Cmdr. William S. Donaldson, III - USN, Ret.

Aviation Mishap Analyst

P.O. Box 90, Clements, Maryland 20624
Web site: twa800.com

April 5, 1999

Mr. Philip M. Condit

The Boeing Company
P.O. Box 3707, Mail Code 10-10
Seattle, WA 98124-2207

Mr. Gerald L. Gitner

Trans World Airlines
One City Center
515 North Sixth St.
St. Louis, MO 63101

Re: The unexplained loss of TWA Flight 800

Gentlemen,

Over the last four months our investigation into the loss of TWA Flight 800 has produced
information far surpassing that contained in our July 20, 1998 Interim Report to Congress.
We can now prove, before a jury or other independent fact-finding body, that the aircraft was
shot down. We can also explain why the Administration covered it up and expose some of
the methods they employed to do so.

Your corporations are being scapegoated and defrauded by Administration officials because,
had the truth about this incident been reported before November of 1996, it could have
derailed the reelection of Clinton/Gore. Exposed now, it could send guilty parties to jail for
Misprision of Felony Homicide.

We can provide your attorney's with witnesses, documents, or reference material that will
support the following text:

White House knowledge of a threat prior to the loss of TWA Flight 800
1. The Administration knew that in 1996, surrogates from rogue states had access to
MANPADS (Man Portable Air Defense Systems) or shoulder-fired missiles in mid-
eastern weapons bazaars. $5,000 would acquire the least capable model, the Russian SA-
7. $50,000 would buy the most capable, the Chinese Vanguard, a deadly new missile
upgraded from US Stinger technology transferred to the Chinese in the early 90's.

Page 1
 Superior to the Stinger, this missile has a much longer range. The Administration also
knew Iran had a limited number of US Stinger missiles in inventory.
2. The Administration was aware that, worldwide, MANPADS missiles had already claimed
26 civil transport aircraft and was only a matter of time before a U.S. Flag carrier would
be targeted and hit. They knew the Administration had dodged a bullet in 1994 when
Maryland State Police found a fully armed French Mistral MANPADS missile ready to
fire on its tripod directly under a busy northeastern air route.
3. In response to sanctions unilaterally levied against Iran by Mr. Clinton in 1995, Iranian
surrogate's car bombed US troops in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and later smuggled
MANPADS missiles into the US from across the Canadian border. Iranian officials
warned the Administration that they considered enactment of the Iran/Libya Sanctions Act
tantamount to an act of war!
4. When Mr. Clinton signed the Iran, Libya Sanctions Act of 1996, a decision was made by
the Iranian Supreme Council to approve attacks on major American targets. Terrorist
surrogate groups from nine countries were summoned to Tehran to meet with Iranian
officials in June of 1996. Later that month, a huge truck bomb was deployed against the
US Air Force barracks complex at Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia. Three weeks later,
TWA Flight 800 was shot down only hours after an explicit warning of an attack was
received in London and Washington that taunted the President.
5. The White House, the CIA and the FBI were aware of the threat and they knew preventing
that attack was their primary responsibility.
6. We can show the Administration anticipated incorrectly that, if the missiles were used,
they would be targeted against Olympic air traffic landing or taking off in the Atlanta
area.
7. We can provide testimony that immediately after Flight 800 was shot down, Mr. Clinton
called an FBI command post supporting the Olympics and informed them Flight 800 was
downed with shoulder-fired missiles.
8. The White House, the CIA and the FBI political leadership have waged an unrelenting
disinformation campaign from the onset. This has ranged from the White House
spokesman stating, "Anyone in government that says this was a missile only has half a
brain", and to the CIA cartoon that libeled hundreds of eyewitnesses.

Witnesses or "Untouchables"?
1. The day after Flight 800 was shot down, the Justice Department, helped by 1,000 FBI
agents, began the process of converting hundreds of witnesses into the first American
"untouchable cast". The political leadership of the NTSB aborted its mission in one
surrender of its responsibilities after another. When the Justice Department illegally
ordered the NTSB crash investigators to have no contact with witnesses or their
statements, and the NTSB complied, the investigation was over, the cover-up and
Misprision of Felony Homicide had begun.

