Donaldson called conspiracy theorist

April 29, 1999

A former U.S. Naval officer and other retired aviation professionals are wrong about their theory that TWA Fight 800 was shot down by a missile, according to a government spokesman.

Retired Navy Cmdr. William S. Donaldson III and others have obtained evidence they claim proves that the plane was shot down by a missile. They also claim the government is keeping the facts of the crash investigation from the public.

The National Transportation Safety Board has been investigating the crash and expects to have a final report completed within a year. Even though their investigation is not complete, they have firmly stated that TWA Fight 800 was not shot down and was not the victim of a bomb.

“We’ve been dealing with him (Donaldson) for a couple years. We just think he’s wrong. He’s off base,” Paul Schlamm from NTSB public affairs told WorldNetDaily.

The Associated Retired Aviation Professionals is a group formed by Donaldson which brings together a number of experts who have concluded the FBI, FAA, and the NTSB have all deceived the public regarding the cause of the crash.

They point to evidence they have recently obtained which shows the FBI looked for and found parts of a missile. They also claim the NTSB is purposely covering up information from the flight data recorder which proves the aircraft was struck by a missile.

“He made a big point of reading out the flight data recorders. Our people have been doing that for 30 years. He’s just wrong,” remarked Schlamm. The NTSB has already spent over $30 million on their investigation which will be three years old in July.

“We hope to bring it to a close this year. I can tell you we found no evidence that a missile impacted, exploded near the aircraft, or that a bomb exploded inside the aircraft,” Schlamm added.

All investigators initially assumed the plane came down as the result of terrorist action, but subsequent evidence changed their thinking. The FBI looked into the potential for criminal action and the NTSB examined scientific evidence, explained Schlamm. Even though they ruled out any type of missile or bomb they are not able to explain how the plane suddenly exploded.

The FBI sent approximately 1,000 agents throughout the crash area within days of the tragic event to interview hundreds of eyewitnesses. Donaldson found and interviewed about 120 witness, including 17 who were never interviewed by the FBI. He says that many of the witnesses have technical backgrounds and military experience which make them very credible. The NTSB disagrees.

“They are not being ignored,” claimed Schlamm. “You get into real questions about the reliability of witnesses. There have been a lot of studies done on this and we have people who specialize in this thing. People, you know, they read news stories, they talk to people, they tend to fill in things. There are a lot of instances of that and a lot of studies have been done on that.

“No witnesses were closer than 8 to 10 miles. What can the human eye really distinguish if you’re talking about a hand-held missile or something like that? You know, at that range there’s a question of what, this is another thing they’re looking into, there’s a question of what the human eye can actually see,” explained Schlamm.

The NTSB and FBI have continued to discredit the eyewitnesses from the very beginning of the crash investigation, according to Donaldson. He agreed in general terms with Schlamm’s statements on the reliability of witnesses, but only if the witnesses have no experience with aircraft and missiles. Many witnesses interviewed by Donaldson and the FBI have the experience to know and understand what they saw, and the large number of consistent descriptions supports the missile theory, he claims.

Schlamm classified the theories about Flight 800 as conspiracy theories and said they will be no different than the theories associated with the assassinations of President Abe Lincoln and President John F. Kennedy.