Pumped to hear you read it, and devoured it that quickly…..I found it to be such a riveting page turner for how bland or dry the material might appear on the surface, of a years long methodical piece by piece investigation of a single crash. I was more engaged than with any fiction I read this year though. Really found it fascinating.
Definitely love to read those additional notes you took.
Yeah as someone who feverishly read every JFK book he could get his hands on over the years, but ultimately came to the conclusion the evidence pointed to Oswald and Oswald alone…..I almost found this to be the perfect companion piece, as it perfectly demonstrated my theory that if we investigate any huge moment in history enough (like this crash, 9/11, JFK, etc) there is inevitably going to be insane coincidences occurring parallel to that event, that appear on the surface like they MUST be connected, without a shadow of a doubt, because we never see THIS insane a coincidence in day to day life……but they’re happening all the time, we just happen to pass them by without ever being aware of them because we aren’t picking through these moments in time with a fine tooth comb like this other historical moments are on a gigantic scale.
Like how can bomb sniffing dogs conclusively find residue in parts of the wreckage that definitively prove there was C-4 plastics on the plane, and it NOT be the cause of the explosion that downed the plane?? AND the FBI haven’t told us they discovered this!?!? Conspiracy!!!!!
….no, they didn’t share it yet because they weren’t finished with their investigation into it, and ultimately discovered that insane as it is….that plane had coincidentally been used by local law enforcement to train their bomb sniffing dogs like 5-6 weeks prior to the crash, and because these planes are loaned out for such purposes by the airports directly and not the airlines, this hadn’t been caught in the moment, and was only discovered through further insanely thorough investigative work.
There’s a million little moments like that in JFKs assassination as well….but no one in the cottage industry of conspiracy books/films, have any real incentive to point them out.
Yeah even as a non-conspiracy theorist as you’re reading and they go down these different paths, you start to think “Ok, this part HAS to be connected…..nope, perfectly logical explanation for it actually.”
Yeah and you can see why it takes off, cause some of these truths are absolutely crazier than fiction, so the conspiracies are almost pre written for the conspiracy grifters to latch onto and proliferate…..all the pieces are there for riveting stories, especially when they have no loyalty to the truth, and can spin it all in any direction they like.
Even with this TWA 800 flight….how many people are going to listen to this nearly 20 hour book, versus an enticing 30 minute YouTube video of conspiracy theories on it, or a Twitter thread with 12. “Damning” pieces of evidence.
That’s what made the book so great though, it’s very much an anti-conspiracy theory book that kinda primes you to think more critically about “evidence” and conspiracy theories you here in the future, after being shown time and again how many crazy coincidences in the TWA investigation, proved to have absolutely nothing nefarious to them whatsoever.
For sure it was a great listen. If you haven't read the other two books I mentioned ("Too Big to Fail" and "Bad Blood"), make sure you do. They are very much in the same style of writing and takes you deep into the financial crisis and culture of Silicon Valley.
Here are the other notes. They are just random passages I am copying and pasting from my Google Keep (so, sorry if you see grammar/spelling mistakes
the book itself was 18+ hours hehe).
* There are undetectable plastic explosives out there which is very scary
* Similarly, there are bombs small enough to fit a cassette player!
* There was so much inner dept rivalry between the FBI and NTSB and others but they managed to stay the course.
* So many officials seemed like they quietly wanted this to be a terrorist attack
* The FBI lead always worried about what defence lawyers would say after wards if they found a culprit. In many of his decisions this was an actual factor to consider.
* There were silly witnesses that FBi followed up on: i.e North Carolina sighting of the crash which is nowhere near the crash sight. or the call that was traced to an Irish pub.
* On planes life guard cargo is not checked or scanned (i.e. cargo that holds scientific items like humanoid body part). Someone could easily put an explosive there!
* At one point Navy provided inventory of missing weopons. They didn't find a missing missile but sacrily they found many missing C4 explosives, grenades, etc.
* Unbelievably, 250 people come in contact with typical plane before it takes off and also many incidents that lack security (i.e. Agents hold doors for one another etc.). So easy for a bad actor to get in there.
*Impressed with Clinton meeting people. He spent nearly a full day with the families. One kid, a victim, was to play Clinton in a commercial.
* Agents helped trim the lawn of familes, Prepare food for funeral attendees etc. which was pretty nice to read.
* Despite all the work, 95% of the physical evidence was still under the water on July 26
*DNA of victims tested to make sure people weren't boarded under a false name
* Heat seeking weapons can target engines, some of these are widely available to many bad actors throughout the world.
* They reconstructed the whole plane and experimented. I.e. Took five hours to open and then close the centre fuel tank which was the size of a one car garage.
*Possible causes: Accident; Friendly fires (Normandy boat);Terrorist attack
* Example of how FBI does it's business: in one occation one of agents fed dogs that guarded a mafia bosses' place of business meatballs with laxative powder and sleeping pills. Dogs messed up the place and passed out. Agents entered and planted their bugs.
* Yusuf, bomb maker that attacked the World Trade Centre was trained to fight the Soviets. US was ok with that until....
* Victor Bruno. Mentally ill patient who made up an elaborated story of having met Iranians and plotted the whole thing. He later on was found on a building threatening to jump. Very Kyser Soze-like story he made up.
* At one point they suspected a guy who was seen in the area every evening with a hidden item in his hands. Turned out it was a camera, and he liked to shoot sunsets so he had to cover the camera for lighting purposes.
* Finally, they started thinking this may have been an accident: "747's don't just fall out of sky but perhaps this one had"
* So many bents and tears in the plane that mystery got deeper as they found more
* An engineer switched to Hindi while presenting without even noticiting it. He was so tired
* They took out the engineers NTSB to a gun range to blow off rage
* 400 divers over 4000 dives. Shark infested waters. They finished in the fall.
* April effort ended. 19,000 square miles of ocean bottom. Size of New York to LA interstate highway six times over.
* One year anniversary they ID'd the last passenger , a single foot in a boot. 98% of the jet recovered. Fifteen missing bodies.