ENN DAILY REPORT
Exclusive to EmergencyNet NEWS Service
Tuesday, July 23, 1996
Vol. 2 - 205
HOW A MISSILE MIGHT HAVE BROUGHT DOWN TWA FLT 800
By: Ron Lewis
CHIEF MILITARY & AVIATION ANALYST
THE INTELLIGYST GROUP
Information just received indicates the FBI is enhancing its search for boat operators in the area of the TWA 747
downing on 17 July 96 near Long Island, New York. This would imply that they may believe strongly in the
likelihood that a surface- to-air missile downed the jet. It may also mean nothing more than that they are trying to
cover all bases in the investigation, which is wise at this point.
If this incident was the result of a missile attack, there are some interesting aspects of the wreckage and the nature of
the 747 that would possibly fit such a scenario.
1) Wreckage of the tail section shows no burns or soot, indicating it separated early in the event. A photo of the
lower section of the vertical stabilizer does show, however a crease in the leading edge and numerous small chips
and dings in the surface paint (black & white photo precludes examination of white undercoat or bare metal in red
surface) that seem to splay backward and upward. This is similar to the type of damage seen in photos of aircraft
struck by small, shoulder-fired, IR-guided surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) of the SA-7/14/16/18
GRAIL/GREMLIN/GIMLET/GROUSE and FIM-92 Stinger types.
2) The left wingtip, including the area which should have the extended range fuel tank, shows no evidence of fire as
well. If the engines on the left side had been hit, the fuel tank would likely have suffered a fire before the tail
separated. There is no evidence this occurred.
3) Infrared-guided (popularly described as heat-seeking) missiles home in on hot metal and exhaust gases from
engines, and the 747 has four main engines, two on each wing. However, most people do not realize that there is a
smaller jet engine housed in the rear of the fuselage tail section, with an exhaust port at the very tip. This small turbine
engine is the Auxiliary Power Unit or APU.
4) Of the many missiles listed above, only the SA-14 GREMLIN/ SA-16 GIMLET/ SA-18 GROUSE are likely to
have had the range and altitude capability to reach the altitude the 747 was traveling at the time it was lost, with the
SA-18 having the best chance, but any of them could have conceivably been the weapon, assuming that a SAM was
involved.
5) If an IR SAM were used, wouldn't it head for the main engines? Yes, but the hot effluent from four engines, as
well as the heat from the APU port would trail behind the target and guide the missile toward the aircraft center. The
APU is not likely to have been operating, as it provides ground power, but the aircraft was caught on the ground for
an extended period of time, with the APU running virtually the entire time. It would have had only something near 30
minutes to cool down before the incident and is likely to have still been emanating IR energy.
6) A SAM fired in this scenario would have to have been mounted on or fired from a boat or other platform out on
the water. Spetsnaz special forces have been known be equipped with a remote-controlled launcher which responds
to certain levels of jet noise. Is it possible that a platform positioned directly under an aircraft flight path might have
launched such a missile? Is it also possible that this so-called platform might be designed to self-destruct to hide
evidence, or could be under the debris of a crashing jet? Hard to tell but not too impossible to consider. It is
interesting that there seems to have been no concern over any boats lost at sea that night, despite the fact that
numerous boats were reported in the area and could have been victims of the crash debris. The FBI is reportedly
looking for small boats from Long Island but perhaps the search should be widened to include not only docks in the
northeast United States but others coming from further north or south. If this was the method of attack, the boat
would probably be large enough to hide the backblast and flare of initial launch in a hold or cabin space below deck.
The perpetrators would also want a vessel large enough and fast enough to be ocean-going and capable of running
from pursuit craft.
7) My preliminary research of photos of the retrieved wreckage indicates that the tail section separated early in the
event. My first assumption is that a bomb on board the aircraft, either in the rear lavatory or possibly in the rear
cargo hold, detonated, fatally weakening the rear fuselage and blowing the tail off. Structural failure of this kind,
particularly with some of the blast vented out through the exit doors on either side of the rear fuselage, could cause
severe structural collapse without venting bomb fragments or residue into the bodies of victims seated forward of the
rear lavatory. The explosive decompression which would result from this scenario would blow shoes and other
clothing off of the victims and, indeed, we have reports of several bodies found nude and virtually all without shoes.
