FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 15, 2011
Scientist Sues CIA for TWA Flight 800 Crash Documents
Two days before the fifteenth anniversary of the crash of TWA 800 on July 17, 2011, independent investigator Dr. Tom Stalcup filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit in Massachusetts Federal District Court against the CIA for documents related to the CIA's production of a controversial animation pertaining to TWA 800’s demise. Stalcup is seeking internal communications among the CIA team members who produced the animation, as well as all radar and simulation data the team used to create the animation.
The FBI tasked the CIA to produce an animation to explain eyewitness accounts of a rising streak of light seen near TWA Flight 800 moments before it exploded in midair off the coast of Long Island fifteen years ago, on July 17, 1996. Many eyewitnesses thought a missile hit the jetliner. But in its animation, the CIA discredited these eyewitness accounts by showing Flight 800 breaking in half and then climbing sharply, trailing flames. The climbing aircraft, the animation’s narrator said, “may have looked like a missile.”
Dr. Stalcup obtained internal CIA emails showing that the CIA knowingly created a false portrayal of the crash sequence. Contrary to the their claim that TWA Flight 800 climbed sharply, the CIA had access to radar tracking which recorded no such climb. In one email, a CIA agent admits that their animation “could not possible (sic) match the radar data”. In another, an agent admits to disregarding time constraints imposed on the crash sequence by the National Transportation Safety Board, the lead agency in charge of the investigation.
Without the CIA's proposed climbing aircraft, the present official theory for the crash cannot accommodate the rising streak of light that many eyewitnesses claimed they saw rise off the ocean surface and collide with the jetliner. Stalcup hopes to receive more information from the CIA to learn how and why the CIA disregarded the radar evidence and crucial NTSB conclusions.
Contact
Dr. Tom Stalcup
Chairman, Flight 800 Independent Researchers Organization
Sandwich, MA
Flight800.org
774-392-0856