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Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Sept. 19, 1996
issue of Workers World newspaper
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Questions about TWA Flight 800:

Did "friendly fire" bring it down

By Gary Wilson

Did "friendly fire" bring down TWA Flight 800? That question keeps coming back, despite official denials by the Pentagon.

Did an increase in military exercises lead to this tragic accident? War preparations seem to be escalating though no war has been declared. There have been several reports of fatal military accidents during the last year, as the Pentagon has geared up its forces.

The charge that TWA Flight 800 was brought down by a missile fired by U.S. Navy ships has been heard since the time of the crash.

Shortly after the crash, the Jerusalem Post reported on the possibility of a missile. It said that the French Defense Ministry had concluded that only the U.S. military had such a capability.

Hand-held Stinger missiles like those used by CIA-trained counter-revolutionaries in Afghanistan could not cause the kind of destruction suffered by Flight 800. But the U.S. Navy or Army have missiles big enough to do this sort of damage, the Jerusalem Post reported.

Since that time, the question of "friendly fire" downing the TWA jet has been kept alive by TWA workers, airport workers and a lively discussion on the Internet.

Many TWA and airport workers believe a Navy missile did it. They say so-called anti-terrorist measures by the Clinton administration and Congress are political posturing, and they resent the difficulties the new laws impose.

These measures will mean more work for airport employees, more hassles for passengers and blatant police-state-type repression, including invasion-of-privacy security checks on both workers and passengers. And yet there is still no proof a bomb caused the TWA crash or that any bomb has gone through already heavy airport security.

On the Internet, the "friendly fire" theory has produced many credible reports. A popular one is by a "747 captain" who is "a former safety chairman of the Airline Pilots Association." This report has been cited in several news reports and quoted by the Associated Press. The Navy has even had to respond to it.

The 747 pilot says: "TWA Flight 800 was shot down by a U.S. Navy guided missile ship which was in area W-105 about 30 miles from where TWA Flight 800 exploded. W-105 is a warning area off the southeast coast of Long Island and is used by the military for operations including missile firing."

Several Internet discussions have focused on the fact that U.S. military training often involves civilian targets "in order to practice aiming at something live." The U.S. Navy routinely uses planes leaving JFK for practice targets for surface-to-air missile training.

The 747 pilot backs up his assertion of a Navy role by pointing to the fact that "the first announcement [of the crash of Flight 800] came from the Pentagon" and that the Navy "immediately sent a captain who was replaced the very next day by a one-star admiral from Norfolk." The Navy's Aegis-class cruisers are based in Norfolk, Va.

A U.S. Navy Aegis-class cruiser--the USS Vincennes--fired the missile that destroyed an Iranian civilian airplane over the Persian Gulf on July 3, 1988, killing all 290 aboard.

The Navy has confirmed that the Aegis-type cruiser USS Normandy was in area W-105 at the time of the crash of TWA Flight 800, the Associated Press reported Sept. 4.

As if to underscore the fact that such an accident is possible, an American Airlines pilot reported that he sighted a missile off the right wing of his 757 as he flew near NASA and Navy facilities in Virginia on Aug. 29. The Dow Jones News Service reported Sept. 8, "The report fits a scenario that is one of the theories under consideration in the TWA case--that a missile brought down the jumbo jet July 17, killing all 230 people aboard."

Could the Pentagon attempt to cover up such a tragic accident? Consider another passenger jet that was brought down by "friendly fire." On June 27, 1980, an Italian DC-9 exploded over the Mediterranean. At the time, the media blamed a "terrorist bomb." Yet no proof of a bomb was ever found.

Finally, earlier this year--over 15 years after theincident that killed all 81 people on board--Italian military officials revealed what they had believed all along. The passenger airplane was shot down by a U.S. or French aircraft, both of which were chasing a Libyan fighter flying over the Mediterranean at the time.

To this day the Pentagon cites "national security" as its reason for refusing to turn over evidence to an Italian court that is investigating the shootdown.

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