Page 2
2. At the NTSB Public Hearing in December of 1997, the word "witnesses" was not even
mentioned. Before and since, they have been ridiculed, slandered and liabled in official
videotapes and statements made by government spokesmen.
3. On March 15, 1999 the derailment of the Spirit of New Orleans after she hit a steel truck
at a railroad crossing in Bourbonnaise IL, prompted a media wide call for witnesses by
NTSB officials. It seems a witness was needed to prove the truck had driven around the
safety gate. Apparently, investigations are much simpler and witnesses more creditable
for the NTSB when there is no White House interest.
4. We have access to 107 witnesses on 4 aircraft, 19 boats, and 31 locations ashore. They
were located in a 360° circle around the missile engagement. Their live testimony alone
will prove the aircraft was shot down. This is why the Justice Department has kept air
crash investigators away from witnesses for 2 1/2 years and also one reason they are
conducting a malicious show-trial prosecution of author and outside investigator James
Sanders and his wife. It's hard to interview witnesses from a Federal prison. The FBI
failed to identify and interview 17 of these people. Among these 17 are witnesses on a
boat who may have seen the escaping shooter.

Justice Department suppression of Missile Evidence

1. It appears, aggressive FBI missile-team field agents eventually solved the problem as to
the cause of the crash, but had no support in the FBI leadership. In fact, the FBI
leadership seems to have deliberately withheld vital information from their own agents.
2. George Gabrial, the senior FBI Agent on Long Island and personal friend of Mr.
Kalstrom, was a close witness on his boat. We can provide witnesses who overheard him
say he believed what he observed was a missile. FBI missile-team members did not know
he was a witness until we informed them.
3. The FBI has videotape that was shown to military experts of a missile shot from off the
coast of Long Island that failed to engage a target. This first attempt was nearly
coincidental to the Khobar Towers attack 3 weeks before Flight 800’s loss.
4. By late September, 1996, FBI missile-team members had established informal liaison with
military missile guidance experts. By that time the FBI knew witnesses at sea on all sides
were pointing to a missile launch a few miles southeast of Flight 800's explosion point.
What they observed fit the profile of a MANPADS missile engagement.
5. In December 1996, FBI missile team members told military experts that two separate
commercial fishermen dredged up and threw back a MANPADS first stage, the missile
ejector-motor can. The ejector motor, about the size of a Coke can, fires in the tube,
ejecting the missile, then drops in the water when the missile 2nd stage booster ignites.
6. The fishing vessel Alpha Omega recovered one of these motor cans in early October,
1996, while trawling for scallops about 2 nautical miles from Flight 800's explosion point.
The crewman, not realizing the importance of his find, noted the two distinctive ignition
wires attached to the can before he threw it overboard.
7. Despite overwhelming forensic evidence of a weapon impact in the number 2 main tank
of the left wing and witness testimony of a missile attack, the Administration would not

Page 3
 fund military missile experts or allow the FBI to trawl for missile parts until after the
November 1996 elections.
8. The Alpha Omega was one of five trawlers contracted by the Navy Supervisor of Salvage
for trawler operations. When FBI agents finally came aboard in November 1996 to begin
trawling and brought pictures of three objects they were looking for, it was that point the
crewman told them they were too late, he had already found and discarded an ejector can!
9. Responding to the previous findings, Special Agents Bongardt and Otto took a live ejector
motor can from a Stinger missile aboard all the trawlers under contract, showing it to
captain and crew.
10. Interrogated for hours, the Alpha Omega crewman insisted the can he found had the same
features, ignition wires, etc. but was somehow different.
11. That interrogation should have prompted the FBI leadership to suspect they may have
been dealing with the longer-range Chinese Vanguard or Russian SA16/18 missiles.
12. It is clear from the Supervisor of Salvage's operational trawling maps depicting "missile
firing zones" and the FBI Trawling Operations Manual in our possession, that the Justice
Department's intent was to find and hide from "other Interested Parties", missile ejector
cans, missile battery cooling units and the last Flight 800 Scavenge Pump the NTSB was
trying to blame as a source of a spark.
13. The $ 5 million trawling operation was funded by NTSB, contracted to civilian scallop
boats through the Navy Supervisor of Salvage from 4 November 1996 until it was
suddenly terminated on 30 April 1997, yet the trawlers were manned 24 hours a day by
teams of FBI agents. Up until 30 April 1997 the scallop boat captains had been told the
operation would continue indefinitely for months or even years. FBI agents got the word
via cell phone to shut down the operations. On two of the boats, when the captains
refused to stop until the Navy contractor on board told them to, the agents threatened force
to make the captains shut down. The first agent backed down when the captain told him
he would go anywhere at gunpoint, but the agent could expect to be charged with piracy
on the high seas when they got ashore. The second agent backed down when the captain
informed him that he was armed also and he was the captain and they weren't going
anywhere!
14. The FBI's trawling plan was flawed in the following ways.
a. The missile firing zones depicted on the charts were 1.75 NM and 2.7 NM radius
circles. These distances are accurate for two types of MANPADS but the Chinese
Vanguard exceeds those ranges.
b. They used the last transponder response from the aircraft as the aircraft explosion
point. The aircraft was travelling east over 2,900 feet between each transponder
response. A two-second error would move the trawling off by 1/4 mile.
c. They failed to notice, until December 1996, a recorded surface radar contact only 2.9
NM from Flight 800 when it exploded!
d. They failed to identify that boat!

