TWA Flight 800
, approximately 20 miles southwest of
East Hampton, New York, killing all 230 people on board. Passengers included
French guitarist
Marcel Dadi; composer
David Hogan; Jed Johnson, a former member of
Andy Warhol's filmmaking team; the wife and niece of
jazz saxophonist Wayne Shorter; the sister of comic creator
Geoff Johns, who later created the character
Stargirl based on her;
Portland,
Oregon homicide detective Susan Hill; and
Dan Gabor, and a University of Arkansas all-American track athlete. Other passengers included 16 members of the French club at
Montoursville High School in
Montoursville, Pennsylvania, and their five chaperones.
The aircraft was flying more than eight miles off the coast of
East Moriches, New York (on
Long Island) when the plane's center wing fuel tank exploded. The aircraft developed cracks around the nose as a consequence of the explosion, and the front part of the aircraft broke off (including the cockpit and first class section). The rest of the plane continued to fly for another 30 seconds until it lost momentum and went into a dive. The left wing ruptured, and the leaking fuel from the left wing tank ignited in the air, triggering a second explosion. Both pieces of TWA 800 splashed down into the
Atlantic Ocean, and some debris burned on the surface of the ocean.
While the above details are generally not in question, the
cause of the explosion is a matter of debate. A four-year investigation by the U.S.
National Transportation Safety Board, the only official investigation to date, concluded that fumes inside the center wing tank ignited, causing the explosion. The NTSB concluded that the spark was created by faulty wire insulation and an electrical arc. The theory was solidified upon investigating the poor condition of wiring on other Boeing 747 aircraft of the approximate age. The NTSB contends that the explosion could have been prevented by use of a system to smother flammable vapors inside fuel tanks, rather than the industry standards of the time that focused on eliminating ignition sources that could enter them from the outside. However, this explanation is not universally accepted, and several alternate theories to TWA 800's demise exist.
Following the crash, TWA continued to operate flights between New York and Paris under the flight number 924 (return flight number was 925) until its merger with
American Airlines in
2001. It retired the number 800 (and return flight number 803) about three weeks after the disaster.
After what has been billed as the longest and most expensive accident investigation in
American aviation history, the NTSB investigation's conclusions were adopted on
August 23,
2000, just over four years after the disaster.
The NTSB concluded that the "probable cause" of the explosion (the language is always guarded) was a small amount of fuel in the center wing fuel tank, which is usually used only on long 747 flights. The flammable fuel/air mixture of the center wing fuel tank probably ignited due to electrical fault near the center fuel tank, causing the plane to explode in flight. Paradoxically, a small amount of fuel in a tank is more dangerous than a large amount, since fuel has a higher specific heat capacity, and is slower to heat up than an air mixture.
National Geographic's Seconds From Disaster calls this chain of events 'probable' based on evidence, while leaving open other possibilities.
Investigators considered the possibility of a criminal or terrorist act during the four-year investigation. Six months after the disaster on January 16, 1997, the NTSB's chairman, Jim Hall, stated, "All three theories - a
bomb, a
missile or mechanical failure - remain."[
1] This is typical of standard scientific procedure, which openly considers all possibilities, until each one can be refuted and a probable cause can be determined, and should be interpreted as such. The FBI's earliest investigations and interviews, later used by the NTSB, were performed under the assumption that the plane was hit by a missile, a fact noted in the NTSB's final report. However, all agencies involved--the NTSB,
FBI and
Coast Guard agreed that there was no foul play involved after examining all the plane's recovered wreckage.
CNN reported that early in the course of the investigation, terrorists linked to
Iran were the prime suspects.
Leon Panetta, then chief of staff at the
White House, told CNN that had this been the case,
President Bill Clinton would have likely declared war on Iran.
Speculation at the time and in the years since has been fueled in part by early descriptions, visuals, radar, and eyewitness accounts of this jet disaster, including a sudden explosion and trails of fire in the sky; particularly, trails of fire moving in an upward direction. Investigators said that witnesses who reported seeing a missile actually saw Flight 800 climbing sharply and trailing flames after it exploded. The NTSB produced simulations of the proposed climb[
2], but disagreement exists as to whether radar returns from the doomed flight show the necessary ground-speed reduction to match these simulations.[
3]
|
Recovered parts of TWA 800's fuselage |
Two unusual pauses in the cockpit voice recorder's tape, each about two microseconds long, and just before the voice recorder cuts off, suggest a short circuit in the electrical system of TWA 800, and provides a framework by which a short circuit could have existed to spark and ignite the center fuel tank of the aircraft.
