Discovery of cargo door could provide clues in TWA crash

EAST MORICHES, NEW YORK (AFP) -- The discovery of a far-flung cargo door from doomed TWA Flight 800 could provide crucial

evidence about what let to the crash.

Investigators refused to go into details about the cargo door Tuesday, but its location on the seabed, ahead of much of the rest of the

wreckage, could indicate that an explosion first occurred in the front cargo hold, disabling the plane and then shearing off the front part of

the fuselage.

The cargo door was found at a point "earlier in the flight path" than both the front and rear sections of the aircraft, which have been located

on the seabed some 10 miles off Long Island, said Rear-Admiral Edward Kristensen.

The Boeing 747 suffered a sudden and unexplained loss of electrical power, after which it broke into two parts and plunged in a ball of fire

into the sea July 17.

All 230 people aboand were killed.

Kristensen, pointing to a map, indicated the cargo door was found at least one mile (1.6 kilometers) to the southwest of the front part of the

plane, which itself splashed down 2.4 miles (3.9 kilometers) southwest of the rear part of the aircraft.

As of Tuesday, 171 bodies had been found, 185 identified and 157 turned vver to the families, National Transportation Safety Board (TSB)

vice chairman Robert Francis said,.

Investigators have refused to say what they think caused the crash, just minutes after it had taken off from John F. Kennedy airport in New

York bound for Paris.

They ad earlier suggested it might be due to a bamb, a ground-to-air missile or a mechanical malfunction.

Asked whether one theory stood out, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) lead investigator James Kallstrom, who Monday briefed

President Bill Clinton at the White House, said Tuesday: "In my mind, yes there is."

But "I cannot share it with you, he added.

"I imgine when we get more of the plane up here, we will know the answer," Kallstrom said.

Meanmhile, navy recovery vessels, assisted by divers and robots, were continuing to pu11 wreckge from the seabed some 100 feet down.

The USS Grasp remained anchored over the rear end of the aircraft and on Tuesday trought up the skin of part of the fuselage, psrt of a

galley, some closets and a number of seats, Francis said.

The USS Grapple, which arrived on the scene Tuesday, was expected to start operations around midnight and would try to lift part of the

front section of the plane.

"We are very interested in that large piece of wreckage" Francis said. But he added that because of the tangle it was difficult to know

whether it was all one piece and whether it included the cockpit area.

Investigators have also located three of the Boeing's four engines, but they were deemed "not a priority issue" after being examined by

remote cameras, Francis said.

The sudden decapitation of the jetliner is similar to how a Pan Am 747 was downed over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 and investigators are

also looking at the data recovered from a DC-10 of the French airline UTA which crashed over the Niger desert in 1989.

In the Lockerbie case, investigators concluded that a bomb had been placed in the forward baggage compartment.

Kallstrom said investigators were checking the background of all pas "There is a possibility that this was a criminal act," Francis told CNN

Tuesday.

"We would like to look for instance at the records that came out of the cockpit voice recorder in terms of sounds and do comparisons

between the cockpit voice recorder of Pan Am 103, UTA 772 and see if we learn anything," he added.

But, he said, "It is doubtful that the .... recording alone will be definitive in determining the cause of the catastrophe."

TWA Voice Recorder Offers Probers Nothing Definitive

Comparison Doesn't Find Match With Other Incidents

By Don Phillips and Pierre Thomas

Washington Post Staff Writers

Wednesday, August 21 1996; Page A03

The Washington Post

The loud noise at the end of Trans World Airlines Flight 800's cockpit voice recorder is more consistent with a fuel

explosion than with the sharp sound caused by the bomb that brought down Pan American Flight 103 over

Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, sources close to the investigation said yesterday.

But specialists who analyzed the recording have reluctantly concluded it probably will not tell them why the Boeing

747 plunged into the ocean off Long Island last month, killing all 230 people aboard. The sound could have been a

fuel tank explosion, but it also could have been a bomb that was different from the Pan Am blast. It even could

have been a rapid structural breakup, the sources said.