8) A small IR-guided missile would damage or destroy an engine but the hot fragments would likely ignite an
immediate fireball. This is not reported to have happened until the aircraft split into large chunks. A hit on one of the
four engines (a 747 is capable of flying with only two engines) would not disable communications and the pilots
would likely have enough time to issue a call for help, announce an emergency, etc. Removal of the tail section,
however, would cut links to the VOR radio antenna mounted atop the vertical stabilizer.
9) But IR missiles go after IR energy, common associated with heat. Why wouldn't it go after one of the engines? It
would, but if it was approaching from the rear, it would encounter a large volume of hot gas trailing behind the
aircraft. This would be the first thing to home in on, and it would likely be concentrated in the slipstream behind the
tail. The next thing the missile seeker might focus on is the hot metal of the just-operated APU exhaust, so it probably
would home in on the CENTER of the aircraft. At this point, however, it would now likely be close enough to pick
up the much greater IR energy emanating from the exhausts of the main engines. If homed in on the centerline of the
aircraft and equally influenced by two engines on either side, the missile might not have been able to discriminate
between the two similar sources and "decide" on a course before its own self-destruct mechanism came into play and
detonated the missile toward the rear fuselage. Fragments detonated by the "grazing fuse" (one of two, the other
being a contact fuse) would be likely to travel in a 360-degree sphere. It is unlikely that any of these fragments would
penetrate deeply enough through the lower fuselage to impact any bodies and leave telltale signs of blast fragments,
burn marks or chemical residue. This may be one reason why investigators are so puzzled by the condition of the
bodies recovered thus far.
10) One of the flap track fairings has a hole punched into it from the bottom. This is WELL aft of the engines,
meaning that something punched through the fairing but it is not likely to have been fragments of a disabled engine. It
is also possible that this damage is post-event damage due to contact with other wreckage, but the type of damage
appears to be something other than post-event damage.
11) In addition to the nicks and dings in the paint of the tail pieces recovered, the left wingtip has a revealing gash, as
though something cut through the tip. This could, of course, be post-event damage related to contact with other
debris, but it may bear closer examination, to determine whether or not something sliced through it in the air.
Could a missile have detonated below, above, or off to one side of the aircraft, disabling the wing, damaging the tail,
or compromising the fuselage integrity? There is simply not enough evidence on which to base an informed opinion at
this point.
In fact, all of the above information is hypothetical and should be considered very preliminary, more along the lines of
an educated guess. The intent here is not to provide conclusive answers but to examine the known facts and
eyewitness accounts, and to try to "brainstorm" the event to see if a SAM scenario is plausible, based upon the
known capabilities of that class of weapon.
Iran or their proxies in the Hizbollah movement remain high on the list of possible culprits. In addition, investigators
should also look at Iraq, for obvious reasons and at Syria, Iran, Libya and even possibly Cuba or Serbia. In recent
weeks, the United States has imposed increased economic sanctions on Iran and Libya, as well as Cuba. Syria has
been threatened with sanctions and Bosnian Serb leader Radocan Karadzic has been forced from power based
upon American pressure.
A recent terrorism conference in Tehran, however, puts Iran at the top of the list. Hizbollah guerrillas are the most
likely suspects as the agents who would actually carry out any attack on US targets. In early May, I submitted an
article to several newspapers, stating that Hizbollah guerrillas would strike at the US and US interests in retaliation
for the United States' sole support of Israel in the wake of the massacre of civilians at the UN compound in Qana,
southern Lebanon.
To date, the San Diego Union-Tribune, Los Angeles Times, New York Times and USA TODAY have all failed to
act on this op-ed piece warning of increased threat to US citizens and personnel. I believe that the Dhahran bombing
in Saudi Arabia and the downing of Flight 800 may be connected. If so, there will be more such attacks in the very
near future, not just in the US and not necessarily involving aircraft only. In addition to the Olympics in Atlanta,
federal authorities should examine the possibility of strikes against the upcoming Democratic Convention in Chicago
and the Republican Convention in San Diego.