The two most prevalent alternative theories around TWA 800 are that of a bomb similar to the one that brought down
Pan Am Flight 103 in
1988, or a missile striking the plane (attributed to American armed forces by some and to terrorists by others)[
4]. Those supporting these alternative explanations for the crash typically claim that the NTSB's explanation was created as a cover-up; that the NTSB did not investigate sufficiently; or that the NTSB did not have all the evidence they should have to reach the correct conclusion.
A terrorist bomb
The terrorist bomb theory was one of the first to be mentioned. The TWA 800 disaster occurred 2 days before the opening ceremonies of the
Summer Olympic Games in
Atlanta, and this connection was not lost on media pundits, taking into account eyewitness accounts of the nature of the explosion of the plane.
Terrorist motive was also given credence by the
Centennial Olympic Park bombing, on July 27 (ten days after TWA 800). The Atlanta bombing, in this case, was and is used to tie the two events together, making one event a terrorist event because of the proximity in time to the other.
The bomb theory also received credibility when the FBI reported the discovery of plastic explosive residue within the debris of the plane, on August 27, over a month after the crash. A few weeks later, this residue was explained as the product of a bomb detection exercise performed in the plane a few weeks before the crash. This explanation is often dismissed by individuals who believe a terrorist bomb was involved in the destruction of TWA 800.
In his book
Cover Up: What the Government Is Still Hiding About the War on Terror, journalist
Peter Lance alleges that TWA 800 was blown up by a bomb intended to disrupt the trial of terrorist
Ramzi Yousef, the nephew of
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and planner of the 1993
World Trade Center bombing. Lance claims that the explosion is consistent with Yousef's bomb design intended to blow up the center fuel tank of a
Boeing 747 that had previously been used on
Flight 434, although it had been improperly placed and failed to ignite the fuel tank. Lance claims that this link was never made because it relied heavily on prison informant Greg Scarpa Jr., the son of a leader of the Colombo crime family, whose credibility was undermined by people in the FBI seeking to protect many convictions of mobsters which could be overturned if Scarpa was a credible witness in a possible internal investigation into whether Special Agent Lindley DeVecchio had been leaking FBI information that allowed Scarpa's father to conduct a bloody mob war.
Missile strike (unknown/terrorist origin)
Cmdr.
William S. Donaldson, a retired Naval officer, and others, conducted an independent investigation entitled "Interim Report on the Crash of TWA Flight 800 and the Actions of the NTSB and the FBI", released on
July 17,
1998, two years after the explosion, and two years before the NTSB's conclusions were released.
A private researcher, Michael Hull, working with Cmdr. Donaldson, reached the key conclusion that the center wing tank exploded at approximately 8,000 feet, approximately 24 seconds after the aircraft was decapitated in a missile attack at just over 13,000 feet (a conclusion they assert radar evidence supports). A possible culprit was proposed as
Islamic Jihad, using a shoulder mounted missile.
Major Fred Meyer has made the assertion that he saw TWA 800 shot down while piloting one of the first helicopters to arrive at the TWA 800 crash site, based on the distribution and appearance of wreckage [
5].
Evidence from two eyewitnesses (Goss and Dougherty, interviewed by the Donaldson researchers [
6]) describes how one of the missiles made a sharp turn. These accounts were used by the researchers to triangulate the launch points of two missiles. Hull and Donaldson agree that this view of where the center wing tank exploded is supported by several pilots who overflew the smoke cloud and estimated its height with their altimeters. They assert that testimony to the NTSB showed that the black smoke from the center wing tank fuel explosion was not at 13,000 feet, where the NTSB and CIA say it should have been, but was at a significantly lower altitude.
Michael Hull further asserts that the downing of TWA 800 was a success in a chain of state-sponsored terrorist attempts to shoot down aircraft in the greater Long Island area, quoting a March 1997 incident, and others, to justify this conclusion.
