Tom Kovach
Flight 800: the Rosetta jackscrew
More info from "the plane that just won't die"
By Tom Kovach
the background
Several years ago, the Federal government and the "mainstream" news media put forth that TWA Flight 800 exploded in midair because a tiny "random spark" caused fuel vapors in the Center Wing Tank to ignite. The crash occurred on the evening of 17 July 1996. Recently, information has come out that confirms what many of us have thought all along. Flight 800 did not explode because of a "design flaw" that resulted in the so-called random spark in the CWT. Instead, Flight 800 was brought down by a missile attack.
This column will be a short digest of ten years of detailed technical information, related events, and the determined civilian volunteers that have analyzed them. This background is necessary. Much of it has been covered in my previous writings on Flight 800, as well as those of investigative authors James Sanders and Jack Cashill. My hat is off to both of those men, along with others, and always will be.
From the first news of TWA Flight 800's mid-air explosion over the Atlantic Ocean south of Long Island, more than ten years ago, thousands (probably millions) of people have suspected foul play. Hundreds of people became involved in personal quests to find the truth. (Among those are the members of ARAP and FIRO — both organizations were founded for that specific purpose. I joined the latter group in the summer of 1997.) And, a few people are still involved in such quests — most notably retired crash investigator Capt. Ray Lahr, and radar engineer Graeme Sephton.
Civilian volunteers have reviewed multiple volumes of technical data that government investigators and scientists have released, plus other information uncovered by the volunteers themselves. Soon after the crash, evidence surfaced that indicated foul play. (Only three days after the crash, a respected congressman was already publicly discussing a terrorist missile as the cause. Generally, the freshest reports are considered the most accurate — especially when investigators begin to publicly rule out other causes early on.) Then, as some members of the public and the press began to sift through the evidence for themselves, the government began trying to explain away the obvious. First, the FBI tried to discredit the physical evidence. (Eventually, the government's "dog story" was itself discredited from a number of different angles.) The government also tried to discredit the eyewitnesses. (Several of the eyewitnesses have been quite outspoken about their observations. But, the NTSB intentionally excluded them from the public hearing that featured what we refer to as the "CIA cartoon". FIRO did a detailed analysis of witness statements.) The government said that the aircraft exploded, and then pitched upward, causing the witnesses to think that the "zoom-climbing" airliner was a missile. The evidence (including the eyewitness testimony) says that the airliner suddenly and violently pitched upward, and then exploded.
The difference between those two sequences of events is a major factor in understanding the disaster.
Thanks to the determined efforts of James Sanders, news reports came out about the now-famous "red residue" from a missile. (His series of articles in a California newspaper led to his pioneering first book about Flight 800.) Although some portions of the book have not withstood later revelations of evidence, the main thrust of Sanders' pioneering has definitely withstood the test of time. In the courtroom, the Federal prosecutor that convicted James and Elizabeth Sanders told me to my face that, "There really is no statute," for trying to send them to prison. That fact alone should be proof of just how far the government would go to cover up the truth. (Although the official FIRO position has always been to stick only to the objective facts, and avoid speculations about such things as political motivations, my personal opinion is that the government has long ago crossed the threshold that "action proves intent" regarding a cover-up.)
basic aerodynamics
One obstacle to proving the truth about Flight 800 is that engineering data is not "sexy" enough to hold the interest of some readers. And, the aerodynamic principles needed to understand the story are hindered by the same obstacle. At the risk of seeming so basic as to be offensive, some key points need to be mentioned here in order to ensure that Bubba Doublewide can understand the story just as well as Dr. Joe Scientist.
The normal way to change the "pitch" (nose up or down) of an aircraft is actually to move its tail, not its nose. (Moving the nose is the result of moving the tail, not the other way around.) The device that does that is the "elevator," which is part of the "horizontal stabilizer," which is part of the "tail assembly." In like manner, one turns a bass boat to the right by turning its tail to the left with the rudder. (An aircraft also has a rudder, which performs the same left-right function. But, for this presentation, we are much more concerned with the up-down function of the elevator.)
There are two things that can stop an aircraft from continuing to fly. Both are called "stalls." One is an engine stall — the same as if a car's engine stalls. The other is an aerodynamic stall — which is when the air pressure beneath the wings is no longer sufficient to provide lift for the aircraft. The main way to put an aircraft into an aerodynamic stall is to pitch the nose up too high. That reduces forward motion, thus reducing airspeed, and simultaneously blocks airflow from passing over the curved upper surface of the wing. That blockage disrupts the lifting force of the wing.
