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PILOT SAW MISSILE PASS HIS JET
Pilot: Missile Passed His Jet
By LARRY NEUMEISTER Associated Press Writer Saturday, September7, 1996
SHINNECOCK, N.Y. (AP) -- Weeks after the TWA Flight 800 explosion andhundreds of miles away, an American Airlines pilot claimed he saw a missilepass by his jetliner in flight, federal investigators said Saturday.
While the two cases were being investigated separately, the report fitsa scenario that is one of the theories under consideration in the TWA case-- that a missile brought down the jumbo jet July 17, killing all 230 peopleaboard.
The National Transportation Safety Board said the pilot on an Aug. 29 AmericanAirlines flight from San Juan, Puerto Rico, to Boston said he saw a missilepass his Boeing 757 as it flew over Wallops Island, Va.
The island, where the National Aeronautics and Space Administration hasa program for unmanned research rockets, is about 220 miles south of theTWA crash site.
``We got a report of it through our normal channels and assigned an investigatorto it,'' said NTSB spokesman Peter Goelz. ``We're going to look into it.So far, we have not been able to confirm anything.''
Goelz said he had never heard of such a report in the two years he had beenwith the agency. He said the pilot did not report taking any evasive action.
``We have no idea how close it was. We don't know that it was a missile.It might have been something else,'' he said.
No one answered the telephone Saturday at the NASA Wallops Flight Facilityon the island when a call was placed for comment.
Questions have persisted about military activities on the evening of theTWA Flight 800 crash because investigators say a missile attack remainsone of three possible explanations, along with a bomb and a catastrophicaccident.
Pentagon and state National Guard spokesmen have said repeatedly that noexercises with missiles or other live weapons were being conducted in thearea.
Asked about the possibility that friendly fire brought down the jetliner,NTSB Vice Chairman Robert Francis said Thursday: ``My information, and Ibelieve it is reliable, is obviously it's something we looked very closelyat, and there's no indication that was the case.''
Meantime Saturday, attempts to find wreckage from TWA Flight 800 were ruinedby bad weather Saturday. Rough waves off Long Island stirred by the remnantsof Hurricane Fran left no visibility on the ocean floor, said Lt. NicholasBalice, a Navy spokesman.
© Copyright 1996 The Associated Press