TWA Flight 800 was a passenger flight to Charles De Gaulle International Airport (near Paris) from John F. Kennedy International Airport (Jamaica, Queens, New York, New York).
On July 17, 1996, the plane on the route, a Boeing 747, exploded off Long Island in mid-air and crashed into the ocean, killing all 230 people on board, amongst which the French guitarist Marcel Dadi. The cause of the explosion is still unknown.
The flight number was retired after the crash, although TWA continued to operate flights between New York and Paris. Several years after the crash, TWA was purchased by American Airlines.
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After what has been billed as the longest and most expensive accident investigation in American history, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigation found that the flammable fuel/air mixture of the center wing fuel tank probably ignited due to electrical failure in the center fuel tank, causing the plane to explode in flight. The FBI agreed that there had been no criminal act after examining all the plane's wreckage that had been recovered.
The NTSB subsequently made several recommendations to the FAA with an eye toward reducing the potential for future fuel/air vapor explosions in fuel tanks. In 2003, Boeing tested a 747 with a prototype "fuel tank inerting" system, in which nitrogen was pumped into the fuel tanks in order to displace so much oxygen that a fire or explosion would not be supported. If this system is completed, it is not clear whether anyone will pay to install it in the airlines' current fleets of aircraft.
The terrorist theory was as usual one of the first to be mentioned, especially due to the fact that the accident happened during the Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta, where a bomb explosed ten days later (see Centennial Olympic Park bombing).
Cmdr. William S. Donaldson, a retired Naval officer who conducted an independent investigation, disagrees with the official theory. According to Commander Donaldson, "jet airliners built by the American aerospace industry have logged at least 150 thousand years of flight time. Not once has there ever been a spontaneous fuel tank explosion on any fuel tank while airborne." (Letter to NTSB 11-14-97).
Donaldson concluded that the airplane was shot down by missiles. He interviewed hundreds of witnesses and said he reconstructed the flight paths of these missiles by triangulating the eyewitness accounts. Soon after, a photo that a passenger of a North American Airlines plane arriving at JFK International Airport supposedly took, seemed to support the missile theory because the "photo" showed a "missile" missing the NA Airlines jet narrowly.
Pierre Salinger, a former White House press secretary to President John F. Kennedy and American Broadcasting Company News journalist, prominently and repeatedly claimed he had proof that the flight was downed by a missile from a U.S. Navy ship. The documents on which he relied were later found to be rumors that had been distributed over Usenet, with attributions only to many "unnamed experts". Some people briefly gave the name of Pierre Salinger Syndrome to the tendency to believe things that one reads on the Internet.
There have also been persistent rumors that the plane was downed by a bomb (see Mohammed Samir Ferrat for one theory). In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks, these alternate explanations have been revisited, as some officials and commentators have mentioned this disaster among lists of terrorist attacks.
Various groups and individuals continue to maintain that the plane was downed by a bomb or missile, and that there was a subsequent cover-up to disguise the real cause of the crash.
Official explanation
Alternate theories
See Also
External links