Page 4
 e. They failed to adjust the trawling lines to cover that boat's surface track while it was in
range of TWA Flight 800.
15. The FBI told military experts they had a witness who perfectly described a MANPADS
engagement terminating in an impact on Flight 800’s left wing root. It includes boost;
sustainer-motor burn and total missile fly-out time typical of the US Stinger and its copies.
16. Military thermal imaging of B747-100’s provided to the FBI by China Lake Naval Air
Weapons Facility, indicate a MANPADS missile fired from a low forward quarter would
guide toward the three air pack exhaust ports, directly under the center wing tank and not,
as publicly stated for the engine nacelles. See attached thermal imaging.
17. Military computer modeling of the TWA 800 engagement, using Stinger data, shows the
missile’s velocity would degrade to 400 meters per second as it climbed through 13,700 ft.
This would cause the circular error probability (CEP) to expand to 20 ft. or more, allowing
an impact almost anywhere on the aircraft.
18. Stinger guidance technology provides a last instant steer-forward command to avoid a
miss by flying through an engine exhaust plume. Such a command would explain a
missile, fired from in front, steering for the air pack exhausts under the center wing,
impacting forward on the left wing root leading edge.
19. The Stinger, for example, has a two-pound warhead with three fusing options, contact,
penetration and time-out.
20. Using stinger missile fly-out data provided to the FBI by military experts, the combined
velocity of missile body and aircraft at impact would be 1950 ft/sec.
21. If the cockpit voice recorder hasn't been tampered with, an audio laboratory should be
able to discern this velocity through its analysis of recorded frequencies. This may be
why the NTSB has refused to allow the Cockpit Voice Recorder group to convene and
study the data generated from the Bruntingthorpe tests done in England.
22. E = ½ MV2 would predict kinetic energy available at impact of over 1.2 million foot
pounds.
23. The kinetic energy from a missile body entering the number two main, ¾ full of fuel, at
mach 1.8 would cause the tank to burst from hydraulic overpressurization.
24. Fused for penetration, the two-pound high explosive warhead, bursting in the fuel could
impart an additional 200-PSI spike of hydraulic ram overpressure.
25. Jet fuel is over 700 times the density of air. A MANPADS missile warhead’s fragments
would be stopped in a few feet of fuel, negating high velocity fragment damage to aircraft
components. Mr. Kalstrom’s public statements repeatedly used the lack of high velocity
fragment damage as an excuse to ignore witnesses and shutdown the investigation.
26. The Navy China Lake missile impact “Quick Look Engineering Study” identified 4
criteria for expected damage if a shoulder fired missile hit a 747-100 inboard main fuel
tank. All four are caused by hydraulic over pressurization of fuel tanks. All four are in
evidence on the left wing. None of these criteria have ever been seen in previous air
crashes.

Page 5
27. The China Lake report’s first two recommendations were to detonate shoulder-fired
missile warheads in fuel tanks to determine if the fragments would be trapped and to do
live firing of these missiles at inboard main tanks to compare to left wing damage on
Flight 800.
28. Mr. Kalstrom ignored all seven recommendations; cherry picked statements out of the
China Lake report and used them out of context in the media to argue the aircraft was not
shot down.
29. When Mr. Kalstrom was faced with having to take action on the China Lake report he
chose to shut down the investigation.
30. At the time the FBI investigation was prematurely shut down in November of 1997, the
FBI had failed to identify a fast moving boat captured on radar only 2.9 nautical miles
from Flight 800 when it exploded. Mr. Schirilo, who replaced Mr. Kalstrom, admitted that
fact in a letter to Congressman Traficant.
31. After his retirement, Mr. Kalstrom was taped stating the boat captured on radar was really
a helicopter. Considering the radar target was non-transponder and was tracked on the
surface at speed below 36 knots for 35 minutes prior to disappearing over the horizon,
even FBI agents have acknowledged Mr. Kalstrom’s excuse is nonsense.
32. Witnesses afloat and ashore observed a six second missile burn (Stinger rocket burn is 6 ½
seconds) coming from the near vicinity of the unidentified boat.
33. Senior Justice Department officials need to be compelled to answer under oath why
testing essential to determine if Flight 800 was brought down by a shoulder fired missile
was not funded and why they ignored the forensic evidence, military experts, witnesses
and their own FBI field agents.