Missile strike (friendly fire)
One theory has the US Navy conducting tests of submarine-to-air missiles, accidentally hitting Flight 800, and then covering up the fatal error. After initial denials, the U.S. Navy later admitted that
USS Wyoming (SSBN-742), listed as being armed with 24 Trident II D-5 Ballistic Missiles, commissioned only days before, was conducting sea trials in the area, and that
USS Trepang (SSN-674) and
USS Albuquerque (SSN-706) were conducting unspecified operations in the area. The
Wyoming is indicated to be carrying Trident missiles, but these are ICBMs, not SAMs. Possibly one or more could have been carrying
MANPADS missiles; however all three were more than 50 miles (80 km) away from the crash site , far outside the range of any MANPADS missile. Granting these facts, alternate theories have suggested that the type of missile used to strike the plane may be classified secret.
Another possible alternate theory involving the US Navy is that a missile was fired from the
USS Normandy (CG-60), operating 185 nautical miles (340 km) south of the TWA 800 crash site. This is well outside of the range of currently deployed
Standard missiles carried by US ships, almost double the range of the current SM-2 Block IIIB versions, and just within the future Block IV ER versions. Even if this were a test of a Block IV version, although there is no evidence for this, at the extreme range in question the engine would have long burned out and the warhead would be gliding. This contradicts the main claim that a missile was involved, which is a number of eyewitness accounts claiming to have seen a missile trail almost vertical under the explosion site. Furthermore, inventories of USS
Normandy's missile complement by the US Navy, immediately following the crash of TWA 800, showed no missiles missing from the inventory.
Regardless of the possibility of any number of missiles and missile launch platforms being in the vicinity of TWA 800 at the time of the accident, no evidence of a missile impact exists within the recovered wreckage according to a
study conducted by the
Department of Defense's Office of Special Technology.
Nevertheless, evidence such as the following affidavit, dated January 2, 2003, is being listed as one of the articles of evidence in
recent FOIA suits pressed by Captain Ray Lahr against the
National Transportation Safety Board: [
7] in the continuing assertion that TWA 800 was downed by a missile. The affidavit filed in Lahr's suit is by a retired United Airlines pilot, Captain Richard Russell, [
8] who viewed radar tapes and took part in phone conversations which convinced him that Flight 800 was a victim of friendly fire, and subsequently wrote an affidavit to this effect.
Pierre Salinger, a former
White House press secretary to
President John F. Kennedy, US Senator, and
ABC News journalist, prominently and repeatedly claimed he had proof that the flight was downed by a missile from a
U.S. Navy ship. The document on which his "proof" was based was given to him by someone in French Intelligence [
9]. It was later found not to be a government document but instead an email written by retired United Airlines pilot Richard Russell [
10] that had been distributed over
Usenet weeks before. Some people coined a condition called
Pierre Salinger Syndrome to denote the tendency to believe anything one reads on the Internet [
11].
Summary
A number of alternative theories surrounding TWA 800 rely on eyewitness accounts as collected by the FBI. However, very few of the witnesses were within five miles (8 km) of TWA 800 at the time of the accident, according to a
witness map provided by the NTSB. The vast majority of the witnesses were too far away from the accident scene to discern any significant details, and some witnesses describe events that were too far away to see (the objects would be too small , considering the
visual acuity of humans).
The investigators initially gave serious consideration that TWA 800 was a terrorist act. Large stockpiles of
FIM-92 Stinger surface-to-air missiles were missing from American military arsenals around the globe. Also, at the time of the explosion, Yousef was on trial for a plot to bomb American jets.
However, CNN reported as the investigation wore on, they discounted the theories that a bomb or missile caused the explosion. They found no signs of damage from a Pan Am 103-type bomb--which, ironically, would have blown up over the Atlantic had it not been running late. There were no traces of explosive imprints or traces of bomb material. The sound pattern of the first explosion is different from that of Pan Am 103. All four engines were recovered, with no traces of the kind of damage that would result from a heat-seeking missile.
CNN interviewed two pilots who saw the explosion while flying passenger jets overhead that night for its special on the crash. The pilots claimed that from their previous experience as military pilots, there was no sign of a missile launch anywhere near the 747. One of them, Paul Whelan, who was flying a
Boeing 737 that night, said that he saw no vapor trail that could have come from a missile.
During the investigation process, the NTSB and FBI frequently were at odds with one another over the cause, and this stimulated missile or other criminally-motivated theories. The FBI did not close its official TWA 800 investigation for years after the crash, with the implication that evidence might emerge justifying criminal suspicion.
