The revenge for flight 655

For those who still refuse to believe that a Trans World Airlines Boeing 747 blew itself up off the Hamptons on the night of July 17, 1996, you might check out the Flight 800 site. They are using Google Earth to triangulate the witness statements in 3D. The utility of GE for something like this is pretty nifty, regardless of whether 800 was terrorist-related or not.

Conspiracy buffs have written many books about 800, most claiming it was shot down. My feeling was it was either an errant Navy missile or possibly a Yousef-type seat bomb, but so many folks saw what they described as 'flares' before the crash it gives the missile theory more credence.

Actions by the govenment also appear curious and incriminating. The FAA's sluggish response in issuing any safety directives related to fuel tanks is odd. The whole 747 fleet should have been grounded. Even more curious was the involvment of the FBI, CIA and even NSA in a civilian crash, normally the jurisdiction of the NTSB.

However, an errant Navy missile seems unlikely since there are too many sailors that would have been privy to the information. After ten years you'd think one or two would have come forward. If the Navy didn't do it, and the wiring didn't spark, it had to be a terrorist act.

Since the attack occurred on July 17 many terrorism experts suspected Iraq, since that is "Iraq Revolution Day" (the day Saddam took control). Possible, but we should not forget another incident took place previous to 800 that might provide some motive--one committed by the US Navy against a civilian airliner.

That catastrophe occurred on July 3, 1988 when the USS Vincennes shot down Iran Air Flight 655, a scheduled flight from Tehran to Dubai with 290 people onboard. The aircraft was climbing out across the Persian Gulf when the Aegis equipped cruiser mistook it for an Iranian F-14 in attack profile. The cruiser was supposedly being fired upon by Iranian gunboats at the time.

Some immediately speculated that the downing of Pan Am 103 in Lockerbie was retaliation, but that act was later pinned on Libya as revenge for Reagan's strafing of Ghaddafi's house. So we're left to believe Iran never retaliated. Strange, eh?

Shortly after 800 went down a relatively unknown Islamic group did take credit:

The State Department failed to note that on this same day, July 18, the Islamic Change Movement released another communique through well-established Islamist terrorist channels in Beirut. It read in part, "We carried out our promise with the plane attack of yesterday."

Of course, claiming responsibility is not uncommon for terrorist groups after plane crashes, regardless of cause. But it's quite interesting such a missive was issued out of Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold. And we all know Hezbollah is an arm of the Iranian government.