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DOD PAO MEMORANDUM FOR CORRESPONDENTS
Memorandum: No. 035-M March 13, 1997

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.

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.