An interesting parallel for an aerodynamic stall is driving a car beyond the design limits of its tires. As the speed increases, so does heat. As the heat increases, the metal in the wheel rim can expand slightly (even microscopically). When that happens, two things can result. One is that a slight amount of air can escape from the tire. Another is that a balance weight can become loose and fly off the rim. Either one of those events can cause the tire to change shape slightly while driving. That change in shape can cause the car to "shimmy" or "wobble." If the vibration is strong enough, and the speed is high enough, the driver can actually lose control of the car and crash. Similarly, in an aerodynamic stall, the aircraft begins to shudder. If the pilot does not take proper action to quickly restore lifting force, then the aircraft will begin to fall from the sky. And, depending upon the angle of that fall, some stalls become "unrecoverable," and the aircraft will crash into the ground.
In the case of Flight 800, it was impossible for the pilot to take any action to restore lifting force. We will see why as the story unfolds — in split-second slow motion — in my upcoming book by the same title as this column. (When it is finished, it will be available — along with my first book, Slingshot — via my Web site: www.TomKovach.us)
There is another aerodynamic force that needs to be understood in order to realize what happened to Flight 800. That force is called "trim." The term originally comes from sailing ships. The ship captain would "trim" the sails to match such changing conditions as wind gusts, wave swells, course changes, and even weight shifts aboard the ship. This concept transfers into the world of aviation, where wind gusts, "air pockets," and changes in the center of gravity (such as fuel consumption or passengers walking to the restroom) can affect the trim of an airliner. Trim is adjusted by changing the angle of the horizontal stabilizer (the flat part of the tail). The elevator is a movable control surface (often wrongly called a "flap") on the horizontal stabilizer.
In a layman's view, "pitch" is moving the entire aircraft up or down — usually also changing its altitude. By contrast, "trim" is moving the tail assembly up or down slightly with the intent of maintaining stable (usually level) flight. A shorter way to put it is to say that "pitch" is a big change, and "trim" is a tiny change, in the aircraft's up-down "attitude" (the angle of the aircraft in the sky). I'm neither a pilot nor an engineer. But, I have taken the controls of both real aircraft and Phase-I simulators; and, I have worked as a CADD operator in an engineering department. Understanding this difference between pitch and trim is one key to understanding the midair breakup sequence of the Flight 800 disaster.
With these basics of aviation in mind, we come to the "Rosetta Stone" of our story. The key to understanding the Flight 800 disaster is a device called the "horizontal stabilizer pitch-trim jackscrew"
the Rosetta jackscrew
Just as an archaeologist discovered the importance of "the Rosetta Stone" — which was the key to translating Egyptian hieroglyphics into written Greek, and thus into a language that was understood by modern scientists — the author of an anonymous engineering analysis that Jack Cashill has nicknamed The Review has discovered the importance of the horizontal stabilizer pitch-trim jackscrew. While the parallel might seem dry and boring at first glance, it is the one piece of the aircraft that proves the high-speed action events that brought down Flight 800. The existence of this part in the post-crash debris, and its importance to unraveling both the actual events of the crash and the government cover-up, are actually an exciting find. (I've been one of only a handful of people that has followed Flight 800 in any significant detail for most of the last ten years. No other piece of physical evidence has been as telling as this one part from the airliner's tail.) Jack Cashill has written that the downing of Flight 800 is the Rosetta Stone of understanding the political legacy of President Bill Clinton. Flight 800: the Rosetta jackscrew will show that the jackscrew is the Rosetta Stone of understanding the Flight 800 crash.
nagging questions
The answers to certain questions were never answered by the official government "investigation" into the crash of Flight 800. Here are some examples.
If a random spark actually caused the fuel tank to explode, then why had no other 747 ever exploded from that same cause before? (In 29 years of service up that point, the 747 had flown about a million sorties without any evidence of an explosive design flaw in the fuel tank. That particular aircraft, Tail Number N93119, had flown 16,869 cycles.) If jet fuel is not explosive unless it is "atomized" into a mist, then what caused the fuel to mist inside the tank in the first place?
If the aircraft is designed to withstand the difference between inside cabin pressure and outside "rare" air, then why did the aft pressure bulkhead (which is a very strong piece of metal) shatter early in the breakup sequence — even though it is quite far from the CWT and the supposed cause of the breakup? (And, if the aft pressure bulkhead was shattered by the fuel explosion, then how did 200 feet of cabin closer to the fuel tank — including some of the human bodies — manage to remain in recognizable form?) If the airliner went into a "zoom-climb" (as the CIA cartoon purports, in contradiction of numerous eyewitnesses), then how did it remain in flight with a broken jackscrew? (The rear fuselage would've pitched wildly through the sky — like an unbroken colt — if it had remained in powered flight with a broken horizontal stabilizer pitch trim jackscrew. Instead, witnesses said that it simply fell out of the sky, and the government said that it climbed steadily for more than 2,000 feet.)
