The Tale of the Tapes

"They asked me how I knew .....  
I at once replied ....
Some things cannot be denied"

Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

Subsequent to the downing of TWA 800 a missile was fired at aircraft off Long Island in November 1996 in a carbon copy incident of the TWA 800 incident; TWA 884 (New York to Tel Aviv) was diverted around the problem area. Three weeks prior to TWA 800's destruction, TWA 884 had another near miss when three missiles were fired at it on the anniversary of the Khobar Towers bombing.  In March 1997 at least three aircraft departing out of Newark and LaGuardia observed a missile which had been fired in their vicinity. Two missile incidents in NY airspace involving Swissair flights preceded the crash of Swissair 111 on the tenth anniversary of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. Here you will find the transcripts and audio files of the FAA controller tapes for these incidents obtained by Freedom of Information Act filings. The fact that missiles were fired repeatedly in NY metropolitan airspace is key circumstantial evidence that the downing of TWA 800 was a state-sponsored terrorist incident.

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Parts of this article along with significant eyewitness testimony has been published in the TWA 800 section of  Newsmax.com

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Three weeks to the day before TWA 800 was shot down, in approximately the same location as the TWA 800 downing,  within hours of the Khobar Towers bombing in which nineteen Americans were killed by a truck bomb in the Dhahran military base in Saudi Arabia, the Coast Guard received a report of "three red flares" launched 25 miles south of Shinnicock Inlet.  An air and surface search was carried out which found nothing out of ordinary.  

TWA Flight 848 (New York to Rome) blocked out at exactly 10:00 pm on June 26, 1996 and assuming normal handling, Flight 848 would have passed about 11 NM South of Shinnecock Inlet at 10:29 p.m. EDT.  TWA Flight 884 (New York to Tel Aviv) was scheduled to depart before FL 848 but blocked out late at 10:19 p.m. EDT. Four months after TWA 800 was shot down TWA Flight 884 was again under missile attack.

Within days suspicions  for the Khobar Towers attack focused on Saudi dissidents funded by Iran ....

June 27, 1996 International News The Telegraph (U.K. Electronic Edition) Issue 415
Suspicion for the bombing outside Dhahran was pointing towards internal enemies of the Saudi monarchy ...

On July 17, 1996 a strange "light" was seen by an Eastwind 507 pilot and TWA 800 was downed.  (Click for RealAudio file TWA800)  

Eastwind Flight 507  8:31:50: We just saw an explosion out here.
Eastwind Flight 507   8:32:01: Ah, we just saw an explosion up ahead of us ... It just went down -- in the water.
Virgin Atlantic Flight 009   8:32:25: I can confirm that. ... It looked like an explosion out there about five miles away, six miles away.
Controller: ..507 Thanks for that report. New York on 113.05. Good day sir.
Eastwind 507  8:37:05:  Anything we can do for you before we go.
Controller  8:37:11:  Well I just want to confirm that you saw the splash in the water approximately 20 south west of Hampton. Is that right?
Eastwind 507  8:37:20: Ah yes sir it blew up in the air and then we saw two fireballs go down to the water and a big smoke plume coming up from it. Also there seemed to be a light - I thought it was a landing light - coming right at us at about 15,000 feet and I put my landing light as soon as I saw him and then it blew.
Controller  8:37:40:  Roger that sir. That was a 747 out there - you had a visual on that. Anything else in the area when it happened?
Eastwind 507  8:37:47: I didn't see anything  - seemed to be  - I thought he had a landing light on - maybe it was a fire - I dunno.

And once again suspicions focused on a Saudi dissident and his colleagues ....

July 20, 1996     London Times
New York: Jurors at the trial here of the alleged mastermind of the World Trade Centre bombing, who is accused of plotting to attack US airliners over Asia, were told to ignore reports about the crash while considering the case against Ramzi Yousef, arrested in Pakistan last year.

September 22, 1996    The New York Post
Investigators are reviewing an anonymous threat received after the October 1, 1995 conviction of radical sheik Omar Abdel Rahman. The threat was that a New York airport or jetliner would be attacked in retaliation.

September 29, 1998    NY Times
A British court ordered a suspect held Monday pending extradition to the United States as part of the broadening investigation into Osama bin Laden. The suspect, Khalid al Fawwaz, is believed to be the leader of bin Laden's organization in Britain. The indictment also asserts for the first time that bin Laden's organization, Al Qaeda, took its stand against the United States for, among other factors, "the arrest, conviction and imprisonment" of people belonging to "Al Qaeda and its affiliated terrorist groups, including Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman,". Fawwaz transmitted a fatwah that declared a holy war against American citizens. He was able to send it through an intermediary "to the eventual publisher and personally vouched for its authenticity," the document said, without supplying details. Al Fawwaz was described in The Times of London on Sunday as an executive and one-time close ally of bin Laden who ran the London office of a Saudi dissidents' group that bin Laden had founded. The newspaper said al Fawwaz was involved in monitoring the press and distributing communiques.

September 1997    The American Spectator
Letter from John B. Roberts II in reply to an earlier letter from James Hall - Chairman of the NTSB
Early this summer Hall testified before Congress that a meteorite may have blown up TWA ..... Apparently, Mr. Hall is prepared to got to any length to avoid confronting evidence of terrorism in the crash of TWA 800..... minute traces of PETN and RDX were found in TWA 800. Hall would have us believe they came from a bomb-sniffing dog test. .....As TWA's 800's debris was being hauled ashore, it was being tested by the EGIS high-tech explosives detection system operated by FBI technicians and BATF bomb experts. Within five days of the crash, EGIS registered the first of more than a dozen "hits" for PETN on the aircraft. ..... Hall states that the U.S. lacks intelligence leads, but at least one terrorist has claimed credit for the TWA 800 bombing. World trade Center bomber Ramzi Ahmed Yousef told authorities his group is responsible. Yousef's claim has not been made public, but it is in the FBI file.

July 17, 1997   The New York Times
A Federal grand jury in Manhattan is investigating whether a renegade Saudi millionaire .... has been funneling money to terrorist groups in the United States.......Mr. bin Laden ... is believed to be living in .... Afghanistan. An official ... said that the money had been delivered to groups in Detroit, Jersey City and Brooklyn ....He was ... linked to Ramzi Ahmed Yousef ...in the three years before the attack on the Trade Center, Mr. Yousef lived in Pakistan in a house paid for by Mr. bin Laden, the State Department report said.

August 2, 1997   Electronic Telegraph Issue 799
Exiled from Saudi Arabia, bin Laden, 44, who has an inherited fortune estimated at £154 million, is zealously committed to striking at American interests. He is a towering figure in Islamic circles, where he gained heroic status in the Eighties, fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan. ..... Cairo believes that in association with the blind sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, he was behind some of the murders of Western tourists in Egypt. America believes that bin Laden was the patron of Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, the 28 year-old Pakistani on trial in Manhattan for allegedly masterminding the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing for which the sheikh is serving a prison term. .... The CIA believes that bin Laden had advance knowledge of two Saudi bombings that killed 24 US servicemen. He is thought to have provided the money, with Iran supplying the muscle through Hizbollah.