A comparison with numerous other voice recorders from past airplane bombings, fuel tank explosions and

structural disasters did not find an exact matching sound. And although the sound has the characteristics of a

"fuel-air mixture" explosion, at least one other bombing has produced a somewhat similar sound, officials said.

Complicating the investigation further, a sound spectrum analysis of the recording has failed to pinpoint the

location of an explosion or to detect the characteristic signature of a "wave pulse" -- or shock wave -- from a bomb.

The wave pulses buried in the recording are too poorly defined, perhaps because of acoustics of the airplane's

structure or the location of the explosion, the sources said.

When the "black boxes" with the voice recorders were discovered in the weeks following the July 17 crash, it was

hoped they might allow investigators to determine whether the crash was an accident or sabotage. Instead, the

analysis, along with other findings, has left some perplexed, deepening the mystery of what happened aboard

Flight 800.

"The recording didn't tell us what we needed to know," one senior law enforcement official said. "This is very

frustrating."

Like other evidence, the recording adds to a wealth of knowledge of what did and did not happen to the 747, but not

why.

The FBI also has failed to find any explosive residue on aircraft parts, and metallurgical tests conducted by the

National Transportation Safety Board so far confirm a major explosion but not whether it was caused by a bomb or

some cataclysmic mechanical failure.

"You would think by now they [forensic experts] would have found something, but they haven't," another law

enforcement official said. "They are working around the clock, [but] haven't pulled up the stuff that will give them

the answer."

Investigators have determined that something traumatic -- almost certainly an explosion -- happened to the

aircraft on the right side of the fuselage near where the right wing is attached. This area includes the center fuel

tank, which was largely empty except for 50 to 100 gallons of residue that would have left the tank filled with fumes.

The area is badly burned and damaged. Investigators are now reconstructing the section on a scaffolding, but

much of it still has not been recovered.

Among the possible causes of the explosion is a bomb in the area that then caused the fuel tank to explode, or

some mechanical defect that ignited the fuel tank.

Sound spectrum analysis of cockpit voice recorders has proved to be one of the most effective means for spotting

and describing explosive damage. The Pan Am 103 bombing over Lockerbie left such a detailed explosive

signature that the recording alone was evidence of a bomb.

Safety Board investigators compared the TWA voice recording with those from the Pan Am bombing and several

other crashes that involved bombings, fuel tank explosions and structural breakups. In addition, they compared it

with explosive tests conducted by British aviation safety authorities.

Even though the sound lasted only a short time before the doomed aircraft's electricity was cut off, specialists were

able to determine how rapidly it grew, its intensity and other characteristics.

Unlike the rapid onset of the Lockerbie bombing sound, the TWA sound grew in intensity at a slower rate and

lasted longer, officials aid.

The sound was "not terribly inconsistent" with a center fuel tank explosion that destroyed a Philippine Boeing 737

in 1990, the officials said. In that case, the source of ignition was never determined, but investigators suspected

wiring had been installed inside the tank and perhaps caused a spark.

The TWA tape was also compared with recordings recovered from the bombings of an Air India plane in 1988, a

French UTA DC-10 1989, an Avianca Colombian Boeing 727 in 1989 and a TWA 707 in 1974. Investigators also used

for comparison the explosive decompression of a United Airlines 747 when a cargo door blew off in 1989.

Wednesday, July 31, 1996

MYSTERIES ABOND IN WAKE OF AIR CRASHES

Flight 800Aircraft A `Beautiful Machine'

BY LORRAINE ADAMS and IRA CHINOY

THE WASHINGTON POST

Retired TWA captain Harry Pierce did a lot of living in the Boeing 747 that crashed July 17 off Long Island. He first flew it from

London to Chicago on May 16, 1978. He knew its yoke, its rudder pedals, its redundant systems. He watched the stars from its

cockpit, cruising over the Atlantic in a big strong machine.

