Fbi Says Radar Blip Near Twa 800 Was Navy Plane

A blip on a radar tape purported by friendly fire theorists to prove that a missile brought down TWA Flight 800 was actually a passing Navy reconnaissance plane, the FBI’s lead investigator said Thursday.

James Kallstrom, in his first explanation of the mystery blip, said it belonged to an unarmed Navy P-3 Orion that was flying at 20,000 feet with the knowledge of air traffic controllers but without a working transponder, an instrument that allows controllers to monitor and identify an aircraft.

“When your transponder is not on, it shows on the radar screen as a solid line. And if you look at that, I guess if you’re a school kid, you could say that looks like a missile or a cigar or a pencil,” he told business executives at a luncheon at Kennedy International Airport.

Kallstrom said the line makes it appear to the untrained eye as if the planes nearly intersected although they were more than 7,000 feet apart when the P-3 crossed in front of the Boeing 747 before the jetliner exploded off Long Island last July 17. All 230 people aboard the Paris-bound flight were killed.

Again attacking Pierre Salinger and others trying to prove a Navy missile doomed the plane, Kallstrom called the theory “total nonsense” and an “absolute charade on the American public.”