July 19, 1996    Reuters
Attorney General Jane Reno said she was unaware of any threats before the crash but there were "some calls'' afterward claiming responsibility. ABC News reported that an Arabic newspaper received a warning of an attack on an American target Wednesday from the same group that claimed responsibility for a bomb attack that killed five Americans in Saudi Arabia in November.

July 19, 1996    New York Times.
A specific warning about the flight had been sent by an extremist Saudi organization called the Movement of Islamic Change, the organization that claimed responsibility for blowing up US military personnel in Saudi Arabia last November. "Late this morning we got a copy of a letter in Arabic that we then had translated, and got it to the FBI" said a State Department spokesman ... "It's a ... statement that seems aimed at the Saudi regime or the American presence in Saudi Arabia".

August 1, 1996   CNN
FBI chief (says) U.S. (is) 'under attack' by terrorists. In testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Freeh pointed to a series of arrests and convictions since four Islamic fundamentalists were found guilty in the February 1993 bombing that killed six people ...at New York's World Trade Center. He referred to two fatal bombings in Saudi Arabia ..... and the still unexplained crash of TWA Flight 800.

After four years the U.S. government, through the NTSB, the FBI and the CIA , attempted to convince the world that TWA 800 was lost by the explosion of its center wing tank from a phantom spark in low voltage wiring while failing to acknowledge that this same aircraft was struck by lightning on Good Friday, 1995 on approach to Rome airport. The right wing suffered significant metal damage requiring about 25 square feet of right wing tip skin to be replaced. The lightning traversed the #4 reserve tank, the #4 main tank, the #3 main tank and the Center Wing Tank.   Lightning represents a multi-thousand fold stronger ignition spark than that which can be generated by any electrical source within the aircraft.  The public was asked to believe that TWA 800 was downed by a low voltage spark from a source yet to be discovered, while a bolt of lightning passing through four fuel tanks including the Center Wing Tank could not achieve the same result and a lighted match would be extinguished if dipped into TWA 800's fuel.

On November 16, 1996, subsequent to the TWA 800 downing, a missile was  fired at two commercial aircraft in the vicinity of Long Island. Pakistan International Airlines Flight 712 left Kennedy at 9:25pm, bound for Frankfurt. The pilot, W. Shah, said his co-pilot saw an orange light coming from the left hand side to the right hand side of the airplane. The object was 3 - 4 miles in front of the aircraft and above it. Boston apparently confirmed 'two unidentified blips' on radar. The tapes were turned over to the FBI and NTSB since the object(s) rose directly out of Long Island Sound and ascended almost vertically. Radio 5 in the U.K. reported that the object which crossed the Pakistani aircraft had exploded. On a McNeill - Lehrer newshour, when asked about the direction of the object, Mr. Kallstrom admitted that it was "ascending". TWA Flight 884 was following close behind the Pakistani flight.

Another report on this incident stated:

"This evening I flew flight 1504 FLL to BOS. It was an extremely clear night over the Eastern Seaboard. You could see the Connecticut shoreline from Cape May, NJ. We were at FL 330 just east of JFK proceeding direct to PVD.   It was about 10:15 PM when an aircraft asked center the following question: were there any fireworks going off in the area. Center replied in the negative, to the best of their best knowledge. The aircraft then reported they had something streak up towards them from the left and pass in front of them and through their altitude. There was silence on the frequency. I asked center the position of the aircraft reporting the event. Center replied 20nm south of HTO. It was a foreign carrier, but judging by the accent of the pilot, I would say it was Air India or Pakistan Intl. I didn't get a call sign, and to my surprise, center did not ask any more questions. It was a crystal clear night, and we could see the Hamptons from our position. There were no fireworks taking place anywhere. Unless the controller was working both frequencies, the aircraft was at least climbing to or in the high sector. Fact is someone reported a streak that came from the ground and to the left of them and passed in front and through their altitude. It was 10:17 when center replied to me that the aircraft was 20nm south of Hampton. Is it merely a coincidence this is close to where TWA 800 blew up, or is something else going on? I don't believe the aircraft was flying inverted and that was a meteor that streaked by their windshield. Again I was amazed at the silence of the controller after the report. This event certainly got our attention."

Kallstrom told Lehrer on the PBS Newshour of November 17, 1996 that object observed was probably a meteorite .....

Lehrer: Now, the latest new public report, was that of a Pakistan airlines pilot, who said he saw, quote: "something with lights in the sky" near where this TWA plane went down that night.  Have you determined what that might have been?
Kallstrom: We think it was a meteorite shower, Jim, we're not absolutely sure. We've interviewed the pilot. He's a highly experienced pilot.  Appears to be very competent. Has a good memory of what he saw. We have no doubt that he saw what he described; an object he thought ascending from his left to his right. We're in the process of looking at radar tapes and other things to tell us if we can know for sure there was some other event. But there were reports that evening of meteorite showers. They were reported widely throughout Suffolk County.
Lehrer: And the National Weather Service confirmed it, did they not?
Kallstrom: More than likely, Jim, that's what it is, but we're still looking in to it.

You be the judge of Kallstrom's conclusion. He had the following audio file and transcript available to him when he investivaged this incident.

The following is the text of the radio communications between the FAA, Pakistan Flight PIA 712, TWA 884 and 1504 FLL in the vicinity of Long Island, New York on November 16, 1996  (Click for RealAudio file PIA712 duration 2 minutes 30 seconds. Gaps between transmissions have been removed. Tape was obtained through a FOIA request to the FAA.)

PIA 712:  Boston  Pakistan 712
FAA: Pakistan 712 go ahead
PIA 712:  Do you have any fireworks going on in this area where we are? We just saw a kind of a large something just streak ahead and it went beyond our altitude.
FAA:  Ah ... no .. nothing reported other than that. You said it was some large streak?
PIA 712:  It came up diagonally from left to right and it crossed our altitude right in front of us.
FAA: OK  thanks.
1504 FLL:  Boston Center 1504
FAA: 1504 Go ahead
1504 FLL: Yea - where about is that aircraft that reported that streak?
FAA:  Ah .. He's about 20 miles south of Hampton
1504 FLL:  1504
TWA 884: Boston Center  TWA 884 heavy just out of four thousand for one one thousand
FAA: TWA Flight 884   Boston Center  Climb and maintain flight level 190
TWA 884:  Flight level 190  TWA 884 heavy
FAA: Pakistan 712 Boston
PIA 712:  Boston 712
FAA: Just to confirm .. you saw like something that was like a white streak coming from below and ending up on top of you - that went out in front of you? .. I'm not sure exactly what you saw. Could you classify maybe what you saw?
PIA 712:  It was a streak of light like some kind of a large firecracker rocket or something like that coming from below .... from the coast side - left to right ..... climbing beyond our altitude.  At that time we were about 16,000 feet.
FAA: OK.  Thanks very much.
FAA:  Kennedy Departure (unclear)
Kennedy Departure:   Kennedy
FAA: I'm going to put TWA on a 70 heading. Is that OK?  884
Kennedy Departure: Ya I'll shove over
FAA:  Thanks
FAA: TWA 884   Fly heading  070
TWA 884:  070  TWA 884 heavy
TWA 884:  Boston TWA 884. Where was that fireworks area?
FAA:  884 Actually, I'm kinda ... I'm  going to vector you around the area. It's about 20 miles .... actually, 30 miles south of Hampton.
TWA 884:  OK and I understand some type of rocket?
FAA: Yea ... we had a Pakistan just reported ... looked like a firecracker that was passing from left to right about 30 miles south of Hampton.
TWA 884:  884 heavy thank you.
TWA 884:   Firecrackers don't go past 16,000
FAA: I hear ya!