If the wings broke as a result of the fuel tank explosion (as the government said), then why were the wingtips found in the debris field well before any parts from the fuel tank? Why were the parts from the fuel tank some of the last parts along the fall line? Why were parts from the fuel tank, and surrounding area, found so far to the left of the airliner's ground track? Why was the keel beam (one of the strongest parts of the airliner) broken so early in the breakup sequence?
haunting answers
The debris field tells the story of how the airliner broke apart in midair. The order of the parts along the fall line should, for the most part, tell the order of their departure from the airframe. But, the order of the debris in the Flight 800 field shows a sequence that is at odds with the official government story of the disaster.
The government said that the airliner broke apart because of a fuel explosion, and that the fuel explosion started because of a spark in the fuel tank. But, jet fuel is not explosive — unless it is "misted" in the correct mixture for maximum burn. Jet fuel is specifically designed to be non-explosive, to provide maximum passenger safety in the event of a crash. (That is why airliners often burn, rather than explode, after impact. If they exploded, no one would ever survive.) And, if the fuel had "exploded" (as the government claims), then how would there be any fuel remaining for hundreds of eyewitnesses in three states to see a fireball falling from the sky? And, if the fuel did explode, then what provided the high pressure to form the mist to cause the explosion?
The answer, in a nutshell, is that the airliner was already in the process of buckling before any fuel exploded. (A portion of the fuel did explode. That portion was misted out of the tank by a sudden increase in the pressure inside the tank.) The airliner buckled in the middle — like a diver over a swimming pool, although with less of an angle — because it was in the midst of a wild maneuver that exceeded its design capabilities. The buckling caused increased air pressure in the fuel tank. (The pressure was relieved, and the mist created, when the buckling became so great that the fuel tank bulkhead ruptured.) The wild maneuver was caused by a sudden and severe force against the tail of the airliner. And, that sudden force was caused by the impact of a missile — the first missile!
After ten years, the debris of Flight 800 is still telling its story. Will we listen this time? It seems that Flight 800 just won't die until the truth is told.
Now that the basics have been laid out, the meat of the story will be in the book.
© Tom Kovach
the background
Several years ago, the Federal government and the "mainstream" news media put forth that TWA Flight 800 exploded in midair because a tiny "random spark" caused fuel vapors in the Center Wing Tank to ignite. The crash occurred on the evening of 17 July 1996. Recently, information has come out that confirms what many of us have thought all along. Flight 800 did not explode because of a "design flaw" that resulted in the so-called random spark in the CWT. Instead, Flight 800 was brought down by a missile attack.
This column will be a short digest of ten years of detailed technical information, related events, and the determined civilian volunteers that have analyzed them. This background is necessary. Much of it has been covered in my previous writings on Flight 800, as well as those of investigative authors James Sanders and Jack Cashill. My hat is off to both of those men, along with others, and always will be.
From the first news of TWA Flight 800's mid-air explosion over the Atlantic Ocean south of Long Island, more than ten years ago, thousands (probably millions) of people have suspected foul play. Hundreds of people became involved in personal quests to find the truth. (Among those are the members of ARAP and FIRO — both organizations were founded for that specific purpose. I joined the latter group in the summer of 1997.) And, a few people are still involved in such quests — most notably retired crash investigator Capt. Ray Lahr, and radar engineer Graeme Sephton.
Civilian volunteers have reviewed multiple volumes of technical data that government investigators and scientists have released, plus other information uncovered by the volunteers themselves. Soon after the crash, evidence surfaced that indicated foul play. (Only three days after the crash, a respected congressman was already publicly discussing a terrorist missile as the cause. Generally, the freshest reports are considered the most accurate — especially when investigators begin to publicly rule out other causes early on.) Then, as some members of the public and the press began to sift through the evidence for themselves, the government began trying to explain away the obvious. First, the FBI tried to discredit the physical evidence. (Eventually, the government's "dog story" was itself discredited from a number of different angles.) The government also tried to discredit the eyewitnesses. (Several of the eyewitnesses have been quite outspoken about their observations. But, the NTSB intentionally excluded them from the public hearing that featured what we refer to as the "CIA cartoon". FIRO did a detailed analysis of witness statements.) The government said that the aircraft exploded, and then pitched upward, causing the witnesses to think that the "zoom-climbing" airliner was a missile. The evidence (including the eyewitness testimony) says that the airliner suddenly and violently pitched upward, and then exploded.
