1 & 2: A maybe + A maybe = ________
The autopsy on Ribas revealed that his only injuries were a broken ankle and a perforated eardrum. Cause of death was drowning.
If you think that those initial injuries are consistent with:
a) Having hit the sea at 540 knots, or
b) Having been ejected from the capsule at 540 knots after the aircraft hit the sea
Then you might want to reconsider that view.
To all of those who were involved in Operation El Dorado Canyon that I have talked with, there is a firm belief that Karma 52's crew ejected and that Ribas unstrapped and got out of the capsule.
I would be interested to hear what theories you have that contradict such a scenario.
3. Helmets float, bodies don't. My "theory" was much more of a general hypothesis really, with the underlying point that there simply might not be anything to recover. So, you think he was not blown up, and he may have ended up on the bottom of the Med instead?
I am not sure if that is a general theory of yours, or the official DoD line, but I can assure you that bodies do indeed float.
Again, the fact that Ribas drowned and then floated onto a Libyan beach a week or so later, is testimony to this.
My personal belief is that Lorence was incpacitated or killed when an SA-2 hit the right side of the jet. I think that there is every likelyhood that Ribas attempted to get his WSO out of the capsule before the thing sank.
Finally, you don't know dick about the negotiation process for remains returns. The State Department has been using third parties like the Vatican in this capacity for decades. If you think that all of that happened while the State department was on vacation, you are fooling yourself.
I did not say that the Vartican acted unilaterally; I said that they acted not because the US did such a convincing job of asking them to, but because Ribas had been a devout Catholic. There is a difference.
In this case, the US was so far removed from the actual process that it failed to correctly ID the body that was being returned. And this in spite of the fact that Ribas had been recovered with his wedding band and photo ID - two facts that the Libyans openly told anyone who would listen, and which was carried in a number of international newspapers in late April 1986. Ribas' wedding band was inscribed on the inside with the name of his wife. So, I am not particularly impressed, either, with that fact that the US managed to tell Lorence's family that their father/son/husband was coming home when it would have taken just a little digging to establish from the outset who it was.
Again, no slap on the back for you guys.
As for what I do and don't know about negotiations in this particular case, I think that there's a good chance that I know more than you at this stage.
I was being facetious, I looked at his bio and searched the internet. As far as I am concerned his comments disparaging the work of dedicated professionals who have worked this issue for years has no place here, I don't care who he is.
Ribas was my next door neighbour and something of a childhood hero.
But, who actually am I? Someone who doesn't think that the US did enough at the time to find either man. Someone who has witnessed first-hand the continued pain of the Lorence family, and the futility with which they have campaigned to get the US government to do more. Someone who wants to make sure that Lorence is not forgotten.
Sorry that you don't think a thread that debates whether the US does enough to recover its MIA is the place to mention Lorence, but I am firmly of the view that it is.
My comments were honest, not disparaging. But in any case, since this is a subject close to my heart, I don't really care what you think about me.