On the 17th of July, 1996, TWA Flight 800 departed from John F Kennedy Airport in New
York just as the sun was setting.
The flight was bound for Rome with an intermediary stop in Paris… but it would never reach
its destination.
Flight 800 would soon become one of US history's most controversial aviation disasters, the
exact cause of which is still sometimes questioned to this day.
Trans World Airlines was founded in 1930, originally under the name Transcontinental
& Western Air.
Along with American Airlines, United Airlines, and Eastern Airlines, it was one of the “big
four” aviation companies in the US.
At the start of World War II, businessman Howard Hughes acquired the airline and diversified
its routes to include most of Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.
The mainstay of TWA’s fleet was their Boeing 747s, ordered in the early 1970s.
These jumbo jets were used in TWA’s advertising and were so iconic that they would become
almost a symbol of the airline.
By the mid-1990s, though, TWA was looking to retire its older fleet, including the 747s,
replacing them with newer planes such as the Boeing 767.
The plane flying as TWA 800 was a 747.
This particular 747 had been marked for retirement…
but when the 767 that was supposed to fly the route that day experienced mechanical
issues, the older plane was swapped into service.
In the cockpit were Captain Ralph Kevorkian and Acting Co-Pilot Steven Snyder.
Captain Kevorkian had 31 years of flying with TWA, and Co-Pilot Snyder had 32 years of experience
in total.
Also in the cockpit was Flight Engineer Trainee Oliver Krick, who only had six previous flights
under his belt, and Flight Engineer Richard Campbell, who would be training Krick whilst
carrying out his duties.
As they arrived at JFK, a problem with the number three engine required it to be shut
down.
As they waited at the gate to have it fixed, two further delays arose: some baggage handling
equipment blocked their route away from the gate, and a passenger-baggage mismatch was
noticed.
This meant that a piece of luggage was on board, but the owner was not.
A passenger-baggage mismatch is considered suspicious, and requires further investigation
whenever it is detected.
The flight was delayed for over an hour in the hot evening sun.
The air conditioners worked hard to keep the passengers and crew comfortable.
Finally, the baggage handling equipment was moved and a faulty cable was replaced on the
number three engine.
It was also found that the owner of the mismatched bag had actually been on board the whole time.
With all delays taken care of, the plane taxied, and took off from Runway Two-Two Right at
8:19pm.
The climb out of JFK was uneventful.
Once TWA 800 had been directed, Boston Air Traffic Controllers turned their attention
to other traffic… and continued working until, quite unexpectedly, reports of an explosion
came flooding in.
The initial report came from Captain David McClaine, flying an Eastwind Airlines Boeing
737.
He described seeing that a landing light had accidentally been left on on the plane ahead
of him.
He flicked his own lights on and off to alert them to this… and then watched in horror
as the plane ahead of him exploded.
Boston Air Traffic Control contacted all other flights in the area, and found one unresponsive:
TWA 800.
Despite many rescue and civilian aircraft and vessels racing to the crash site, no survivors
were found.
All 230 people aboard perished.
This included not only the flight crew, but also 20 off-duty employees flying the Rome-Paris
leg of the trip, and 16 students and five adult chaperones from the French Club of the
Montoursville Area High School in Pennsylvania.
It was one of the deadliest aviation disasters in US history.
The National Transportation Safety Board (or NTSB) and Federal Aviation Administration
(or FAA) launched an investigation.
Parallel to this, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (or FBI) was also assigned to the case.
There was soon disagreement between the different organizations involved in the work.
At various times, different organizations released conflicting information to the public,
causing the families of many victims to express anger and frustration with the progress of
the investigation.
The FBI believed the cause might have been terrorism, while the NTSB refused to speculate
on the cause.
To help reach a definitive answer, wreckage was retrieved from the Atlantic Ocean, with
many pieces dredged from the seabed.
The wreckage was placed in the former Grumman Aircraft facility in Calverton, New York.
The Cockpit Voice Recorder and Flight Data Recorder, acquired shortly into the recovery
operation, yielded almost nothing.
During the final 30 recorded minutes, everything had been moving like clockwork, until the
recordings suddenly cut out with a sharp noise.
