Introduction by Joel Skousen, World Affairs Brief, August 12, 2022
NAVY IMPLICATED IN TWA 800 TRAGEDY CONFIRMED
Jack Cashill who has written more about the downing of TWA 800 than anyone else has finally revealed the identity of his whistleblower source in the Navy who fed him information all these years about how the Navy accidentally shot down the civilian airliner TWA 800, and then enlisted the force of the US government to cover it up. The CIA spent millions recreating a false scenario blaming the explosion on a fuel tank fire.
August 8, 2022
The TWA 800 Whistleblower Is Legit
By Jack Cashill
In the past few weeks, I have received numerous inquiries about ten-year Navy veteran William Henry Teele III. After years of quietly providing information to me and other investigators into the July 1996 destruction of TWA Flight 800 off the coast of Long Island, Teele has gone public and is naming names.
I shared some of Teele’s information in my 2016 book, TWA 800: The Crash, The Cover-Up, The Conspiracy. Teele did not claim to be on the ship that fired the missile. He was on the USS Carr, a guided missile frigate that was one of the “combatants” in the battle group that destroyed the unfortunate 747 and killed the 230 souls on board. Everything that I could verify about Teele’s account back then checked out. …
On the evening of July 17, 1996, as Teele relates, the Carr was trying out new AN/SPY-1 Alpha radar as well as new AN/SPS 49 radar. Teele was among the personnel monitoring this activity from within the ship’s combat information center (CIC).
In its November 1997 summary the FBI acknowledged that three submarines — the USS Normandy, the USS Trepang, and the USS Albuquerque — were in the “immediate vicinity of the crash site.” So too, said the FBI, were the USS Normandy, an Aegis cruiser, and a US Navy P-3 Orion. The P-3, in fact, just happened to be flying about seven thousand feet above TWA 800 when the plane was blown out of the sky.
Teele puts the USS Carr in this group as well. Although he has not said so publicly, Teele strongly believes that the USS Leyte Gulf, another Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser, was involved. With Teele confirming there was a drone in the mix, the U.S. Navy had all the “combatants” needed for a missile test.
…drones played the role of “unknown assumed enemy.” The P-3’s role was to relay data among the various units involved. In this way, as Teele explains, one ship could track the assumed enemy, and another ship could fire.
Teele describes the assumed enemy as a “low, slow flier flying toward us.” The tragedy that followed would likely have been averted had not air traffic control held the Paris-bound TWA 800 at 13,700 feet to allow US Air 217 heading north to pass safely overhead. “I believe we jumped the gun,” said Teele. “We had a track on a contact that came out that fit the profile that we were given.” TWA 800 became the “assumed enemy.”
Two missiles were fired. Over his headset, Teele heard the announcement, “Birds away.” A few minutes later, he heard “Splash,” meaning the missiles had hit the target. Soon after that, he heard someone say, “Wo, wo, wo.” And another person added, “Wait a minute. We hit an Airbus.” …
The stuff that happened on the night of July 17, 1996 outraged Teele’s CO, Captain Wray. “These have got to be the dumbest idiots I’ve ever seen in my life,” Teele remembers Wray as saying. “How do you accidentally fire a missile? You don’t know the color of missiles? One is blue. One is white. Blue mean training [no warhead]. White means live [warhead]. You’ve got to be stupid to put a white on the rail.” Although his memory as to which ship was responsible is admittedly uncertain, Teele believes it was the Leyte Gulf.
Despite the long-established mandate that neighboring ships rush to the scene of an accident, the Carr turned tail and headed out to sea “at top speed.” [and so did most of the other Navy warships] Teele’s leading petty officer made it so clear that he was to say nothing of what he saw or heard. He then issued the order, “Pull the RD390 tapes, close all positional log books, including the bridges, tape them and leave them on the DRT table!”
The documents were then taken to a place called the “shred room” where they were destroyed using salt water and a shredder. “We ran to Bermuda where we were not allowed to leave the ship, no phone calls, emails secured, and nothing was to be discussed!” says Teele. “Everyone that was involved was told in CIC, ‘This didn’t happen!’” As far as the major media are concerned, it never did.