . I tell you right now, after four years, did not take it now. Do you believe that . I have heard that story several times. Nelson demille. Has anyone read his book nightfall . A steamy opening chapter. I just listened to it driving back and it is based on the missing video and he came to the same conclusion. He was deeply involved in research on long island, he knew an fbi agent and when he ran into one he said the same thing. The nyc p or Suffolk County police would be much more forthcoming. The fbi it was a fuel tank explosion. They got their marching orders and they do it. What they came to, 20 years and got out. That is because for certain people that kind of culture is difficult when something is going wrong. In the back. In california, Mcdonnell Douglas aircraft in long beach, told them i was coming. [inaudible question] at the same time there is new video of george stephanopoulos. And goes back and talks [inaudible question] talking about the faa, ntsb, the New York Times in new york city. And the fbi and cia, draft dodger, if you look at that, it lights up. My question, all of the support it took to do this. It is not only that but what is interesting, we are going to write a check. What is all over town. So much per person. A missile test going on. In the end my question is why. On the night of july 17, 1996, they panicked and kick the can down the road. And what people seem to be involved, and people in the navy, 6 to 10 civilians know what happened that night and here is what they share, stephanopoulos talked about it on 9 11, he writes a book about it, doesnt mention the incident, george tenet, head oversaw the coverup, writes a book, doesnt mention it. Leon panetta alerts clinton. Doesnt mention it. Bill clinton writes a 900 page book, one paragraph. One third of a sentence, two sentences, the sentence select committee on intelligence which covers all those matters, everything involved with the cia, 199697, doesnt mention it. A conspiracy of silence, kicking it down the memory hole. This is bizarre, the way i feel right now is personal conscience in all of this suffered most from having to live with this, head of the fbi investigation is now on fox, terrorists go to guy, fox wont talk about it. I know family members who come up to him and say you are lying and the public face of this investigation, and if anyone has an interest in coming forward, it would be he. I would recommend who is who, what you need is South African style truth and reconciliation where we are going to wave out the back and hope it doesnt happen again. How this is working out. With twa and several others in the area with electricians and fuel tanks and places prior supervision, management, the whole line, safety now doing all of this. We are still kicking the can, terrible burden of loved ones, terrible financial burden with this now and still following this can down the road taking fuel tanks to explode the dont explode. Right now in kansas city we are installing better gas systems that are on every single aircraft across the board. We are just pouring money and resources down this whole. Immediately after this crash, the fuel tank explosion would ground all the 747s. Air force one is a 747 but that didnt happen. They grounded 747s and said you got to look at everything in the tank and we are just going to ground the whole fleet, leading edges and these were 200 basics. We found one wire, maintained 737s at the time. It within a conduit on the outside, you would think you would find some mechanical problems. I have yet to see one in all these years. At the end of the investigation they concluded it is unknown origin. We found out from the cia documents, the head of the witness team at the time, david mayer, working with the cia, working 16 months. The ntsb working with the cia, there were people in the ntsb who were problematic. Most of the people, they were doing the right thing. A few people in key positions who werent. Just allowed things to happen. They just emailed me today, you are right, you were right to mention pensions. The word pension, in sicily, guarantee silence, but i worked 38 years as an aircraft controller. They took that away from me, i am finished. It is a great silencer. So many of these people work for defense contracts. If they go public they not only risk their pensions and freedoms and they risk their whole companys connections with the government. There is a lot of lowlevel fear among people who know stuff. Only a handful of bad people involved. Afraid to speak out. The captain of the Coast Guard Boat i do not know about. I will say one angle of the story we talked about is on the night of july 17, 1996, the coast guard the commercial fisherman, private yachtsman, many heard the distinctive ping from the black boxes, the voice recorder, orange boxes, only 120 people, other than the bodies, the first thing that gets picked up, it took a week to retrieve them. During that week they were putting out various stories, it must be damaged, it must be buried. There were actual navy divers finding them. A big orange box, i pick it up, they were innocent. We found them. When they tested them they revealed nothing. And one of the family members was able to bring in an audio expert, the final seconds have been edited out. It is one of those things that is missing. 116 pieces of plane sent to the fbi lab and never seen again. So any things were subtracted. It was covered up, destroyed, the one thing they could not silence were the eyewitnesses and they were the most critical part of this testimony and they are continuing to seek that to this day. Take one more question and we that are rapid up. Are you guys right . Any other questions . [inaudible question] when the fbi was asked to take a second look, 18 months, it was locked in. [inaudible question] [inaudible question] that is what got me started. Four years after the crash i met james and Elizabeth Sanders who came to speak to a group and you are right, sanderss investigative reporter, a 747 manager and pilot working on the investigation, and what happened, sanders was a trainer, and 53 employees were killed in the crash, he trained a lot of them, she was going from one Memorial Service to another, runs in this space, your husband is doing an investigative report. Have him talk to me. Stacy and sanders get together and the first thing stacy tells sanders is there is a coverup going on. They started collaborating to get information out of the investigation into the mainstream and one thing stacy told sanders was the orange residue, one section of the plane. Sanders asked him to scrape off the revenue. It doesnt scrape. So he takes foam rubber. He sends it to sanders, sanders has it tested and goes public with the result. As a result of that, stacy, sanders and Elizabeth Sanders are hounded, finally arrested, elizabeth and james are tried and convicted of conspiracy to steal airplane parts. Not a single person, and the media, raised this as a First Amendment issue. When i read that story, i said maybe i better get involved. I want to thank you all for coming. [applause] i appreciate it. I will say this. If you know anyone with information have them go to my website jack cashill. Com. Appreciate it. Heres a look at the most borrowed books this week at the madison public library, home of the wisconsin book festival. That is a look at this months most borrowed books at