The difference between those two sequences of events is a major factor in understanding the disaster.
Thanks to the determined efforts of James Sanders, news reports came out about the now-famous "red residue" from a missile. (His series of articles in a California newspaper led to his pioneering first book about Flight 800.) Although some portions of the book have not withstood later revelations of evidence, the main thrust of Sanders' pioneering has definitely withstood the test of time. In the courtroom, the Federal prosecutor that convicted James and Elizabeth Sanders told me to my face that, "There really is no statute," for trying to send them to prison. That fact alone should be proof of just how far the government would go to cover up the truth. (Although the official FIRO position has always been to stick only to the objective facts, and avoid speculations about such things as political motivations, my personal opinion is that the government has long ago crossed the threshold that "action proves intent" regarding a cover-up.)
basic aerodynamics
One obstacle to proving the truth about Flight 800 is that engineering data is not "sexy" enough to hold the interest of some readers. And, the aerodynamic principles needed to understand the story are hindered by the same obstacle. At the risk of seeming so basic as to be offensive, some key points need to be mentioned here in order to ensure that Bubba Doublewide can understand the story just as well as Dr. Joe Scientist.
The normal way to change the "pitch" (nose up or down) of an aircraft is actually to move its tail, not its nose. (Moving the nose is the result of moving the tail, not the other way around.) The device that does that is the "elevator," which is part of the "horizontal stabilizer," which is part of the "tail assembly." In like manner, one turns a bass boat to the right by turning its tail to the left with the rudder. (An aircraft also has a rudder, which performs the same left-right function. But, for this presentation, we are much more concerned with the up-down function of the elevator.)
There are two things that can stop an aircraft from continuing to fly. Both are called "stalls." One is an engine stall — the same as if a car's engine stalls. The other is an aerodynamic stall — which is when the air pressure beneath the wings is no longer sufficient to provide lift for the aircraft. The main way to put an aircraft into an aerodynamic stall is to pitch the nose up too high. That reduces forward motion, thus reducing airspeed, and simultaneously blocks airflow from passing over the curved upper surface of the wing. That blockage disrupts the lifting force of the wing.
An interesting parallel for an aerodynamic stall is driving a car beyond the design limits of its tires. As the speed increases, so does heat. As the heat increases, the metal in the wheel rim can expand slightly (even microscopically). When that happens, two things can result. One is that a slight amount of air can escape from the tire. Another is that a balance weight can become loose and fly off the rim. Either one of those events can cause the tire to change shape slightly while driving. That change in shape can cause the car to "shimmy" or "wobble." If the vibration is strong enough, and the speed is high enough, the driver can actually lose control of the car and crash. Similarly, in an aerodynamic stall, the aircraft begins to shudder. If the pilot does not take proper action to quickly restore lifting force, then the aircraft will begin to fall from the sky. And, depending upon the angle of that fall, some stalls become "unrecoverable," and the aircraft will crash into the ground.
In the case of Flight 800, it was impossible for the pilot to take any action to restore lifting force. We will see why as the story unfolds — in split-second slow motion — in my upcoming book by the same title as this column. (When it is finished, it will be available — along with my first book, Slingshot — via my Web site: www.TomKovach.us)
There is another aerodynamic force that needs to be understood in order to realize what happened to Flight 800. That force is called "trim." The term originally comes from sailing ships. The ship captain would "trim" the sails to match such changing conditions as wind gusts, wave swells, course changes, and even weight shifts aboard the ship. This concept transfers into the world of aviation, where wind gusts, "air pockets," and changes in the center of gravity (such as fuel consumption or passengers walking to the restroom) can affect the trim of an airliner. Trim is adjusted by changing the angle of the horizontal stabilizer (the flat part of the tail). The elevator is a movable control surface (often wrongly called a "flap") on the horizontal stabilizer.
In a layman's view, "pitch" is moving the entire aircraft up or down — usually also changing its altitude. By contrast, "trim" is moving the tail assembly up or down slightly with the intent of maintaining stable (usually level) flight. A shorter way to put it is to say that "pitch" is a big change, and "trim" is a tiny change, in the aircraft's up-down "attitude" (the angle of the aircraft in the sky). I'm neither a pilot nor an engineer. But, I have taken the controls of both real aircraft and Phase-I simulators; and, I have worked as a CADD operator in an engineering department. Understanding this difference between pitch and trim is one key to understanding the midair breakup sequence of the Flight 800 disaster.
