During the course of the on-the-record briefing by Gen.
Howell M. Estes, Commander in Chief, U.S. Space Command, at the
Pentagon, conducted Thursday, Mar. 13, 1997, Gen. Estes responded
to a question regarding TWA Flight 800. Gen. Estes at one point
said: “I looked at it when I was the J-3 here when TWA 800 was
shot down.”
Gen. Estes did not mean to say TWA 800 was “shot down.” In
the context of his response to the questions, it is clear that he
mispoke and meant to say “went down.” The corrected transcript
of the question and answer sequence is printed below with the
correction in brackets. Copies of the transcript and video tape
are available in the Directorate for Defense Information.
Q. “Gen. Estes, I'm sorry to have to bring this up, but in
Pierre Salinger's controversial report about the shootdown of TWA
800, he charges that the U.S. Space Command has refused to
release information about a U.S. spy satellite that was overhead
on the night of the disaster and--quote--recorded important
information about the shootdown. Can you put that into any kind
of perspective at all? Is that true? Or can you tell us if
there's anything to that at all?”
Estes. “Again not to give you a long answer. Let me give you a
direct answer. I'll guarantee there's nothing like that out
there. I've looked since I've been there. I looked at it when I
was the J-3 here when TWA 800 was shot [went] down. I'm not
telling you that there wasn't a missile that caused this problem.
I don't know. As we know the National Transportation Safety
Board has said there are three options on what happened. This is
their business. What I'm telling you is that in the military I
was here when that incident happened, and I know the steps we
went through. We went back just to make sure something hadn't
been missed somewhere and took a missile count of every single
missile we had--Army, Navy and Air Force--to make sure that
something didn't happen that we weren't aware of. We looked at
the location of every aircraft to make sure we knew where
everything was--where ships were--and we validated to the best of
our ability, and I have to say that there isn't anybody who's
going to have better information than this, and we are convinced
that the military was not involved in this in any way, shape or
form. Now, was there a missile attack? We have people who said
that they saw a missile. We had people back when it happened who
said they saw a missile. And the investigators that are looking
at this have determined there is, to the best of their ability,
they have not been able to find any evidence of this either in
the pieces of TWA 800 that have come off the bottom of the ocean
nor any verification anything that they've seen off of any
location either on the shore or at sea. This investigation
continues. But there is nothing--back to your
exact question to me--there is nothing at Space Command that we
know of that has anything to
do with Flight 800 that hasn't been released. Clearly, the
defense support program--the DSP satellites--did see the
explosion of Flight 800 because of its infrared source that it
was. And we saw it falling. And so that‘s the piece of
information that we had from the beginning from the U.S. Space
Command. We still have it today. Nothing's changed. That was
all seen. We know of nothing--”
Q. “That doesn't show in any way, that doesn't confirm any
missile theory or add any credence to the missile--”
Estes. “It does not. And I would tell you to be very blunt and
very factual about this that the infrared source out of a small
missile is not intense enough to for us to see with these space-
based systems. That's the fact. OK?”
Questions concerning this Memorandum for Correspondents
should be referred to Col. Richard M. Bridges, Director for
Defense Information, (703) 695-9082 or Lt. Col. Don Planalp, U.S.
Space Command, (719) 554-3525.
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