In How the FBI misled the public, Robert Donaldson head of the Associated Retired Aviation Professionals writes:
Nearly 10 years ago, on a warm summer night off the coast of Long Island, hundreds of people saw what they described as "fireworks" or "flares" streaking from the surface and terminating in the explosion of TWA Flight 800 and its subsequent fiery crash. That night, 230 people lost their lives. Many of the witnesses described a squiggly smoke trail with an orange glow, a characteristic of a shoulder-fired missile. Immediate news reports on TV, radio and in print media were that witnesses had seen a missile shoot down Flight 800.
Initially the FBI was open to this possibility and others as well but then asserted that the plane was out of range of shouldered firing missiles.
...the press was told that Flight 800 was out of range of a shoulder-fired missile, otherwise known as a MANPADS, which stands for Man Portable Air Defense System. Further, the press was told that these missiles are heat seekers and would have struck one of the 747s engines, and since no engine was damaged, it could not have been a MANPADS missile. It was also claimed that such a small missile could not have brought down the huge 747. The CIA was then brought in to create a video animation to explain that "It wasn't a missile." This video was shown to the national press and aired on TV nationwide. So, in a little over one year, the press went from "It was a missile" to "it couldn't have been a missile." The transition was complete
However the FBI spent about 6 months dredging the ocean bottom looking for missile parts and formed a team of experts to look into the missile hit possibility.
In mid-August 1996, the FBI missile team received a PowerPoint presentation by military missile experts. This document, which has never been published before, was recently found in the archives of the late Cmdr. William S. Donaldson. It proves, beyond any doubt, that Flight 800 could easily have been shot down by a shoulder-fired missile. Meanwhile, the agency was telling the press just the opposite.
Here is real evidence of a conspiracy to cover-up the missile destruction of TWA 800 but no conspirators seem interested. The ramifications of this cover up probably included our poor airline security leading up to 9/11/2001 and may still put our airplanes as risk to shoulder missile attacks.
Had we known the truth about Flight 800 there would likely have been increased airline security, which may well have prevented 9-11 and would surely have led to electronic countermeasures on all U.S. commercial aircraft. As it stands today, it is only a matter of time before another U.S. airliner is shot down by shoulder-fired missiles
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