With these basics of aviation in mind, we come to the "Rosetta Stone" of our story. The key to understanding the Flight 800 disaster is a device called the "horizontal stabilizer pitch-trim jackscrew"
the Rosetta jackscrew
Just as an archaeologist discovered the importance of "the Rosetta Stone" — which was the key to translating Egyptian hieroglyphics into written Greek, and thus into a language that was understood by modern scientists — the author of an anonymous engineering analysis that Jack Cashill has nicknamed The Review has discovered the importance of the horizontal stabilizer pitch-trim jackscrew. While the parallel might seem dry and boring at first glance, it is the one piece of the aircraft that proves the high-speed action events that brought down Flight 800. The existence of this part in the post-crash debris, and its importance to unraveling both the actual events of the crash and the government cover-up, are actually an exciting find. (I've been one of only a handful of people that has followed Flight 800 in any significant detail for most of the last ten years. No other piece of physical evidence has been as telling as this one part from the airliner's tail.) Jack Cashill has written that the downing of Flight 800 is the Rosetta Stone of understanding the political legacy of President Bill Clinton. Flight 800: the Rosetta jackscrew will show that the jackscrew is the Rosetta Stone of understanding the Flight 800 crash.
nagging questions
The answers to certain questions were never answered by the official government "investigation" into the crash of Flight 800. Here are some examples.
If a random spark actually caused the fuel tank to explode, then why had no other 747 ever exploded from that same cause before? (In 29 years of service up that point, the 747 had flown about a million sorties without any evidence of an explosive design flaw in the fuel tank. That particular aircraft, Tail Number N93119, had flown 16,869 cycles.) If jet fuel is not explosive unless it is "atomized" into a mist, then what caused the fuel to mist inside the tank in the first place?
If the aircraft is designed to withstand the difference between inside cabin pressure and outside "rare" air, then why did the aft pressure bulkhead (which is a very strong piece of metal) shatter early in the breakup sequence — even though it is quite far from the CWT and the supposed cause of the breakup? (And, if the aft pressure bulkhead was shattered by the fuel explosion, then how did 200 feet of cabin closer to the fuel tank — including some of the human bodies — manage to remain in recognizable form?) If the airliner went into a "zoom-climb" (as the CIA cartoon purports, in contradiction of numerous eyewitnesses), then how did it remain in flight with a broken jackscrew? (The rear fuselage would've pitched wildly through the sky — like an unbroken colt — if it had remained in powered flight with a broken horizontal stabilizer pitch trim jackscrew. Instead, witnesses said that it simply fell out of the sky, and the government said that it climbed steadily for more than 2,000 feet.)
If the wings broke as a result of the fuel tank explosion (as the government said), then why were the wingtips found in the debris field well before any parts from the fuel tank? Why were the parts from the fuel tank some of the last parts along the fall line? Why were parts from the fuel tank, and surrounding area, found so far to the left of the airliner's ground track? Why was the keel beam (one of the strongest parts of the airliner) broken so early in the breakup sequence?
haunting answers
The debris field tells the story of how the airliner broke apart in midair. The order of the parts along the fall line should, for the most part, tell the order of their departure from the airframe. But, the order of the debris in the Flight 800 field shows a sequence that is at odds with the official government story of the disaster.
The government said that the airliner broke apart because of a fuel explosion, and that the fuel explosion started because of a spark in the fuel tank. But, jet fuel is not explosive — unless it is "misted" in the correct mixture for maximum burn. Jet fuel is specifically designed to be non-explosive, to provide maximum passenger safety in the event of a crash. (That is why airliners often burn, rather than explode, after impact. If they exploded, no one would ever survive.) And, if the fuel had "exploded" (as the government claims), then how would there be any fuel remaining for hundreds of eyewitnesses in three states to see a fireball falling from the sky? And, if the fuel did explode, then what provided the high pressure to form the mist to cause the explosion?
The answer, in a nutshell, is that the airliner was already in the process of buckling before any fuel exploded. (A portion of the fuel did explode. That portion was misted out of the tank by a sudden increase in the pressure inside the tank.) The airliner buckled in the middle — like a diver over a swimming pool, although with less of an angle — because it was in the midst of a wild maneuver that exceeded its design capabilities. The buckling caused increased air pressure in the fuel tank. (The pressure was relieved, and the mist created, when the buckling became so great that the fuel tank bulkhead ruptured.) The wild maneuver was caused by a sudden and severe force against the tail of the airliner. And, that sudden force was caused by the impact of a missile — the first missile!
After ten years, the debris of Flight 800 is still telling its story. Will we listen this time? It seems that Flight 800 just won't die until the truth is told.
Now that the basics have been laid out, the meat of the story will be in the book.
© Tom Kovach
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