It was like flying a building. It never felt fragile. It seemed fault-free, steady, easy. When he heard how its massiveness came

apart in a thousand strewn pieces, he was stricken. He felt for the 230 passengers and crew first, and then, unexpectedly, for

something intangible.

``It's kind of sad in a way that this beautiful machine had to end up this way,'' Pierce said in an interview last week. ``I spent so

many hours in that airplane; it's sad that it had to end up with such a tragic end. I'd rather see it parked in a bone yard

somewhere.''

It was a venerable aircraft, 25 years old. It was No. 153 off the Boeing assembly line on July 15, 1971. Throughout its 93,000 hours

on more than 16,000 flights, modern-day airline history unfolded. Aircraft changed -- its upper-deck cocktail lounge went the way

of bell-bottoms. Pilots came and went, and 25 of the world's 1,081 other Boeing 747s were lost to accidents.

But the plane marked by Registration No. N93119 delivered flight after flight. There were problems from time to time, but

experts say they were not extraordinary. Parts broke, corroded and cracked. Pilots shut down engines at least 13 times as a

precaution and made at least 25 unscheduled landings in airports around the world. But only twice do records show engines

quitting on their own, and passengers probably never noticed. There are no reports of accidents or incidents that incapacitated the

plane or injured its passengers and crew.

This, the pilots who flew it say, was no lemon. Although they hate to speculate, and emphasize that the history of aviation

disasters is built on the unthinkable and unforeseen, the pilots felt instinctively that a bomb is the likeliest explanation, though not

yet ruled the official cause.

There are three other cases of 747 midair catastrophic disintegration. Bombs caused two.

Semtex plastic explosives in a boom box stowed in a cargo container blasted a Pan Am 747 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988,

killing all 259 on board and 11 on the ground. A suitcase bomb exploded on an Air India flight off the Irish coast in 1985, killing 329.

A crash in Madrid in 1976 killed 17, and lightning was the suspected cause; it was a less-than-complete disintegration of an

Iranian Air Force freighter.

Even the 747 of Korean Air Lines Flight 007 that was hit by two Soviet missiles in 1983 did not explode -- the pilot flew for several

minutes, sending radio communications, telling passengers he was making an emergency descent, before the plane crashed into

the sea.

One United Airlines 747 flight just outside Honolulu in 1989 landed with only two of its four engines and a gaping fuselage hole

after a cargo door malfunction.

``It's a very strong airplane,'' said William Waldock, president of System Safety Inc., an aviation-safety consulting firm in

Prescott, Ariz. ``It's hard to bust one.''

James McIntyre, a retired TWA captain and international air-safety investigator, has helped investigate 40 aviation accidents.

As a pilot, he logged hundreds of hours on N93119. He also knew Flight 800's pilot, Captain Steve Snyder. McIntyre was anguished

when he first heard the crash had no survivors. As the details unfolded he became more unnerved.

``I was astonished because it had to be a violent and tremendous force because later on I learned the crew hadn't even gotten a

message off,'' he said. ``They were highly disciplined, very experienced and superbly trained. They would have gotten that

message out, even if they only had a second.''

The pilots all kept coming back to the bomb scenario.

But aviation history provides this caution: In 1987, a South African Airways 747 Combi -- half passengers, half cargo -- burst into a

fireball, killing 159. For months, aviation experts pointed to a bomb. It wasn't until a detailed voice recorder reading, more than two

months later, that investigators could tell the crew had become disoriented. Finally, they discovered hazardous materials leaked

on plastic and created highly flammable acetylene gas, commonly used for welding.

It took millions of components to make N93119. It took 18 months, from start to finish on the assembly line, to put them

together.

Now, investigators are fishing pieces from the sea, light honeycombed parts from the water's surface, and seat cushions, sheet

metal and insulation from below. Deeper, much of the wide heavy wings waits.

By week's end, divers had recovered only a small percent of the total wreckage. It will take putting the pieces together, in one

last way, to understand why so many died.