07/23/96 - Instant Update
SWEDISH BOFORS RBS 70
By: Ron Lewis, Intelligyst Group
In all of the talk about Stingers and their Russian counterparts, everybody seems to have forgotten that they are
IR-guided and are most usually operated in daylight. Since there is little evidence to suggest that the 747's engines
were struck by a small IR-homing SAM (considering the rapid manner in which the aircraft broke up), I began to
think about other possibilities.
1) There was reportedly little or no smoke observed: The RBS 70 is virtually smokeless but could leave a faint trail
of vapor in humid air.
2) No engines or hot areas seem to have been hit: This would be a prerequisite for an IR-guided missile but the RBS
70 is laser-homing.
3) Stinger/SA-14 weapons have very small warheads with a poor history of actually downing fighter aircraft. They
have damaged aircraft, disabled one of two engines, etc, but they often do not cripple the aircraft mortally. As a
result, their small warheads would be likely to bring down a target as big as a 747 this quickly. The RBS 70, on the
other hand, has a 1 Kg to 1+ Kg warhead with a shaped charge of high explosive fragmentation that is actually
armor-piercing. This charge is surrounded by tungsten pellets and, upon detonation, showers the target with 3000
tungsten fragments
Although the RBS 70 is said to have a max altitude of 4000m, it also has a range of 6000-7000 meters. I believe a
trade-off between the two would enable it to reach an aircraft at 13,700 feet if fired almost directly underneath as a
theory involving a boat launch would assume. Further, there is a follow-on design known as the RBS 90. One would
expect this to have increased range and capability.
4) The RBS 70 (and, it would stand to reason, any follow-on design like an RBS 90) is in the hands of Iran, Pakistan
and Bahrain, among others. Iran used the RBS 70 to good effect during the latter half of the Iran-Iraq War, downing
as many as 45 Iraqi jets and helos.
Contact of any SAM with the engines would be likely to knock out one and start a fire that might, eventually, lead to
breakup of the aircraft, but there are three other engines which would continue to supply power for communications
and so on. However, a laser-homing missile, striking the aft fuselage would crack the pressurized hull, cause
explosive decompression, compromise overall structural integrity, and possibly cause the loss of the tail section which
contains the VOR antenna for comm. Rapid loss of pressure and catastrophic loss of the tail section would result in
an instant communications loss, lack of directional and atitudinal stability, and cause the aircraft to nose down in a
spiral as wwas reported. Tail section components and the left wingtip section where the extended range fuel tank
was are all free of soot, scorching or other evidence of fire, indicating they may have detached before the plunge
through the fireballs from leaks in the wing fuel supplies. As the wings ruptured on the way down, raw fuel would
spew back toward hot metal and live electrical connections that were severed but still emanated electrical power
from the still-operating engines. This electrical spark would definitely be enough to trigger detonation of the raw fuel.
Regardless of whether this was the result of a missile or a device on board, the explosion most likely occurred in the
rear of the aircraft, most likely on the underside where fragments, gases and chemical traces were confined under the
floors or behind walls of storage spaces and the rear lavatory complex. The aft cargo hold and rear lavatory complex
would be the two areas I would suggest focusing on. This would explain the condition of the victims found thus far,
with no burns, chemical residue or fragments, and the absence of shoes and clothing which were likely blown off
during explosive decompression over 10,000 feet
In 1985, a Japan Air Lines Boeing 747 suffered severe decompression and loss of hydraulic lines due to a faulty aft
pressure bulkhead. Even so, the aircraft was able to remain aloft until hydraulics were bled dry. It subsequently
crashed into a mountain some HOURS later. Mere decompression would not cause the catastrophic failure
witnessed. You would have to have some external compromise of structural integrity, whether from an
outward-moving explosion tearing through the bottom of the aft fuselage, or a missile detonation exploding it inward.
In both cases, the outer skin would be broken, the pressure vessel inside would be ruptured, and the aircraft would
not survive long.
The source for all information disclosed is JANE'S LAND-BASED AIR DEFENCE
(These comments are the opinion/analysis of Mr. Lewis and do not necessarily reflect the position or editorial opinions of EmergencyNet News, the Emergency Response & Research Institute, or its editorial staff. They are provided here in the furtherance of an open and honest debate regarding this horrendous tragedy. Mr. Lewis can be reached by e-mail at: INTELLIGYST@worldnet.att.net)