WASHINGTON, 23 July (RIA Novosti), Mark Hirst – A senior US air accident investigator has told RIA Novosti that US government was once forced to “cover up” an errant missile strike that brought down an American airliner, similarly to how the ill-fated Malaysian jet was blown out of the sky this past Thursday.
“At this point there are obvious similarities between MH17 and Flight 800, with an inflight break-up of the aircraft and structure and the question is what caused it?” said Henry Hughes, who helped investigate the 1996 crash of an American TWA passenger plane that killed 230.
Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was recently downed in eastern Ukraine en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, killing 298 people.
Speaking from his home in Virginia, Henry Hughes told RIA Novosti, “In my situation, because I was one of the principal investigators, I got to see what was going on. There is no question it’s a cover up.”
For 42 years Hughes was an air accident investigator with the National Transport Safety Board (NTSB) and a principal investigator into what caused TWA Flight 800 to crash off the US coast in July 1996. The US Navy was conducting exercises adjacent to the flight path of the aircraft at the time of the disaster.
A subsequent NTSB board report concluded faulty circuit wiring had ignited the central fuel tank of the Boeing 747 causing a catastrophic explosion, but Hughes and his team of experienced retired investigators have rejected the findings.
“Our investigation talked to the 577 people, very few of whom even knew each other, scattered over an area thirty miles wide who saw the same thing happen at the same time and, with varying degrees of detail, described the same event,” Hughes told RIA Novosti.
“When you have debris going out the right side of an airplane in excess of Mach 4 and the aircraft is doing 375 knots, that’s a clue too,” Hughes added.
Drawing more comparisons to the MH17 disaster Hughes added, “There is a political aspect to it. Any time politics enters into an investigation you have trouble.”
“Based on 42 years as an investigator I have serious doubts they will be able to do a thorough and complete investigation into what happened to MH17,” Hughes told RIA Novosti.
Despite new evidence uncovered by Hughes and his investigative team, the US authorities refuse to re-examine the case into what brought down TWA Flight 800. Hughes told RIA Novosti he now plans to challenge that decision in the US federal courts.
“Flight 800 was brought down by a missile,” Hughes told RIA Novosti.
“The NTSB contends the center fuel tank exploded as a result of faulty wiring,” Hughes added. “But the official responsible for the systems investigation, when the NTSB board approved their final report, said he found no physical evidence to support that the center fuel tank exploded as a result of chafed wiring. They found absolutely no evidence to support that.”
Hughes told RIA Novosti he was not alone in reaching the conclusion a US surface-to-air missile destroyed Flight 800.
“We have Chief Medical Examiner for Suffolk County, Dr. Charles Wetli, Colonel Dennis Shanahan, a retired United States Army Colonel who is one of the most qualified air accident investigators in the world, and we also have the Chief FBI chemist, Dr. Fred Whitehurst,” Hughes told RIA Novosti.
“All of these people worked with me on the original investigation. They are all reasonable, experienced people and have said exactly the same thing; that a surface-to-air missile brought down that flight,” Hughes added.
Ukrainian government and local militia in the region of Donetsk have been trading blame for the alleged downing of the airliner, with resistance forces saying they lacked the technology to shoot down a plane at 33,000 feet.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said that at the time of the Boeing crash, Ukraine’s military had at least 27 surface-to-air missile launchers capable of bringing down high-flying planes stationed in the Donetsk Region.
