TWA 800

A Missile Shootdown, Not a Malfunction

Michael T. Griffith


At about 8:31 p.m. on July 17, 1996, TWA Flight 800 exploded and crashed into the sea just off the coast of Long Island, New York, killing all 230 people who were on the plane.

Over 100 eyewitnesses saw an object streak upward toward TWA Flight 800, then saw explosions, and then saw the airliner break up and descend in two large balls of fire. Many of them said the object looked like a "flare," "rocket," or "missile," and that smoke trailed behind it. However, government officials rejected the numerous and consistent eyewitness accounts and put forward the theory that a spark in the center fuel tank caused the fuel tank to explode and blew up the airliner. 


Federal analysts claimed that the object that witnesses saw streaking upward in the sky was really the airliner's burning fuselage climbing 1,500 to 3,000 feet after it separated from the nose of the plane. This claim is a physical impossibility and is refuted by the radar data. This claim also ignores the fact that dozens of the witnesses specified that the missile-like object began its climb at ground or sea level, and that they saw the object at least several seconds before they saw the plane explode.


Articles and Documents

Fact Checking

Fact Checking Popular Mechanics

Physical Evidence of a Missile Strike

ARAP Report on TWA 800

Could the TWA 800 Cover-Up Finally Come Undone?

Affidavit of Senior NTSB Investigator Henry (Hank) Hughes

Captain Ray Lahr Article Summarizing Evidence of a Missile Strike

The EMRTC Test and TWA Flight 800: More Evidence Against the NTSB Theory

Petition for Reconsideration to NTSB

Analysis of JFK Primary Tracon Radar

Analysis of the Flight Data Recorder

The Radar Evidence

Evidence of an FBI Missile Search

More articles and documents