1996 explosion of an American aircraft
Trans World Airlines Flight 800 (TW800/TWA800) was a scheduled international passenger flight from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City, United States, to Fiumicino Airport in Rome, Italy, with a stopover at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, France. On July 17, 1996, at approximately 8:31p.m. EDT, twelve minutes after takeoff, the Boeing 747-100 serving the flight exploded and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near East Moriches, New York, United States.
All 230 people on board died in the crash; it is the third-deadliest aviation accident in U.S. history. Accident investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) traveled to the scene, arriving the following morning amid speculation that a terrorist attack was the cause of the crash. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and New York Police Department Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) initiated a parallel criminal investigation. Sixteen months later, the JTTF announced that no evidence of a criminal act had been found and closed its active investigation.
The four-year NTSB investigation concluded with the approval of the Aircraft Accident Report on August 23, 2000, ending the most extensive, complex, and costly air disaster investigation in U.S. history up to that time. The report's conclusion was that the probable cause of the accident was the explosion of flammable fuel vapors in the center fuel tank. Although it could not be determined with certainty, the likely ignition source was a short circuit. Problems with the aircraft's wiring were found, including evidence of arcing in the fuel quantity indication system (FQIS) wiring that enters the tank. The FQIS on Flight 800 is known to have been malfunctioning; the captain remarked about "crazy" readings from the system about two minutes and 30 seconds before the aircraft exploded. As a result of the investigation, new requirements were developed for aircraft to prevent future fuel-tank explosions.
Accident.
On the day of the accident, the airplane departed from Ellinikon International Airport in Athens, Greece, as TWA Flight 881 and arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport at about 4:38 p.m. The aircraft was then refueled and the crew was changed. The crew was led by 58-year-old Captain Ralph G. Kevorkian, who had flown for TWA for 31 years and the U.S. Air Force for nine years and had logged 18,700 flight hours, including 5,400 on the Boeing 747.
Captain/check airman Steven E. Snyder, 57, had flown for TWA for 32 years and had logged 17,200 flight hours, including 4,700 on the Boeing 747. Flight engineer/check airman Richard G. Campbell Jr., 63, had flown for TWA for 30 years and the U.S. Air Force for 12 years and had logged 18,500 flight hours, including 3,800 on the Boeing 747. Also with the crew was 25-year-old flight engineer trainee Oliver Krick, who previously served as a business pilot for four years and had 2,500 flight hours, including 30 on the Boeing 747. Krick had flown for TWA for 26 days and was starting the sixth leg of his initial operating experience training. Flight 800 was actually a training flight for Kevorkian, and he was seated in the captain's (left) seat. Captain Snyder was seated in the first officer's (right) seat monitoring Kevorkian's progress. Flight Engineer Campbell was seated in the cockpit jump seat. Flight engineer trainee Krick was seated in the flight engineer's seat being monitored by Campbell. The NTSB Final Report gives Oliver Krick's age as being 24. The TWA press release gives 25. (TWA was correct, as Krick turned 25 on July 14, three days before the crash.)
The ground-maintenance crew locked out the thrust reverser for engine No. 3 (treated as a minimum equipment list item) because of technical problems with the thrust reverser sensors during the landing of TWA 881 at JFK, before Flight 800's departure. Additionally, severed cables for the engine’s thrust reverser were replaced. During refueling of the aircraft, the volumetric shutoff (VSO) control was believed to have been triggered before the tanks were full. To continue the pressure fueling, a TWA mechanic overrode the automatic VSO by pulling the volumetric fuse and an overflow circuit breaker. Maintenance records indicate that the aircraft had numerous VSO-related maintenance writeups in the weeks before the accident.
TWA 800 was scheduled to depart JFK for Charles de Gaulle Airport around 7:00 p.m., but the flight’s pushback was delayed until 8:02 p.m. by a disabled piece of ground equipment and a passenger/baggage mismatch. After the owner of the baggage in question was confirmed to be on board, the flight crew prepared for departure, and the aircraft pushed back from Gate 27 at the TWA Flight Center. The flight crew started the engines at 8:04 p.m. However, because of the previous maintenance undertaken on engine No. 3, the flight crew only started engines No. 1, No. 2, and No. 4. Engine No. 3 was started 10 minutes later during taxi at 8:14 p.m. The initial departure was uneventful, with the 747 taking off from Runway 22R five minutes later at 8:19 p.m.
 TWA 800 then received a series of heading changes and generally increasing altitude assignments as it climbed to its intended cruising altitude. Weather in the area was light winds with scattered clouds, with dusk lighting conditions. The last radio transmission from the airplane occurred at 8:30 p.m., when the flight crew received and then acknowledged instructions from Boston Center to climb to . The last recorded radar transponder return from the airplane was recorded by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) radar site at Trevose, Pennsylvania, at 8:31:12 p.m.
Thirty-eight seconds later, David McClaine, the captain of Eastwind Airlines Flight 507, a Boeing 737-221 registered N221US (which had suffered a near-crash of its own a month prior) reported to Boston ARTCC that he "just saw an explosion out here", adding, "we just saw an explosion up ahead of us here ... about or something like that, it just went down… into the water." Subsequently, many air traffic control facilities in the New York and Long Island areas received reports of an explosion from other pilots operating in the area. Many witnesses in the vicinity of the crash stated that they saw or heard explosions, accompanied by a large fireball(s) over the ocean, and observed debris, some of which was burning while falling into the water.
