November 24, 1997: Cancer Treatments - Dr. Joseph Gold | TWA Flight 800 Investigation - Capt. William S. Donaldson
The second half presents a detailed investigation into the TWA Flight 800 disaster. Aviation expert Capt. William S. Donaldson, a retired Navy commander, challenges the official center fuel tank explosion theory. He notes that in the entire history of U.S. civil jet aviation, no fuel tank has ever spontaneously exploded. Two eyewitnesses join: Major Fred Myers, a decorated helicopter pilot who observed what he describes as an ordnance-type explosion, and Richard Goss, who watched a bright object rise from near the surface and make a sharp left turn before a massive explosion.
Donaldson presents forensic evidence including a six-inch through-hole in the fuselage and debris field analysis showing pieces displaced thousands of feet from the aircraft track, patterns he says are inconsistent with a fuel tank explosion and consistent with a proximity-detonating missile warhead.
Key Moments
Hydrazine sulfate stops cachexia - 70% of cancer deaths: Dr. Joseph Gold of the Syracuse Cancer Research Institute lays out the mechanism: hydrazine sulfate stops the wasting of normal energy from the body, halts weight loss, and arrests cachexia - the progressive debilitation that he says accounts for upwards of 70% of all cancer deaths. Stop cachexia, he argues, and you stop a large fraction of the deaths attributed to cancer itself.
NCI tainted the trials - used tranquilizers known to be incompatible for 25 years: Gold accuses the National Cancer Institute of tainting its hydrazine sulfate trials by combining the drug with tranquilizers, then concealing the tranquilizer use when first publishing results three years earlier. He notes it has been known for 25 years that tranquilizers are incompatible with hydrazine sulfate - the kind of methodological poison that would null any positive signal.
Major Fred Meyers in a Black Hawk - streak of light, then an ordnance-style explosion: Donaldson's first witness, an active-duty Black Hawk helicopter major, describes flying instrument approach 200 feet up at the northeast end of a runway when he saw a red-orange streak moving horizontally with a gentle descending arc 10-15 miles away at roughly 10,000 feet. The streak lasted three to five seconds, paused, then a high-velocity ordnance-style explosion appeared at the end of its trajectory - sharp, not the slower main-body fuel-tank signature.
FBI's interest evaporated - Donaldson's eyewitness Richard says agents 'got disinterested': Donaldson's second witness, Richard, watched two explosions and a fireball that took a sharp left turn - what Donaldson calls 'the perfect layman's description of a missile engagement.' Richard says FBI agents came twice: the first interview took four or five minutes with quick notepad jottings and an agent stepping aside on a cell phone; follow-ups had no excitement at all. Donaldson notes their bearing lines from independent witnesses cross about three miles offshore.