Jet's Rear Cabin Hit Sea 1.5 Miles After Nose

Breakup of Airliner Was Similar to Bomb Destruction of Pan Am 103 Over

Lockerbie

By Don Phillips

Washington Post Staff Writer

Monday, July 29 1996; Page A11

The Washington Post

SMITHTOWN, N.Y., July 28 -- Trans World Airlines Flight 800 broke apart shortly after it was hit by some sort of

catastrophic event, with the nose and forward passenger cabin hitting the Atlantic Ocean a mile and a half before

the wings and rear cabin crashed into the sea, investigators said today.

The pattern of breakup was similar to that of Pan American Flight 103, which was destroyed over Lockerbie,

Scotland, in 1988 when a bomb in its forward cargo hold exploded. In that crash, the nose and cockpit of the Boeing

747 cracked away to the right, almost like a door turning on a hinge.

Because of the TWA plane's lower altitude -- it had ascended to 13,700 feet after taking off from John F. Kennedy

International Airport -- there was less difference between the outside air pressure and the pressurized cabin. As a

result, a much larger bomb would have been required to down the TWA plane, investigative sources said.

The sources said the TWA plane's forward cargo hold contained baggage, with cargo containers loaded to the rear.

James K. Kallstrom, the FBI official in charge of the criminal part of the investigation of the July 17 disaster, said

today that the probe is approaching a turning point. He said he has asked recovery teams to look for certain pieces

of wreckage, which he would not characterize further.

Kallstrom said, "I hope within the next 48 hours we'll get something that we think is going to give us the clues"

needed to come to a final conclusion about what happened to the plane when it crashed shortly after takeoff,

killing all 230 people aboard.

Law enforcement officials said over the weekend that they are "80 percent to 90 percent certain" that a criminal act

was responsible for the crash -- such as a bomb or, less likely, a missile -- and the FBI could take over the

investigation as early as this week.

Today, a senior law enforcement official said privately that the only holdup now is that investigators do not have

conclusive evidence of a bomb. The official stressed "conclusive."

Navy divers have found new pieces of aircraft debris that, coupled with enhanced radar data, indicate that the

wings and rear passenger cabins flew on alone for perhaps as long as 24 seconds after the front of the aircraft broke

away, and then disintegrated in a fireball.

However, Norm Wiemeyer, radar specialist for the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), said much work

needs to be done before the plane's final movements will be known for certain.

Navy divers have recovered its nose landing gear in a debris field about a mile and a half to the southwest of the

main field of wreckage, indicating that it was one of the first pieces of plane to fall away. Nearby was a section of the

forward fuselage with the first- and business-class section. Wreckage of the cockpit area had not been found as of

late today.

Rear Adm. Edward Kristensen, heading the Navy salvage effort, said several of the Navy's salvage ships will search

the new field, as well as another wreckage field found another two miles farther southwest. He said he does not yet

know what is in the third field.

NTSB Vice Chairman Robert Francis refused to speculate about what may have happened to produce the debris

pattern, but he said, "Things that come off first tend to be indicators of what happened."

Investigators are puzzling over why initial radar tracks did not indicate such large pieces falling off so early in the

flight, but said the main piece of the fuselage might have shielded other sections from radar waves.

In any case, it is now becoming clear that whether a bomb or some other form of explosion brought down the plane,

the event originated at the front of the aircraft.

The most likely location is the forward cargo hold, which stretches from the front of the wings to the nose area. The

forward end of that hold ends just below the rear of the cockpit and the distinctive spiral staircase used in older

747s for access to the upper deck.

Directly ahead of the cargo hold are the electrical cabinets, which contain all the plane's electrical connections.

An explosion there would explain why all electricity ended at about the same moment to the plane's radar

transponder, which reports the plane's altitude and identity to air traffic controllers, as well as the cockpit voice

recorder and flight data recorder. All radio capability would also likely be wiped out, even if the crew members

were not incapacitated.