Mr Kallstrom, we have all heard the expression "meteoric rise" but they don't!   And controllers don't reroute aircraft because of meteorites.

But then the Pakistani government didn't like the idea of missiles being launched near the Karachi airport either so they turned a September 1999 missile incident into 'disintegrated pieces of artificial satellites and/or meteor showers'.  Maybe they figured that if it worked for Jim Kallstrom it would work for them too. The Pakistani government also failed like Kallstrom to explain the "trajectory coming from the ground".....

September 9, 1999     The Financial Times
A cargo airline yesterday said it had suspended flights to Pakistan after the pilots of one of its aircraft reported seeing a mysterious "flash and explosion" shortly after taking off from the Karachi airport several days ago. Lufthansa Cargo India ... filed a complaint to India's Director - General of Civil Aviation saying the pilots .... saw the bright flash of an apparent explosion at around 2:30 am local time on Monday about five miles from the Karachi airport. According to the complaint, Lufthansa officials speculated that it could have been a missile explosion. Just before the blast, ... the Karachi air traffic control directed the aircraft to turn right. As the aircraft turned and crossed an altitude of 3,000 feet, the pilots saw the bright flash near the aircraft on their left side. India's Director - General of Civil Aviation said ... the explosion "appeared to have narrowly missed the aircraft" and "brightly" lit up the cockpit. The statement said it seemed to the light crew the flash had "a trajectory coming from the ground". The Lufthansa crew reported the incident to the Karachi radar tower, and two other incoming aircraft - a Pakistan International Airlines flight and a private Pakistani carrier - reportedly confirmed seeing the explosion.

September 10, 1999 Pakistan's most widely circulated English language newspaper http://www.dawn.com
The flash which the pilot of Lufthansa Cargo India (LCI) had reported after take off from Karachi for Sharjah a few days ago was not a pyrotechnic light flare nor a missile, relevant agencies confirmed to CAA. "In all probability the flash was caused by re-entry of disintegrated pieces of artificial satellites and/or meteor showers," official sources in Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) told APP on Thursday, adding that SUPARCO has also supported this view. Flight No LCI-8523 belonging to Lufthansa Cargo India, an Indian operator, took off from Karachi for Sharjah at 0230 hours on September 6 under the command of Capt B.K. Choudhry. The pilot had reported seeing a big flash and explosion while crossing 3,000 feet, four miles of South West of Karachi. According to the CAA sources "the contention of the Indian pilot flying the LCI aircraft that the flash and the explosion were caused possibly due to missile is certainly an over-reaction". The intention, it seems, is to create a scare and misgivings about the situation prevailing in and around Karachi airport, CAA maintained. The CAA firmly rebutted both the contentions and conclusions of the LCI's Indian pilot. The sighting of a fireball in the sky during the night of September 5 and 6 near Karachi seems to be meteorite. However, possibility that the fireball was a burnt-out satellite cannot be entirely ruled out. This was stated by Pakistan Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO) in a statement here on Thursday. It said that a sighting of fireball was reported by the pilots of the Lufthansa Airways, PIA and Bhoja Air between the night of September 5 and 6. .... SUPARCO statement said that while the circumstances strongly suggest that what was observed by the aircraft pilots near Karachi was a meteorite. However, possibility that the fireball was a burnt-out satellite cannot be entirely ruled out as there is a lot of space debris orbiting around the earth in low orbits and the satellites which complete their lifetime keep entering the earth's atmosphere from time to time thus adding to the spectacular "fireballs" as generally produced by the meteorites.

Pakistan has had more than its share of Islamist Fundamentalism problems associated with Sheikh Rahman and his bin Laden sponsor ....

November 20, 1995     World News The Electronic Telegraph
A huge car bomb destroyed the Egyptian Embassy in Islamabad yesterday, killing at least 15 people, including an Egyptian diplomat. More than 60 people were seriously injured. Three Islamic militant groups said they carried out the attack. The International Justice Group made its claim in a fax to an international news agency, demanding the release of the militant leader Sheikh Omar Rahman from an American jail and of an Islamic leader missing after being held in Croatia. The Jamaa Islamiyya and Al-Jihad, the two main groups behind militant violence against the government of President Mubarak, claimed the blast in separate telephone calls to international news agencies in Cairo. It was apparently in retaliation for the extradition from Pakistan of Islamic terrorists wanted in Egypt .......In recent months Pakistan has extradited to Egypt at least five Islamic fundamentalists wanted in Cairo for trying to topple the regime of President Mubarak. An Arab ambassador in Islamabad said the Egyptian embassy had received several threatening telephone calls. Thousands of Arab fundamentalists trained and fought for the Afghan Mujahideen during the Eighties war against Soviet troops occupying Afghanistan. The Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto, has frequently promised to extradite Arab fundamentalists, but hundreds are known to be still hiding out along the lawless Pakistani-Afghan border.

July 20, 1996     London Times
Ramzi Yousef, arrested in Pakistan last year.

The FBI's spokesman, Joseph Valiquette, who is reported to be "comfortable"  (click)  with the announcement on November 1997 that the FBI had found no evidence that a criminal act was responsible for TWA 800 going down, didn't appear to know if anything was seen on November 16, 1996 by the Pakistani pilot .....

November 17, 1996     Associated Press
FBI spokesman Joseph Valiquette said Sunday, "At this point we don't know what, if anything, was seen." Shah (pilot of PIA 712) said they were told by Boston air traffic controllers that there were no military exercises in the area. He also said the pilots were interviewed by officials with the U.S. Embassy in Frankfurt... A TWA plane flying immediately behind the Pakistani jet Saturday made a similar sighting and asked to turn around .... The TWA plane was rerouted and the air corridor used by the Pakistan Airlines flight was closed.

Yet, in the Hijri calendar 4 Rajab 1417 A.H. (November 16, 1996) is the anniversary date on which the U.S. embassy in Lebanon was bombed with Islamic Jihad accepting responsibility.........

April 18, 1983    4 Rajab 1403 A.H.                          
A car bomb exploded in front of the U.S. embassy in Beirut, killing sixty-three people, including seventeen Americans. More than one hundred others were wounded. Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility, calling the bombing "part of the Islamic revolution."  Iran subsequently denied having any role in the attack.

October 4, 1998    New York Times
Islamic Jihad receives money and sponsorship from bin Laden and has been absorbed into his terror network.

In November 1995, prior to the TWA 800 downing, a strange very bright, green object passed two commercial aircraft in the vicinity of Long Island, New York.  The following is the text of the radio communications between the FAA and these aircraft on November 17, 1995 at 22:20 hrs. EST (This transcript was obtained through a FOIA request filed by The National Unidentified Flying Objects Reporting Center).