The NTSB's final report was highly critical of the FAA and aviation industry's emphasis on eliminating ignition sources from the
outside, while ignoring the flammable vapors
inside the fuel tanks.
Cleve Kimmel, an aerospace engineer, spent nearly 30 years developing an
inerting system to prevent fuel tank explosions on aircraft. Kimmel's system pumps
nitrogen into fuel tanks to displace
oxygen. The effect is to either completely smother the oxygen or reduce it to a level where it can't ignite, eliminating any chance of an explosion inside the tank. Kimmel's system had been used on military planes for years, but the
FAA balked at requiring it for passenger aircraft after the airlines complained it was impractical. Indeed, early nitrogen systems weighed about 2,000 pounds. However, the FAA refused to even consider inerting systems until after TWA 800.
In a proposed rule issued in November 2005, almost a decade after the crash, the FAA wrote that for the previous forty years, it had focused on improving fuel tank safety by reducing possible sources of ignition, and had spent no effort on reducing the flammability of fuel vapor if ignition were to occur. The FAA decided to change this tactic, and finally proposed a rule that would require operators of most large aircraft to install an inerting system in the center fuel tank. The proposed system, based on Kimmel's system, is very light, weighing only 300 pounds. The FAA stated that, including the TWA 800 crash, there had been four fuel tank explosions in airliners over the previous 15 years (two others having occurred on the ground, and one having been caused by an in-flight terrorist bomb which had not otherwise structurally compromised the aircraft (
Avianca Flight 203), and that based on this statistic, it could be expected that there would be 9 center fuel tank explosions over the next 50 years. Inerting systems, the FAA wrote, could be expected to prevent 8 of these 9 probable explosions.
*Author
Nelson DeMille's
2004 novel
Night Fall is about an investigation into the alternative crash theories of TWA 800. A couple conducting an illicit affair on the beach inadvertently capture the disaster on video.
*The crash happened 142 years to the day after a shipwreck involving the sidewheeler
Franklin (see
Wrecks and rescues on Long Island), which occurred on July 17, 1854, in the Moriches area.
*The incident was used as the basis for the 2000 horror movie
Final Destination (see
Flight 180) and inspired one of the stories in a comic book entitled
Serina: Blade of the Pharaoh.*Comic book author
Geoff Johns' sister Courtney died on Flight 800; he created the character
Stargirl in her honor.
*The character Chester in
Neal Stephenson's 1999 novel
Cryptonomicon, who has made a fortune working for a company that resembles
Microsoft, builds a home that is a museum of dead technology. One of the exhibits is the complete remains of Flight 800's wreckage, reassembled and hung from the ceiling.
*Scientists at
NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in
Huntsville, Alabama, were assigned to inspect TWA 800's fuel pumps as part of the investigation.
*American rapper
Immortal Technique makes allusions to the navy missile theory in his song Leaving The Past from the album Revolutionary Vol. 2 ("Bring the truth to your face with the style I run with, like the Navy missile that shot down flight 800").
*A memorial to Flight 800 is located on
Fire Island, New York.
*Sixteen members of the
Montoursville High School (
Montoursville, Pennsylvania) French club and five chaperones were killed on this flight.
*This was the first breaking news story when MSNBC began broadcasting.
*One passenger, language professor Lois Van Epps, taught actor
Joe Mantegna in high school.
*
CNN aired a two-hour special on the crash,
No Survivors: Why TWA 800 Could Happen Again, on
July 15,
2006, nearly ten years to the date of the crash.
*
News 12 Long Island, a local cable news station, had originally reported that Flight 800 had collided with a small plane.
*
Accidents and incidents in aviation*
PlaneCrashInfo.Com - Entry on TWA 800*
AirDisaster.Com - Entry on TWA 800*
Aviation Safety Network - Entry on TWA 800*
CNN feature on TWA 800*
Flight 800 Independent Researchers Organization (FIRO)*
National Transportation Safety Board official investigation*
Boeing's official statement on TWA 800 and future safety measures*
Accuracy in Media report*
Associated Retired Aviation Professionals site devoted to the crash*
IAMAW report on the crash investigation*
CNN coverage of TWA 800 investigation*
List of crew and passengers*
Photos of N93119 at
Airliners.net*
Newsday anniversary coverage*
TWA Flight 800: 10 Years After*
Kernel Press, Inc. - NASA role in TWA investigation*
*The Bogie Was a drone - Suffolk Life News
