The following came to me via internet and I thought this group would be interested in how conspiracy theories are formed through this latest example.

Airline conspiracies abound
By Roahn Wynar

Readers of the New York Times recently came across a full-page advertisement by the Associated Retired Aviation Professionals, an organization formed with the sole purpose of independently investigating the TWA 800 disaster. The ad states the National Transportation Safety Board and the FBI have, at best, seriously mishandled the investigation or, at worst, are part of a giant cover-up to protect the reputation of the U.S. Navy.

Similar cover-up theories were invented in 1983 regarding KAL 007, the Korean Airlines 747 destroyed by Russian fighters over Sakhalin Island near Japan in 1983. This is an excellent opportunity to compare the classic KAL 007 theory and the emergent TWA 800 theory.

Summary of theories:

KAL 007 -- The U.S. government arranged to use the civilian cover of KAL 007 to spy on a sensitive sector of the Soviet air defense system. The Soviets were not fooled and attacked the plane, killing all 269 people aboard.

TWA 800 -- A U.S. military exercise is somehow responsible for launching a missile that destroyed TWA 800. This notion is modeled after the USS Vincennes incident July 1988, in which a naval vessel shot down an Iraqi civilian airliner.

List of meaningless statements misrepresented as evidence to support the conspiracy:

KAL 007 -- The pilot was a former military pilot. The aircraft took on extra fuel just before takeoff. There were U.S. Navy airplanes and vessels flying and sailing in the North Pacific at the time, presumably directing the spy mission. An ultra-conservative member of Congress who was a major Cold War hawk was aboard.

TWA 800 -- Again, conspirators point to the fact that military exercises were ongoing at the time of the explosion. Many eyewitnesses claim to have seen a "streak of light" connected to the explosion.

List of silly notions that cover gaping holes in conspiracy theory logic:

KAL 007 -- Hundreds of conspirators including servicemen, KAL employees, air traffic controllers and government officials have remained tight-lipped. KAL 007 was retrofitted with special intelligence gathering equipment. A "shadow" plane flew on KAL 007's intended track in order to not tip off air traffic control. Additionally, the impossible claim that air traffic control radar observed KAL 007's "evasive maneuvers" as the plane dodged the missle.

TWA 800 -- Hundreds of servicemen have been intimidated into silence by the Navy. One of three U.S. submarines conducting exercises nearby may have launched the fatal missile. Never mind that there is no known submarine-launched surface-to-air missile in the Navy's inventory. Also, Associated Retired Aviation Professionals claims that all-seeing, perpetually-watching spy satellites observed an object flying upwards toward TWA 800 just before the explosion.

The simple explanation that conspirators refuse to believe and why:

KAL 007 -- The crew made a navigational error or had an unnoticed equipment malfunction, resulting in a small heading error upon takeoff from Anchorage, Alaska. This led to a large flight path error that sent the plane right into the hands of the trigger-happy Russians. Conspirators insist that three experienced pilots would not make such a mistake. Wrong. Almost every aviation disaster is due to gross pilot error.

TWA 800 -- An electrical/mechanical failure caused the explosion of a mostly empty central fuel tank where fumes are most volatile. Conspirators argue that TWA has a good safety record. This is a weak rebuttal.

Propaganda support :

KAL 007 -- The Soviets quickly accused the United States of using a civilian plane for a spy mission. Russian propagandists encouraged many "useful idiots" within the United States to write books on the conspiracy. The originator of the theory, while a graduate student at Columbia University, published his exotic version of events in The Nation magazine.

TWA 800 -- The Workers World News service, a socialist group, claims that many TWA employees blame the Navy. Admiral Thomas Moorer, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Vietnam era, steadfastly supports the ARAP theory and was a major author of the Times advertisement. Where have we heard of Admiral Moorer before? Oh, yes, he was the central source for CNN's ridiculous Tailwind fiasco. It is clear from that case that the admiral is deeply unreliable as an expert about anything.

Closure:

KAL 007 -- The black boxes were delivered to the International Civilian Aviation Organization during the Glasnost period. Analysis of these boxes unambiguously confirmed that navigational error was to blame.

TWA 800 -- extensive wreckage analysis provided no evidence of a missile impact but did suggest a central fuel tank explosion. Because of the nature of the event, we will likely never experience complete closure. Unanswered questions, however, do not imply a gigantic conspiracy.

KAL OO7 shows us that human error and bad luck are the primary causative factors of disasters, not evil intentions or complex, brilliantly implemented schemes. TWA 800 tells us that some questions will never be answered.

What the ARAP needs is a solid fact, not a laundry list of wild ideas. They need someone to say "I shot the missile," or a credible terrorist claim. This straightforward evidence was easily forthcoming in the case of the USS Vincennes and the Lockerbie bombing. When no evidence exists to bound our imaginations, it is easy to create a theory where a submarine is responsible for the explosion of an airborne 747.

Roahn H. Wynar
Atomic and Molecular Experimental Physics
Columnist, The Daily Texan, Student Newspaper of the University of Texas at Austin
Roahn's Clearing house of Central Texas Pseudoscience and Quackery:
http://www.ph.utexas.edu/~rwynar