LUFT: Uh, Boston, Lufthansa 405/Heavy.
FAA: Lufthansa 405, go ahead.
LUFT: Uh, we just passed traffic on the left wing, uh, about 2,000 to 3,000 feet above us. What traffic was it?
FAA: Is this Lufthansa 405?
LUFT: Affirmative, Lufthansa 405. We had opposite traffic on the left wing. Can you confirm this?
FAA: Lufthansa 405, negative. I show no traffic in your area within, uh, 20 or 30 miles.
LUFT: It should be now on our tail, about 10 miles. We passed it just one minute ago, and it was looking strange.
BRIT: Speed Bird 226 confirms that. It was just above us on our left-hand side about 3 minutes ago.
FAA What altitude does it appear to be at, Lufthansa 405?
LUFT: It was only 2 or 3 thousand feet above us. We are now passing (Flight) Level 260. That's confirmed, or not? Lufthansa.
FAA: Lufthansa 405, roger.
BRIT: Speed Bird 226, we confirm that. We had something go past us about two, well...about one to two thousand feet above on the left hand side. Uh, looked like a green trail on it, and a very bright light on the front of it. We assumed it was an opposite traffic.
FAA: Speed Bird 226, roger that.
LUFT: ((Garbled))..Lufthansa 405/Heavy. we are right now about 26 miles east of "Hotel Tango Oscar ((Hampton??))." And the Speed Bird is now ahead, or behind us ((or where))?
FAA: Lufthansa 405, the Speed Bird is in your 12:00 o'clock, and about 30 miles, 40 miles.
LUFT: That was not our traffic. Lufthansa 405 Heavy.
FAA: Lufthansa 405, roger. And the heading of the traffic, was it the same direction, or opposite direction?
LUFT: Exactly opposite. Lufthansa 405/Heavy.
FAA: Roger. Did it pass off your right side?
LUFT: Uh, left side.
FAA: Roger.
BRIT: Yea, Speed Bird 226 confirms that. We saw the same thing. It certainly looked like an aircraft initially, but it may not have been one.
LUFT: ((We can't tell then??)) It was looking very strange, with a long, uh, light, in the tail.
BRIT: Yea, a big bright white light on the front, and a greenish tail coming out the back.
LUFT: Can you confirm this, Lufthansa 405/Heavy.
FAA: OK, Lufthansa 405, Speed Bird 226. Thanks, we'll look into it. ???
((Garbled transmissions))
FAA: Speed Bird 226, did it go over...did it go overhead. The traffic go overhead you, or was it below you?
BRIT: It was overhead and off to the left, much the same as ((garbled)). It actually looked about...opposite traffic, 2000 feet above. That's what it initially looked like. But then it did have a very strong trail to it...a vapor trail, which looked more like smoke.  And the light on the front was very, very bright, and as it went past us, it seemed to ((just?)) disappear and ((went)) 5 miles behind us.
FAA: Speed Bird, 226, roger. Were you level at 29 at that time?
BRIT: Yea, affirmative.
FAA: Roger. Lufthansa 405, how far off to your side did that pass, the traffic pass?
LUFT: It was pretty close, and like Speed Bird said, it looked like ((four??)) or three thousand feet above on the left wing, just one mile and, uh, on opposite track... It doesn't have, ...it didn't have any uh, lights...((normal)) lights, beacon lights, or red or green lights. Only a white light in the front, and with a long green light.  It looked like a U-F-O.
FAA: Lufthansa 405, roger that. Like I said, we had nothing flying in the area. You are just north of a military operating area, but the traffic shouldn't have varied out that far out,...out of the area.
LUFT: Must have been a military. Lufthansa 405/Heavy.
FAA: Roger. Giant Killer, ((garbled)) 59.
GK: Giant Killer.
FAA: Hey, you got anything flying out in the area?
GK: Negative, ((105 is??)) turned over 0300.
FAA: Well, I just received a couple of UFO reports.
GK: Oh, is that right?
FAA? Yea, I had a couple of guys that reported lights, just moved all over their heads. I have no traffic whatsoever in the area. They said it passed within a mile of them, like at 2-3 thousand feet above them, opposite direction. ((Garbled)) green trail out the back.
GK: It could have been a meteor, or something.
FAA: ((Garbled--Yea, it could have been that.....it passed within a mile of them.))
GK: Who reported that?
FAA: Well, I got Speed Bird and Lufthansa.
GK: No, we don't have any aircraft out there.
FAA: OK.

A missile attack on the Concorde?

On December  12, 1996, subsequent to the TWA 800 downing, a very bright, green object streaked past a Saudi Arabian aircraft while on approach to Kennedy airport 15 miles south west of East Hampton at about 12,000 feet. The crew filed an incident report when they arrived at Washington, their final destination. (Click for RealAudio file 1SA035 which is the communication with Boston Center and then  SA035  which is with New York Center.)

Saudi Arabian 035: Boston Center 035
Boston Controller: Saudi 035 go ahead
Saudi Arabian 035: Ah yes, we just observed what appeared to be a green flare at our approximately eleven o'clock position and maybe five miles distance
Boston Controller: Saudi 035 roger
Boston Controller: It's Saudi (garbled)
Other Controller: (garbled)
Boston Controller: I normally don't know what to do with reports like this .... but he's going to land at Kennedy
Other Controller: (garbled)
Boston Controller: About a minute ago he said he saw what appeared to be a green flare at eleven o'clock and five miles so ..
Other Controller: That puts it like over Spadaro airport   (Note: Spadaro is located halfway between Brookhaven and Gabreski and about 5 miles south of Peconic near Mastic Beach on Long Island. The Calverton VOR is located at Peconic.)
Boston Controller:  Hmmm. Yea, maybe about 8 miles south of that radar antenna - it's probably about nine o'clock and six miles from where he is now. So he said it appeared to be a green flare?
Other Controller: How high? You said all the way up to twelve thousand?
Boston Controller: Yea, let me check with him on that.
Other Controller: Well do you want to check Kennedy approach?
Boston Controller: Saudi 035 - that appeared to be at your altitude or above or below?
Saudi Arabian 035: It appeared to be above our altitude - bright green - appeared to be a flare - could have been a meteorite but extremely bright.
Boston Controller: Saudi 035 roger
Other Controller: (garbled)
Boston Controller: Yea he said it appeared to be above his altitude - it might have been a meteorite but he didn't know. He said "very bright".
Other Controller: OK, I'll look at it. The guy in charge here knows too.
Boston Controller: Saudi 035 contact Kennedy approach 125.7. Good day.
Saudi Arabian 035: 125.7 Good evening.
Saudi Arabian 035:  Kennedy, Saudi 035 heavy.
NY Controller: Say again.
Saudi Arabian 035: Saudi 035 - we picked up a target about 6 miles to our 9 o'clock position. Is that confirmed?
NY Controller: Ah, you said traffic?
Saudi Arabian 035: Unintelligible.
NY Controller: No. There is nothing within 20 miles of you.

