From: John Young <jya@pipeline.com>
Date: Tue, 24 Mar 1998 20:04:53 -0800 (PST)
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: EMI and TWA 800
Message-ID: <199803250404.XAA02816@camel14.mindspring.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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The April 9 New York Review of Books has published a long 
special supplement, "The Fall of TWA 800: The Possibility
of Electromagnetic Interference," by Elaine Scarry, a noted author
and Harvard professor:

   http://jya.com/twa800-emi.htm  (128K with 3 images)

The article closely examines the possibility of electromagnetic
interference in TWA 800's controls, comm, and black boxes
by activities of the ten US military planes and ships in the
vicinity which were heavily equipped for electronic warfare 
and were conducting tests of the gear. 

It is reports on what is publically known about the EM armaments
of planes and ships in the vicinity, about secret EM weapons and 
defenses, the several dozen military and commercial planes that 
have crashed due to EMI, military studies of long-standing EM 
hazards which will not be released to crash investigators, current 
research in EMI and what scientists in the field think about the 
possibility of EMI causing the fall of TWA 800.

It calls for the military to release its classified EMI research to
NTSB investigators, and short of that, for the servicemen and 
women on the planes and ships at the scene to tell what they 
know. It asks Congress to order military cooperation.

Not at all inflammatory or accusatory, it is thoroughly researched 
(over 100 notes and citations) and highly informative on the 
hazards of EMI, and worthy of ciritque by learned scientists 
in the field here.

Coda: Ron Brown's crash is not mentioned but its characteristics 
fit several other EMI accidents for which the military will not
release findings, claiming that national security EM weapons
secrets would be jeopardized.