Analyses of the two recorders showed normal activity and conversation, which was suddenly and inexplicably cut

off. On the cockpit voice recorder, which uses four microphones to pick up cockpit sounds, the tape ends with a

brief, split-second loud noise, an ending that investigators said was similar to what was found on the cockpit voice

recorder recovered from the Pan Am 103 crash.

Francis said recovery of bodies is proceeding, with 153 of the 230 victims having been found and brought up from

the ocean bottom. So far, 147 of the bodies have been positively identified, 146 families notified and 142 bodies

released to relatives. Francis said the identification process has gained speed because the Suffolk County medical

examiner is getting more information on fingerprints and other documentation from families.

Francis also said a large new section of fuselage was found today that may contain more bodies. He said it

apparently was from the center-to-rear portion of the plane, and was found in the main debris field where most

other fuselage sections and wing and engine parts had previously been found.

There also were indications that another one of the plane's four engines has been located in that field. With the

two already located, this would indicate that the wings and engines remained with the main part of the fuselage.

'Nerve Center' Crucial, Yet Vulnerable

By Matthew Cox

Staff Writer

Two floors below the cockpit of a 747, in a small, windowless room accessible through a floor hatch, is the airplane's nerve center. All of the

plane's in-flight electrical systems converge there, feeding power to everything from the two "black box" flight recorders to the plane's radar,

naviation and communication systems.

The only thing separating it from the forward cargo bay is a bulkhead wall.

An explosion that destroys the electronics bay turns a jumbo jet into a glider. A blast that also severs the hydraulic flight control cables,

located above the bay, turns a 747 into a 590,000-pound rock.

"It's the brain center of the entire plane," said Geoff Collins, a spokesman for the International Airline Passengers Association, a

Dallas-based non-profit group.

"Anything on the airplane that is electrically powered has a wire through there," added an official at The Boeing Co., which makes the plane.

Investigators in the crash of TWA Flight 800 said yesterday that they had separated parts of the electronics bay from a massive jumble of

metal, glass and wire that once made up the plane's cockpit. The bay sits on the bottom of the plane's nose, its outside hatch just behind the

front landing gear -- close to the areas where investigators are looking for the source of an explosion.

Following the downing of an Air India 747 off the coast of Ireland in June, 1985, an Indian government panel said the flight had been

bombed and recommended regulators and aircraft manufacturers consider moving the electronics bay to better protect it from a bomb

hidden in passenger luggage in the forward cargo hold. The British agency that studied the December, 1988, breakup of Pan Am Flight 103

over Lockerbie, Scotland, also noted the electronics bay's vulnerability and suggested using military techniques to better protect planes

from explosive damage. Specifically, it recommended adopting "multiplexed . . . redundant systems using distributed hardware to minimize

the risk of a single area of damage producing a major system disruption."

Those recommendations, however, have not been implemented. A Boeing official said the electronics bay was intentionally situated near

the plane's nose to shield it from an exploding engine on the plane's wings. And several aviation experts questioned the wisdom of trying to

make a 747 bomb-proof.

"What you have to look at is how many thousands of aircraft you have out there, and how many actually end up having a bomb on board,"

said Walter Korsgaard, a former Federal Aviation Administration official now living in Virginia. "It's miniscule, in comparison with the total

number." He called the Indian government recommendation "invalid," and said the location of the electronics bay "probably had nothing to

do with" the plane's destruction.

The British report on the Lockerbie bombing also concluded that the plane's air conditioning system, with ducts and vents running the

length of the cabin, was a "significant factor" in transmitting the bomb's explosive energy throughout the plane from the front cargo hold

near the bay. But Korsgaard, the former FAA official who investigated that disaster, said it's never been proved the bomb's blast wave

spread that way. "It's all theory," he said. "They don't really know."

The FAA said yesterday that it did not respond to the British and Indian reports because they were issued by foreign governments.