September 6, 1998     NY Times
U.S. intelligence officials drew up secret plans last spring for a covert raid to capture Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, according to senior U.S. government officials. The officials said the planning began after U.S. military, intelligence and law-enforcement officials concluded they had ample evidence linking bin Laden to a series of anti-American terrorist attacks in recent years. ... Now said to be in his early 40s, bin Laden, an Islamic radical and exiled scion of an influential and enormously wealthy Saudi family, was an ally of the United States in the 1980s as a supporter of the CIA-backed Afghan rebels battling the Soviet occupying forces. .... Back then, we thought of him as that nice Saudi businessman who was supporting the rebels," said a former CIA official involved in the agency's Afghan program. But after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia and began to support militant Islamic groups that opposed moderate Arab regimes. Finally, he turned completely against the United States with the onset of the Persian Gulf crisis after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990. He saw the presence of hundreds of thousands of U.S. and other foreign troops on Saudi soil as a deep religious affront -- the return of barbarian Crusaders to defile Islam's holy places. He vowed to wage war against the U.S. presence in Saudi Arabia and the Saudi leaders who had brought them into the country. American officials now say they believe that it was not a coincidence that the two embassy bombings in Africa occurred Aug. 7. Eight years earlier on that date, the first U.S. forces landed in Saudi Arabia as part of the effort to protect Saudi Arabia from Iraq, which had invaded Kuwait on Aug. 2, 1990. ... After being forced out of Saudi Arabia, bin Laden moved to Sudan ...American analysts say they have linked bin Laden and his network to a wide array of successful terrorist acts as well as aborted plots, ranging from plans to kill Pope John Paul II and Clinton during visits to Manila to the botched bombing in December 1992 of a hotel in Yemen where U.S. soldiers bound for Somalia were staying, a 1995 attempt to kill Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and a 1995 car bombing in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, that killed five U.S. soldiers. By the mid-1990s, as other terrorist groups began to fade away and American experts began to understand bin Laden's significance, the United States made his group a major focus of its counterterrorism efforts. As early as 1993, in fact, federal officials say, bin Laden had become the subject of FBI scrutiny after the New York World Trade Center bombing.

One should not be surprised, therefore, when one finds that a March 17, 1992 event in Argentina ....

March 17, 1992    
Israeli embassy bombed in Buenos Aires.

August 8, 1998    The New York Times
The F.B.I told Argentina today that it believed Iranian Embassy officials were involved in the 1994 bombing of a Buenos Aires Jewish center in which 86 people were killed. Officials gave Interior Minister Carlos Corach the findings of 40 agents who traveled to Argentina earlier this year to investigate the bombing, which blew apart the country's largest Jewish community center, in the heart of Buenos Aires. The attack followed the bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992, which killed 29 people. ..

July 22, 2002   New York Times
The Iranian government organized and carried out the bombing of a Jewish community center here eight years ago that killed 85 people and then paid Argentina's president at the time, Carlos Saúl Menem, $10 million to cover it up, a witness in the case has said in sealed testimony. According to the witness, a high-level defector from Iran's intelligence agency who gave his name as Abdolghassem Mesbahi, Mr. Menem, who was president from 1989 to 1999, benefited for years from his ties to Iranian intelligence officials. They courted him as a valuable contact, Mr. Mesbahi said, for his combination of rising political power, Muslim ancestry and connections to Argentina's small but influential Syrian-Lebanese community. Mr. Mesbahi, the Iranian defector who provided the testimony, met with Argentine investigators in Germany in 1998 and again in Mexico in 2000, speaking at various times in Persian, English, German and French with a Spanish-language translator present.  Argentine and German officials describe him as a senior operative who has provided valuable information about Iranian terrorist operations in Europe and Asia through the mid-1990's. He defected to Germany in 1996, reportedly because he was upset at his agency's involvement in the killing of dissident intellectuals in Iran and abroad. Mr. Mesbahi said the planning for the attack in Buenos Aires began in 1992, led by Mohsen Rabbani, cultural attaché at the Iranian Embassy at the time, and supervised by Hamid Naghashan, a senior official of the Iranian intelligence agency. One cell focused on "cooperating with members of the Argentine police, corrupting them or threatening them to collaborate with the attack," Mr. Mesbahi said, according to the transcript. "Another devoted itself to obtaining the explosives" in Brazil, he said. Immigration and Foreign Ministry records here confirm, the officials said, that several Iranians who were said to have been involved in the plot visited Argentina in the months preceding the bomb attack. Mr. Mesbahi said that after the attack, negotiations took place in Tehran with an emissary, a bearded man of about 50, sent by Mr. Menem. The result was that "$10 million was deposited into a numbered account that Menem had indicated," Mr. Mesbahi said, paid from a $200 million Swiss account controlled by Hashemi Rafsanjani, who was Iran's president at the time, and by a son of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. In return, Mr. Mesbahi said, Mr. Menem agreed to "make declarations that there was no evidence against Iran that it was responsible."  The Menem government initially blamed Iran, but the cumulative effect of later statements, arguing that there was insufficient proof, has been to sow uncertainty about responsibility for the bombing. After the bombing, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who succeeded Ayatollah Khomeini as Iran's supreme leader and still holds that post, publicly expressed his approval.  "By gathering together groups of Jews with records of murder, theft, wickedness and hooliganism from throughout the world," Ayatollah Khamenei said, "the Zionist regime has created an entity under the name of the Israeli nation that only understands the logic of terror and crimes."

.......was remembered in the United States and recorded by no less than four American aircraft when on March 17, 1997, subsequent to the TWA 800 downing, a missile was observed by Northwest Airlines 775, US Air 1937, Delta 2517 and Northwest Airlines 361.  

Northwest Airlines Flight 775 was travelling from Newark to Minneapolis and Flight 361 from Laguardia to Minneapolis. Both flights departed at 6:55 PM and reported the missile about 15 Minutes into their flights. (Click to listen to the RealAudio Files. There is moderate static on the tapes - NWA 775 Radar sector 73 - US Air 1937 Radar sector 27 - Delta 2517 Radar sector 42)