The search for the Black Boxes

1. Discovery of the plight of the Flight Data Recorder and Cockpit Voice Recorder and their
two Ducane pingers, after water entry, may be the key to unlocking the cover-up. We can
show a Grand Jury how Mr. Clinton personally involved himself.
2. The NTSB is extremely sensitive to the subject of Black Boxes. They opened the boxes
without any investigators from the Interested Parties present. They refused to allow
TWA's investigator to listen to the voice recorder more than once.
3. The Voice Recorder has a "sound like damaged tape" precisely seven seconds prior to its
end. Seven seconds prior to missile impact would be coincidental to MANPADS booster
ignition. A visually bright event that could be seen by the First Officer.
4. Dr. Loeb has refused to release Addendum number two to the Flight Data Recorder
Analysis that was written to rebut our interpretation of the last data line. The NTSB even
refuses to let the Voice Recorder Analysis group reconvene!
5. The Administration's explanation of the circumstances under which the USS Grasp"
divers found the Digital Flight Data Recorder and the Cockpit Voice Recorder is highly
questionable.

Page 6
6. According to divers we interviewed and the Navy Supervisor of Salvage Report, Navy
divers from the USS Grasp found the recorders during Dive #2 and Dive #3 on the
evening of 23 July 1996. The Administration maintains these same divers found them
more than 24 hours later at 2330 hours on 24 July 1996. East coast TV news coverage
ends at 23:30.
7. The most probable motive for this deception was to ensure investigators, who are Parties
to the Investigation, were not witnesses when NTSB/FBI officials were alleged to have
first opened the boxes in Washington during the early morning hours of 25 July 1996.
8. The boxes should have been found in the aircraft tail cone section, or within its debris.
Instead, divers from the Grasp found each box 30 feet apart on a hard sand bottom, devoid
of any attached debris and neither Ducane Pinger was operating. They appeared just as
they would if dropped overboard from a boat!
9. Somehow both Ducane Systems fixed themselves while in FBI custody. They were found
to be fault-free in laboratory test days later.
10. The small cylindrical Ducane Pingers are mounted on the narrow front face of each
oblong rectangular box. They are protected from damage because they are bolted firmly
to the inside angle of a short piece of angle iron. Because of their shape, the probability of
either free falling box landing on the bottom with the pinger stuck in the sand, would be
akin to a free falling domino landing on it's end and remaining standing in that position.
11. The only way Ducane Pingers can be silenced under water without evidence of damage is
by partly unscrewing the battery connection.
12. The probability of both undamaged Ducane Pingers failing simultaneously in a shallow
open ocean environment, on top of a hard sand bottom, approaches that of a spontaneous
aviation kerosene explosion in an ignition-free Boeing 747-100 fuel tank.
13. We consider the fact the NTSB has remained mute about these alleged Ducane failures is
Prima Facie evidence of either abject incompetence on the part of the NTSB who should
have opened an inquiry into the cause, or proof of a cover-up of NTSB misconduct.
14. Weeks Marine, Inc. was verbally contracted by both the Coast Guard and FAA officials
the night of the crash to position for salvage operations. They were on site the next
morning with the best salvage equipment available in the Atlantic. It was superior to
Navy assets, but Weeks Marine was stood down by the NTSB. It would be five more
days before Navy divers would be on scene to recover recorders, bodies, etc! Why the
forced wait?
15. Holding Weeks Marine, Inc. to standby while ordering Navy assets to respond from far
away points deliberately condemned victims trapped in bottom wreckage to five
additional days of ravage by natural elements. This grossly compounded the grief of the
families and put at risk the ability of medical examiners to identify all remains. The
White House was responsible for this order.
16. Circumstantial evidence indicates the Administration, knowing the aircraft to be shot
down, may have ordered a covert recovery, laboratory examination and reinsertion of the
recorders to ensure the aircrew did not describe the attack on audio tape. Scuba divers
could have recovered the recorders on the afternoon of 18 July and dropped them back