Various civilian, military, and police vessels reached the crash site within minutes of the initial water impact. They searched for survivors but found none, making TWA 800 the second-deadliest aircraft accident in United States history at that time, only exceeded by American Airlines Flight 191.
Background.
Aircraft.
The aircraft involved, manufactured in July 1971, was a Boeing 747-131 registered as N93119 with serial number 20083. It had completed 16,869 flights in 93,303 hours of operation and was powered by four Pratt &amp; Whitney JT9D-7AH turbofan engines.
Crew.
On board TWA 800 were 230 people, including 18 crew and 20 off-duty employees, most of whom were crew meant to cover the Paris-Rome leg of the flight. Out of the 18 crew members, 17 crew members and 152 of the passengers were Americans; the remaining crew member was Italian, while the remaining passengers were of various other nationalities. Notable passengers included:
In addition, 16 students and five adult chaperones from the French Club of the Montoursville Area High School in Pennsylvania were on board.
Initial investigation.
The NTSB was notified at approximately 8:50 p.m. on the day of the accident. A full "go team" was assembled in Washington, D.C., and arrived on the scene early the next morning. Meanwhile, initial witness descriptions led many to believe that the cause of the crash was a bomb or surface-to-air missile attack. As the NTSB does not investigate criminal activity, the United States Attorney General is empowered to declare an investigation to be potentially linked to a criminal act and to require the NTSB to relinquish control of the investigation to the FBI. In the case of TWA 800, the FBI initiated a parallel criminal investigation alongside the NTSB's accident investigation.
Search-and-recovery operations.
Search-and-recovery operations were conducted by federal, state, and local agencies, as well as by government contractors. Personnel in an HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopter of the New York Air National Guard witnessed the explosion from about away and arrived at the scene of the explosion while debris was still falling into the water, forcing the crew to retreat. They reported their sighting to the tower at Suffolk County Airport. Remotely operated vehicles (ROVs), side-scan sonar and laser line-scanning equipment were employed to search for and investigate underwater debris fields. Victims and wreckage were recovered by scuba divers and ROVs. Later, scallop trawlers were used to recover wreckage embedded in the sea floor. In one of the largest diver-assisted salvage operations ever conducted, often working in very difficult and dangerous conditions, more than 95% of the airplane wreckage was eventually recovered. The search-and-recovery effort identified three main areas of wreckage underwater, which were classified by color. The yellow, red, and green zones contained wreckage from the front, center, and rear sections of the airplane, respectively. The green zone with the aft portion of the aircraft was located the farthest along the flight path.
Pieces of wreckage were transported by boat to shore and then by truck to leased hangar space at the former Grumman Aircraft facility in Calverton, New York for storage, examination, and reconstruction. The facility became the command center and headquarters for the investigation. NTSB and FBI personnel were present to observe all transfers to preserve the evidentiary value of the wreckage. The cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder were recovered by U.S. Navy divers one week after the accident, and the machines were immediately shipped to the NTSB laboratory in Washington, D.C. for analysis. The victims' remains were transported to the Suffolk County Medical Examiner's office in Hauppauge, New York.
Tensions in the investigation.
Relatives of TWA 800 passengers and crew, as well as the media, gathered at the Ramada Plaza JFK Hotel. Many waited until the remains of their family members had been recovered, identified and released. This hotel became known as the "Heartbreak Hotel" for its role in hosting families of victims of several airliner crashes.
Many grieving relatives became angry because of TWA's delayed confirmation of the passenger list, conflicting information from agencies and officials and mistrust of the recovery operation's priorities. Although NTSB vice chairman Robert Francis stated that all bodies were retrieved as soon as they were spotted and that wreckage was recovered only if divers believed that victims were hidden underneath, many families were suspicious that investigators were not truthful or were withholding information.
Anger and political pressure were also directed at Suffolk County medical examiner Charles V. Wetli as recovered bodies backlogged at the morgue. Under constant pressure to identify victims with minimal delay, pathologists worked long hours. While some victims' bodies were generally intact, most others were burned, fragmented, skeletonized, or decaying, necessitating identification using DNA testing and dental records. As the primary objective was to identify all remains rather than to perform detailed forensic autopsies, the thoroughness of the examinations was highly variable. Ultimately, the remains of all 230 victims were recovered and identified, and the final victim identification occurred more than 10 months after the crash.
With lines of authority unclear, differences in agendas and culture between the FBI and NTSB resulted in discord. The FBI, assuming that a criminal act had occurred, saw the NTSB as indecisive. Expressing frustration at the NTSB's unwillingness to speculate on a cause, one FBI agent described the NTSB as "No opinions. No nothing." Meanwhile, the NTSB was required to refute or minimize speculation about conclusions and evidence, frequently supplied to reporters by law-enforcement officials and politicians. The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, an invited party to the NTSB investigation, criticized the undocumented removal by FBI agents of wreckage from the hangar where it was stored.
Witness interviews.
Although considerable discrepancies existed among the many witness accounts, most had seen a "streak of light," described by 38 of 258 witnesses as ascending, moving to a point where a large fireball appeared. Several witnesses reported that the fireball divided into two parts as it descended toward the water. Intense public interest arose regarding the witness reports, as did much speculation that the reported streak of light was a missile that had struck TWA 800, causing the airplane to explode. These witness accounts were a major reason for the initiation and duration of the FBI's criminal investigation.
Approximately 80 FBI agents