NWA 775: Air Center it looks like we see ah - this is Northwest 775 - on a southerly heading - a missile or something. Do you know anything about that?
Controller: Northwest 775 - you see a what?
NWA 775: It appears to be a missile on the south of our course here - straight south of us - off our left - it's climbing and heading south.
Controller: Due south of your position, heading south?
NWA 775: Yea, and climbing rapidly.
Controller:  Going through about what altitude now?
NWA 775: Oh man, it's like over 30,000 and on its way up. It was a rocket or a missile and I don't know - it's out of sight now.
Controller: You think it was a rocket or a missile?
NWA 775: Affirmative. It was extremely bright. Anybody else in the area I'm sure would have seen it.
Controller: Roger
Another Pilot:  Don't scare us!
Controller:  Say again.
Other Pilot: Don't scare us .... unintelligible
Controller:  Definitely a missile of some sort.
Multiple conversations somewhat garbled.
Controller:  843 west of ?? reported spotting a missile 10 south of his position heading south ....
Other Controller:  They're all talking about it.
USA 1937: Holy ?Mary - (unintelligible) a ?240 heading -   Did you see that?
Controller:  What did we miss?
USA 1937: A rocket going up to the southeast of our ?180
Controller: From who?
USA 1937:  US Air 1937
Another pilot: It sure is.
Controller: How far away do you think?
USA 1937: ?God only knows.
Controller: Little Aberdeen is out there that' why I'm asking. It's about ninety miles away from you so it could be there they do that rocket testing.
USA 1937: Yeah it was about 170 degrees from us and I don't know about how far.
Controller: Yeah that would be about right.
USA 1937: Yeah it was off our left wing tip.
Another pilot: Where did that rocket launch from?
Controller: I didn't know anything about it. The only thing I'm guessing from where the US Air told me was the direction was correct for Aberdeen proving grounds.
Other pilot: Unintelligible...  Commuter 533  ... 180 heading and about six miles from my position. It was definitely a rocket.
Controller: Yea that would be a little bit to the west of Aberdeen but I guess it's hard to be exact.
Other pilot: Yea  I just looked at it and saw a plume coming out of it and then it disappeared but the plume is still there.
Delta 2517: Center, Delta 2517.
Controller: Go ahead.
Delta 2517: You guys do you have any missile launches or anything tonight?
Controller: I believe there is one .... I don't know what the status is.
Delta 2517: Well it just went up - ... we just lost .. .... pretty awesome off the left side.
Controller: OK - you could see it. ..... Unintelligible .... We are .... all the traffic for it.
Delta 2517:  Where did that thing come from?
Controller: I don't know.
Delta 2517: I was sitting here thinking the comet looks good tonight. Man ...

April 10, 1997      CNN
The Federal Aviation Administration now believes that a missile sighted by several commercial airline pilots flying over the northeastern United States on March 17 was actually part of a Navy test off the coast of Florida.

Having listened to the tapes can anyone explain how a missile test off the coast of Florida was observed by only these aircraft flying in the NY metropolitan area especially when a similar incident occurred one year earlier over Long Island Sound?

Private Communication to Michael Hull
"Has anyone ever reported any information about USAir Flight 3684 from Baltimore to MacArthur (Islip, Long Island) Airport the evening of March 17, 1996 -- four months to the day before TWA Flight 800 went down? Just after dark, the plane was beginning its approach to MacArthur, when there was an explosion just forward of the tip of the right wing -- a ball of bright orange that appeared from inside the plane to be about 20 feet in diameter, followed by a concussion that shook the plane. Everyone looked at everyone else: "What the hell was that?" No announcement from the cockpit. As we got off the plane, we asked the flight attendant, who didn't have a clue. Next day and on several occasions afterwards, I sought information from the airline, the media, the FBI (Sorry, we can't comment on that, Ma'am). What happened? I could never find out. Does anyone know? If so, please refer me to sources".

Then on March 17, 2001 the following incident occurred which was reported in the September 2002 issue of Vanity Fair on page 231. Was this a case of sabotage?

On March 17, 2001, Northwest Airlines Flight 985 was taking off from Detroit. At a speed of 110 knots - much too slow for sustainable flight - the nose began to lift.  The pilot tried to lower it, using the flaps, but, as the official report says, "the airplane was unresponsive. The airplane became airborne and climbed to an altitude of 20 to 30 feet above the runway.". The only way to avoid a crash was to cut the engine power. At last the plane "settled to the runway", its tail end striking the tarmac. It plowed off the end and continued for another 700 feet before coming to a stop in mud. The aircraft was badly damaged, but no one was seriously hurt.

On August 9, 1997, Swissair Flight 127 reported a near miss with a possible missile over Long Island.  The government supplied a "balloon" explanation....

September 27, 1997 (Neue Zuricher Zeitung)
Swissair has revealed that an unidentified flying object almost collided with one of its planes over the United States last month. The captain and his co-pilot said an oblong and wingless object shot past at great speed - only fifty metres away from their Boeing Seven-Four-Seven. The American air traffic authorities said it was probably a weather balloon.

September 26, 1997 11:42:10 PDT (Drudge Report)
An unidentified object narrowly missed a Swissair Boeing 747 while the aircraft was at 23,000 feet, passing in air space between Philadelphia and New York, on August 9, Swiss radio reported this morning. Major newswires are taking the story and moving it. The pilot described the object ... as "white, elongated and without wings," and strongly rejected U.S. explanations that the object was a weather balloon, the radio report said. The object was moving at very high speed, Swissair spokesman Erwin Schaerer tells the NTSB. The plane was Zurich-bound, from Philadelphia. AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE is reporting that there may be passenger witnesses to the incident...

March 5, 1999    www.cbcnews.com    Ottawa (CP)
A Swissair pilot reported his 747 jet was nearly hit by an unidentified flying object, possibly a missile, near the area off New York where a TWA airplane crashed in 1996, The Canadian Press has learned. Swissair Flight 127 was cruising at 23,000 feet on Aug. 9, 1997, when the pilot interrupted an address to passengers to report the near miss by a round white object, says a report by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board. "Sir, I don't know what it was, but it just flew like a couple of hundred feet above us," he radioed Boston air traffic control. "I don't know if it was a rocket or whatever, but incredibly fast, opposite direction." "In the opposite direction?" asked the controller. "Yes sir, and the time was 2107 (Greenwich mean time). It was too fast to be an airplane." The controller asked another aircraft if its crew saw anything like a missile in the area. The reply was negative. He then asked the Swissair pilot again how far above the plane it was. "It was right over us, right above, opposite direction, and, and I don't know, two, three, four hundred feet above. All that I can tell, 127, is that (we) saw a light object, it was white, and very fast." Investigators interviewed the captain and first officer on Aug. 10, 1997. The flight engineer hadn't seen the object and was not interviewed. The report, filed under NYC97SA193, said the flight was opposite John F. Kennedy Airport at 5:07 p.m. Eastern time - near the area where TWA Flight 800 went down July 17, 1996..... The transportation safety board report said the Swissair captain saw the cylindrical object for less than a second. He did not see any wings and was not sure it was an aircraft. "He had never been so close to other traffic before," said the report. "It passed over the cockpit, slightly right of centerline. If it had been any lower, it would have hit the aircraft. "As the object passed by, there was no noise, no wake turbulence, and no disruption or anomalies with any of the flight or engine instruments." The plane was flying in clear weather to Boston from Philadelphia at the time. The sun was at the pilot,s back. He apparently did not have time to take evasive action. "There was no exhaust or smoke, no fire, and he could not accurately discern its size. The captain reported his total time as 15,000-plus flight hours. He had never seen a missile in flight." The first officer, whose flight time totalled 7,500 hours, said he was bent over to adjust the volume on his headset when he looked up and saw the object pass overhead "very quickly." "It was close enough that he ducked his head because he thought it would hit them. . . . He thought it passed about 100 to 200 feet above the airplane and between the right side of the fuselage and the No. 3 engine." The first officer said no markings were visible and the object appeared to be the size of a thumbnail held at arm's length. He said he had previously encountered a weather balloon over Italy, and the object did not look like the balloon.  He had witnessed missile launches from the ground previously, the report said. The report said the nearest weather balloons are launched from Upton, N.Y., 43 nautical miles northeast of JFK twice daily, at 7 p.m. and 3 a.m. Eastern time and usually take 25 to 28 minutes to reach 23,000 feet. Balloons are light tan or brownish, or black and red, said the report, adding the wind was blowing from the north, almost at right angles to the aircraft. Investigators also checked radar data and plotted the plane's flight path. "There was no evidence of an opposite direction target, either beacon or non-beacon," said the report.  (Click to listen to RealAudio File SWR 127.   Tape was obtained by filing a FOIA request to the FAA.)