Page 7
 overboard after 10 am 22 July, before the USS Grasp and Navy divers were on scene.
During that period of time NOAA research vessel Rude and the motor vessel Pirouette
were simultaneously sent 5 miles off the main debris field on a "wild goose chase" by the
NTSB. Both ships had been mapping that field with side scan sonar!
17. Properly done, a scuba team equipped with a Ducane locator amplifier tube, held over the
side, could position a small boat directly over active Pingers, dive and recover the boxes
in a single effort. Active pingers can be detected by divers300 yards away.
18. We have a witness that has passed a polygraph test and has provided a sworn affidavit that
a member of the NTSB leadership told him the recorders were found and examined by 20
July. The Coast Guard told both TWA maintenance and Congressman Forbes that the
recorders were found on 18 July. The next day, 19 July, the Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence was told the aircraft was shot down by terrorists. Senators Hatch and
D'Amato made public statements to the same effect.
19. White House, NTSB and Justice Department officials need to be compelled to explain
these events and their actions under oath. We also have other individuals who have asked
to remain anonymous who should be questioned under oath.
20. Despite a steep learning curve and the best efforts of some if its most aggressive field
agents, FBI leadership has demonstrated itself to be functionally illiterate in the critical
areas of; military weapons and tactics, radar interpretation and air crash investigation.
The fact the White House failed to immediately assign appropriate elements of the
Department of Defense as lead investigators in the missile inquiry is inculpatory.
21. Gentlemen, we have the "FBI Trawler Operations Manual" and Operations Order as well
as other documents left behind aboard a contract boat by FBI agents. If found, the Justice
Department intended to hide from your companies; the last fuel scavenge pump, a missile
ejector can and the missile battery cooling unit!

TWA Flight 800 was the 27th civil aircraft shot down worldwide by shoulder fired missiles.
The Administration’s actions have greatly increased the danger of a recurrence, not only
because of the deception of this case but because administration policy deliberately fails to
link any terrorist act to the government of the Sponsor State. This provides political cover for
the Administration's lack of action and sanctuary to deadly enemies.
I will point out the coincidence of the Clinton Administration's pro Arab, anti Israeli policy
shift and the arrival on our shores of a creditable anti-aircraft threat under the control of rogue
states. In 1994, the Maryland State Police found a fully armed French MANPADS missile,
the Mistral, ready to fire on its tripod, directly under a heavily used air corridor near
Westminster Maryland.
Our research also found U.S. Stinger technology transferred to China in the early 90’s
enabling them to produce the Vanguard, a quality shoulder fired Chinese missile. It was
deployed first in 1996. If past history is an indicator, the China / Iran weapons transfer link
bodes ill for future air commerce.

In a worse case scenario, absent a respected American Commander-in-Chief, Iran’s Supreme

Council, or other rogue state, could successfully shutdown or disrupt major traffic hubs

Page 8
worldwide by activating surrogate cells armed with Vanguard. If they can shoot down one,
why not a half dozen on a single day?

Gentlemen, the time to act is now, regardless of any arrangements you may or may not have
had to accept. Once the American people understand the truth, your corporations will be
indemnified against any further political extortion from this administration.

We would ask, in the interest of long term air safety, that you take an aggressive and public
pro-active stance. Challenge the Administration; educate the media and the electorate.
Severance from a politicized and fraudulent Federal investigation is no penalty and
maintenance of the status quo is certainly no prize.

Sincerely,

William S. Donaldson

cc:

The Honorable Slade Gordon Col. Sommeres

Unites States Senate Air Attaché’, Embassy of France

The Honorable Orin Hatch Gen. Bernardis

Unites States Senate Air Attaché’, Embassy of Italy

The Honorable George Boinovitch Gen. Avi Barber

Unites States Senate Air Attaché, Embassy of Israel

The Honorable John J. Duncan, Jr. Adm. Jay Johnson

U. S. House of Representatives Chief of Naval Operations

The Honorable Henry Hyde Adm. G. W. Prueher

U. S. House of Representatives Commander in Chief, Pacific

The Honorable Porter Goss Vadm. W. J. Fallon

U. S. House of Representatives Commander, Second Fleet

Judge Kenneth W. Starr Vadm. H. E. Browne

Independent Counsel USDJ Commander, Third Fleet

District Attorney James M. Catterson, Jr. Directors

Suffolk County Office of the District The Families of TWA Flight 800
Attorney P.O. Box 1061, Clifton Park, NY 12065

Page 9
Air Pack Exhaust Vents under center fuel tank