The FBI, without advising the NTSB, took recovered parts of the aircraft and tested them for
any explosive residue.
They found traces of explosives in the wreckage and subsequently announced this in a press
conference.
Meanwhile, the NTSB had not found any evidence of an explosive device.
The announcement by the FBI that explosives might have been involved, therefore, complicated
the investigation and increased tensions between the different authorities involved.
It would later be concluded that the explosive residue had either been left over from a sniffer
dog training exercise the plane had been used in months before, or had transferred in small
amounts from military uniforms during the retrieval of wreckage.
Another theory that arose was that TWA 800 had been accidentally shot down by a missile
launched by a US Navy vessel conducting exercises off Long Island on the day of the crash.
This possibility generated a great deal of media coverage, speculation and anger.
It was later found to be extremely unlikely that a missile had been involved.
All missiles on the US Navy vessels were accounted for, and the wreckage lacked the inward curl
and pitting that would indicate a missile impacting the aircraft.
The NTSB continued rebuilding the fuselage, and found that much of the wiring was in poor
condition… but not as a result of the crash.
Wires were aged, chafed, and in some places stripped of insulation due to wear and tear
over time.
Examining the schematics from the plane, investigators also found that wires passed through the fuel
tanks of the 747.
As the reconstructed fuselage came together, the pattern of damage to the aircraft began
to point more and more conclusively to one root cause: a fuel tank explosion.
The tank in question had not been filled for the flight to Paris, but would have had some
fuel left over from the previous flight.
If this residue were to heat up significantly, flammable vapors would form.
Air conditioning packs were located underneath the fuel tank, and had been working constantly
during the hour-long delay at the gate, generating heat as they did so.
With this in mind, investigators carried out a test in a rented 747-100 operated by Evergreen
Cargo.
After fitting the plane with sensors, they recreated the conditions experienced by Flight
800, and observed the center-wing fuel tank reaching temperatures of 52.7 degrees Celsius
(or 127 degrees Fahrenheit) – hot enough to cause the fuel residue to create flammable
fuel vapor.
The wiring that went through the fuel tank controlled lights and was not high-voltage
enough to ignite the fuel vapor.
Re-examination of the Flight Data Recorder and Cockpit Voice Recorder uncovered an anomaly.
Just before both recorders cut out, there were two separate microsecond-long outages
in the recordings.
Additionally, a few minutes before the explosion, Captain Kevorkian was heard to say:
“Look at that crazy fuel flow indicator there on number four.
See that?”
From this the NTSB concluded it was more than likely an electrical current from the plane’s
higher-voltage systems had jumped to the lighting system.
This would explain the flickering lights, the momentary outage of the recorders, and
the ignition of the fuel tanks.
The full sequence of events was now clear: while waiting for takeoff, the air conditioning
packs heated up the remaining fuel in the center-wing fuel tank.
The fuel vaporized, and a spark from a jumped circuit ignited the vapors.
The fuselage broke apart, sending the nose section hurtling down toward the ocean, while
the rest of the plane - with the center of gravity shifted - arced upward in flame before
spiraling down, breaking apart in the wind.
It took four years to reach this conclusion, but the findings were published by the NTSB
and corroborated by the FBI, finally closing the investigation.
It had been in no way simple or straightforward, but many lessons were learned as a result.
Teamwork, communication between agencies, and a clear hierarchy were prioritized between
the FBI and the NTSB for future investigations.
The 747 fuel tank was redesigned, and more inspections were arranged to monitor the wiring
systems in aircraft as they aged.
TWA went defunct after declaring bankruptcy for the third time in January 2001, and was
acquired by American Airlines.
The last of TWA’s assets were merged by 2003, and the last 747s were all retired by
the end of the year 2000.
The reconstructed remains of TWA Flight 800 were used as a training tool by the NTSB for
several years, before finally being destroyed in 2021 at the request of the families of
the victims.
A memorial stands at Smith Point County Park in Shirley, New York, for the 230 people who
perished in the disaster, and whose deaths remained a mystery for so long after they
had passed.