SWR 127: Center - Swissair 127
Controller -1: Swissair 127 - go ahead.
SWR 127: Yes sir. I don't know what it was but it just overflew like .. like a couple of hundred feet above us .. I don't know if it was a rocket or whatever but incredibly fast in the opposite direction.
Controller -1: In the opposite direction?
SWR 127: Yes sir. And the time was 2107 (5:07 pm local time).  It was too fast to be an airplane.
Controller -1: OK.  Thank you.
Controller-1: US Air 986 - Did you see anything like a missile in your area - perhaps off to your right?
US Air: I'll take a good look but if it's goin' that fast I probably won't get a chance. We just saw Swissair go by a minute ago.
Controller-1:  OK. Thanks
SWR 127: Swissair 127. We had no T-CAS (collision avoidance) warning.  It was way too fast I guess.
Controller -1: Swissair 127 - Thank you.
Controller -1: Swissair 127 - How far above you was it?
SWR 127: It was right over us - right above .. opposite direction ...  and  ... I don't know two, three, four hundred feet above us.
Controller-1:  OK. Thank you
SWR 127: All I can say, 127, is that the three of us saw a white object - it was white and very fast.
Controller -1: Swissair 127 - Thank you.
Controller -1: Northwest 550.  Did you see anything similar to a missile or a UFO in your vicinity - maybe about three minutes ago?
NW 550: We heard that report but we haven't seen anything - Northwest 550.
Controller -1:  USAir 1800 you didn't see anything either?
USAir: We saw nothing ...
Controller -1: Hey Chris. Swissair 127...  he had a UFO or a rocket or something almost hit him in my airspace.
Controller -2: A UFO or a rocket almost hit the Swissair 127???
Controller -1: Yea, it went right above him - two or three hundred feet he says. Some kind of white object. They're checking into it here but if he says anything to you .... just to let you know.
Controller -2: OK. Thank you.

The captain (Bobet) and the first officer (Grunder) were interviewed the following day in Boston by the FAA, the FBI, and the NTSB.  The FAA report quoted the captain as stating that the object "appeared to be moving" and "the object did not appear to have an exhaust plume, or resemble any characteristics of a rocket".  The captain denied that these were his statements in contacts with staff of the UFO Research Coalition which conducted an investigation of the incident...

The UFO Research Coalition  Report on Swissair 127   ISBN 1-928957-00-5  (1999)   Pages 7-8
Captain Bobet: 'The object appeared to be moving...' is a wrong statement. I insisted on the very high speed of the object at different occasions. So, the object did not APPEAR to be moving, it WAS moving.   "In addition, the object did not appear to have an exhaust plume, or resemble any characteristics of a rocket ...."  I NEVER mentioned the word "rocket" (or missile). I would have done so only if I was sure that we encountered one. Even though it was (and still is) very tempting to use the word, I will never use it as long as I am not 100% sure it was a rocket.  Thus, I certainly did not say that "the object DID NOT resemble any characteristics of a rocket."  This is pure speculation from the FAA.

Asked about the FAA report that United Airlines Flight 176 had seen a weather balloon and that was the FAA's opinion of what the Swissair pilots saw, Captain Bobet commented....

The UFO Research Coalition  Report on Swissair 127   ISBN 1-928957-00-5  (1999)   Page 11
As already mentioned, that was one hour after we spotted the object ... ridiculous statement from the FAA!

Strangely the FAA seems always to prefer balloons to missiles ...

June 27, 1987   The NY Times
The National Weather Service doubts it was theirs and the Defense Department insists it wasn't theirs. About the only thing the Federal Aviation Administration can say about the object that encountered a Delta Air Lines jet at 29,500 feet Thursday (June 25, 1987) is that no one is likely to find it. The pilot of Delta Flight 1083, flying 60 people from Pittsburgh to Atlanta, told investigators that an object, which appeared to be a missile, seemed headed straight for his Boeing 737 before passing to the side and slightly below. "The pilot described it as a rocket or missile about 4 feet long, with fins," a Delta spokesman, Bill Berry, said. "It went so fast that's all he saw." The aviation agency said it would probably never know what had the encounter with the jet 31 miles northeast of Charleston. Kathleen Bergen, an agency spokesman, said it was left with two explanations: The official one is that it was a promotional balloon that escaped. "Balloons can travel pretty far" she said. "We don't acknowledge the existence of U.F.O.'s."

In a taped interview with Robert Durant, Captain Bobet discussed the reason for the discrepancy in his description of the object as cylindrical and the co-pilot's description as round and stated....

The UFO Research Coalition  Report on Swissair 127   ISBN 1-928957-00-5  (1999)   Page 13-14
Bobet: Yeah, they insisted on that. I don't know whether they were looking for an excuse or whatever, but they insisted on a different perception. I don't know why. I told the, Mr. Hancock, the NTSB man, that we saw it from a different angle, so obviously we couldn't see the same form. Two things that make me not believe any weather balloon story is the speed and the size, And the form. I saw it long, I'm absolutely sure, absolutely sure. I will never ever say that it was a missile, unless I would be 100% sure. Because when you start talking about a missile then of course the story goes on and on and the media people get on it. So I can't be sure, 100% it was this. Now if you asked me what would be the closest, I would say yes it was, it would be a missile but on purpose I mentioned the white shark, ok.   I didn't want to mention the name missile. (Note from author: Bobet used the term "white shark" to describe the object to avoid using the word missile)

Durant: That's fair. But the size, you would estimate as the size of a great white shark?

Bobet: Yes

The U.S. government received a warning in June 1998 that Osama bin Laden was planning imminent attacks ...

August 10, 1998     International News Electronic Telegraph
American officials said that the State Department received information on June 12 that bin Laden was threatening "some type of terrorist action in the next several weeks".

Was one of these attacks related to another Swissair incident in mid-June 1998 which Bobet revealed was reported to Swissair but not to the American authorities?

The UFO Research Coalition  Report on Swissair 127   ISBN 1-928957-00-5  (1999)   Page 26
 In July 1998, Bobet advised us that Swissair had experienced another UFO sighting in the vicinity of JFK International Airport in mid-June. The airplane had been airborne only several minutes, and was en route to Zurich.  All three cockpit crew members saw the object. No report was made to Air Traffic Control authorities at the time, and apparently no notification of U.S. authorities was made subsequently. Only Swissair management was briefed by the crew.

And in mid-June of 1998 there was a similar sighting in England...

June 12, 1998   BBC News September 15, 1999 Published at 18:29 GMT 19:29 UK
A UFO that narrowly avoided colliding with a passenger jet flying from London's Heathrow Airport has baffled aviation experts. The metallic grey-coloured object was spotted by the pilots of an Oslo-bound McDonnell Douglas MD81 plane on 12 June 1998, and passed just 20-50 metres from them. The captain said the object was the size of a small aircraft, while the co-pilot described it as a "bright light, very close". Reporting to an air traffic controller, the captain said "a flare or something passed 20 feet from our aircraft", but nothing had been recorded on the radar screen. The pilot later filed a near-miss report, known as an airprox, in which he said the object looked similar to a fighter. But a report by the Civil Aviation Authority found no explanation for the incident, which has also confounded local military experts and local police. "Air traffic controllers were certain that even a very small aircraft would have been detected, particularly on Heathrow radar," said the report. Although the evidence of the unnamed airline's crew is considered to be reliable, the report notes that they only caught a brief glimpse of the object.

Three months later Swissair Flight 111 from JFK crashed on the tenth anniversary in the islamic calendar of the bombing of PA 103 after a high intensity fire erupted in the cockpit....

September 2, 1998     11 Jumaada al-awal 1419 A.H.
Swissair jet from JFK crashes off Nova Scotia not far from the city of Halifax

December 21, 1988    11 Jumaada al-awal 1409 A.H.
Pan Am 103 bombed over Lockerbie.

The fire was tentatively blamed on an entertainment system wiring problem yet the heat was so intense that aluminum was melted.  On board the aircraft was a Saudi prince whose family Osama bin Laden is attempting to overthrow.  (For further information on SwissAir 111 and its loss of radio contact while over Long Island Sound see "The Mystery of SwissAir 111")

September 5, 1998   The Hindu Online
A Saudi Arabian prince was among those killed in the Swissair plane crash off Canada. The English-language Saudi Gazette quoted a Swissair source confirming that Prince Bandar Bin Saud Bin Saad Abdul Rahman al-Saud was among the 229 passengers and crew killed when the plane plunged into the Atlantic near Nova Scotia on Wednesday. Prince Bandar, 45, a former Saudi Air Force pilot, was on his way to visit his father who was receiving treatment in Switzerland.

Two months later Osama bin Laden was the victim of an assassination attempt by poisoning which he blamed on Saudi Prince Salman bin Abdul-Aziz.   Bin Laden suffered acute kidney failure and for the next few months hobbled around leaning on a stick.  (The New Jackals by Simon Reeve)

Missile attacks on American aircraft continue to this day as evidenced by the following items below.

February 21, 2002 'Rockets' reported fired at two jetliners Tom Ramstack THE WASHINGTON TIMES
An Alexandria woman said she saw a "flare or rocket" ascending toward a US Airways flight landing at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport last month, similar to a report from a Southwest Airlines pilot landing at Baltimore-Washington International Airport Sunday. The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating a report by the pilot of Southwest Flight 454 that he saw what looked like a model rocket pass on the left side of his aircraft Sunday evening. The FAA says it has no reports of the rocket sighting by the Alexandria resident, Joyce Mucci. The trade association public relations coordinator said she observed the incident while driving home from work Jan. 20 at sunset near Reagan Airport. "It was like a rocket, kind of a reddish thing that came up from the river bank," Mrs. Mucci said. "It was aimed toward the back of the jet. Maybe the pilot didn't see it." Mrs. Mucci said she doubted it was a model rocket. "It did not look like any model rocket I've ever seen," she said. Her son used to play with model rockets when he was a child. "When he was a kid, we used to make model rockets, and they don't look like that. It was right toward the back of the jet, right behind the engine. It went at an angle like it was aimed at the jet." She added, however, that the object did not get close enough that it could have brought down the airplane. "It may be nothing, but it's important for somebody to follow up on this," Mrs. Mucci said. She said the "flare or rocket" rose from a spot down the slope of the Potomac River beyond the jogging trail next to Reagan Airport, halfway between Memorial Bridge and the airport. She said she called a Federal Aviation Administration telephone number the next day. She left a message on voice mail but received no reply. After news accounts of the incident at BWI Sunday, Mrs. Mucci called the FBI yesterday. "The FBI guy said, 'Hold on a minute,'" Mrs. Mucci said. "Then a woman in the background said, 'I don't want to talk to another psychic.' Then I was put through to somebody's voice mail and I didn't leave a message." FAA Eastern Region spokesman Jim Peters said he had no information on Mrs. Mucci's January report. "We have no record of receiving a call from Mrs. Mucci on or about that day," Mr. Peters said. He also said he had "no idea" of how often other people say they have seen rockets near airplanes. FBI spokesman Chris Murray said, "Our office is unaware of that incident." Southwest Flight 454 was on approach 12 to 14 miles southeast of BWI at 3,000 feet at 7:10 p.m. Sunday when the pilot said he saw the rocket. The FAA acknowledged the incident at BWI publicly for the first time Tuesday. Mr. Peters said yesterday the agency was looking into it. Fraser Jones, spokesman for the national office of the FAA, said reports of rockets flying toward airplanes are rare. "We don't tally those that I'm aware of," Mr. Jones said. "I have not heard of reports of that kind before." Local airport authorities also said they are unaware of a "flare or rocket" near Reagan Airport in January. "I haven't heard anything about that," said Tom Sullivan, spokesman for the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, which manages Reagan and Washington Dulles International airports. "If it was reported by our tower, our police would have been alerted." Mrs. Mucci's report was the first time he heard of someone seeing a projectile apparently fired at a commercial airplane in the Washington area. Occasionally, passers-by mistakenly report "near misses but not rockets," Mr. Sullivan said. The only similar report of a rocket fired at a commercial airplane in the United States followed the explosion and crash of TWA Flight 800 off the coast of New York on July 17, 1996.The National Transportation Safety Board explained the witness' reports by saying that after the front part of the plane broke off during an electrical fire and fuel-tank explosion, the wings and rear part of the fuselage continued climbing at a sharp angle, creating an upward streak of light.

February 26, 2002 E-mail to website author from Joyce Mucci who provided the information to the Washington Times mentioned above
(Name witheld) forwarded your email to me after my story was published in the Washington Times. I called the newspaper out of frustration with the FBI (in particular) and the FAA. Needless to say, I do not have to tell you that I "saw what I saw". However, I am convinced that unless you are a paid informant, pilot, law enforcement officer or lawyer, the FBI and the FAA have no use for your information. So much for the public relations outreach by the administration. The area that I witnessed the "rocket, flare or whatever" is inaccessible by car. Additionally, if someone was down there with a missile no one from the bike path or the road would see them. The rocket was on a trajectory out and up toward the aircraft (just aft of the right engine). It seems complete nonsense to believe that it was a kid's rocket. Someone fired something at the jet while on final approach to Reagan. It also interesting to note that the area from where the rocket came is between the Memorial Bridge and the 14th Street bridge. It would be difficult to fire a missile on planes approaching from the south because on the east side of the Potomac is Bolling Airforce Base and on the west is Old Town Alexandria. Keep up the good work. By the way, if my plane is shot down coming out of the Reagan, tell everyone it was not a center fuel tank explosion.
Regards,
Joyce Mucci

They asked me how I knew that TWA 800 was brought down by a missile.   I at once replied that some things cannot be denied!

(Articles from news sources have been placed within for educational, research, and discussion purposes only, in compliance with "Fair Use" criteria established in Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976.)