The electronics bay is important to TWA Flight 800 investigators because evidence from the plane's two black box recorders shows the

plane lost all power without warning before plunging into the Atlantic in a ball of fire, killing all 230 passengers and crew aboard. The plane's

radar and communications equipment, also located in the electronics bay, failed at the same moment -- along with the recorders

themselves, also powered from the same source.

Flight recorders recovered from the Air India and Lockerbie disasters revealed the same sudden loss of power, communications and radar.

The Indian panel investigating the Air India disaster found circumstantial evidence that a bomb destroyed that flight. British and American

investigators said they had forensic proof that the Pan Am 747 that blew up over Lockerbie was bombed.

Generators on each of a 747's four engines produce the plane's electrical power, and wires carrying the power are routed through the

electronics bay. Navigation and communications equipment, and a battery that provides backup electrical power when the engines fail, also

are located in the bay.

"From an airplane point of view, they're in the right place," said a Boeing official who asked not to be identified. "I guess terrorists think

they're in the right place, too."

Pieces of a Shattered Puzzle

By Al Baker

Staff Writer

From a batch of 17 French-language cash registers to a load of live turtles to a sealed container of HIV-positive blood, the cargo

of TWA Flight 800 never made it to Paris but rained down over the Atlantic Ocean as the doomed jetliner dropped from the sky

in a ball of fire.

Tons of miscellaneous debris -- some recovered intact, some found broken and some still missing -- all plunged when some kind

of blast ripped apart the Boeing 747.

The shower included almost a ton of gold-colored aluminum flake to be used as theatrical glitter, which ended up covering

many of the recovered bodies and pieces of debris.

The details and positions of the freight aboard the flight is included on a worksheet used by TWA baggage handlers to diagram

cargo aboard each airplane that leaves Kennedy Airport. The same worksheet also shows that only four bins clustered in the

front luggage hold were filled with passengers' bags, which became important when none of the four bins recovered showed

evidence of bomb damage.

Newspapers, donated human corneas, and diplomatic pouches of State Department mail also fell with passengers' luggage,

knapsacks, children's clothing and teddy bears.

From the start, freight packed into the plane's aft and bulk-cargo compartments has been of interest to those probing the July 17

catastrophe that killed all 230 passengers and crew, although investigators so far have said the rear of the plane is a lower

priority.

After almost a month, it is still not known if a bomb brought down the plane or if the clues lie buried in a piece of cargo or

luggage on the ocean floor. Just a week after the crash, FBI Assistant Director James Kallstrom said: "We're interested in

baggage ... we're interested in any freight they had on board."

Freight forwarders involved with some of the cargo can attest to investigators' interest.

Jerome Trimboli, 60, the owner of Inter-Jet Systems, Inc., a Queens-based freight forwarder that arranged the shipment of

$17,000 worth of Japanes-made cash registers to France, said the FBI and FAA both paid him visits within two days of the crash.

"The FBI has been to see us both in our New York and Los Angeles offices," he said. "They are thorough. They came here with

Treasury [Department] people and followed the paper trail all the way back to Yokahoma, Japan. We even gave them the

credentials of the driver who took it from the [Japanese] plant to the port."

The cash registers, with franc symbols on their keys, sailed to Los Angeles and flew to Kennedy Airport before being loaded onto

Flight 800 bound for Paris.

Randy Greif, owner of Randy International Limited, confirmed his company processed the shipment of theatrical glitter that

covered victims' bodies and much else after the blast. He did not want to discuss the matter further.

"We are working very closely with the FAA and FBI and are cooperating with whatever they asked of us," he said. "I am not at

liberty to disclose any information pertinent to the incident."

Wayne Heyland, president and CEO of Stamford, Conn.-based World Courier Group, an international courier company,

confirmed his firm handled the transport of HIV-positive blood samples being sent from a Chicago-area laboratory to French

researchers.

"Really, the only story is it was on board, it was packed according to required specifications, it has been found, and the package

is intact and the issue is closed," said Heyland, who said he was encouraged to have recovered the blood samples in their

packing but said even if the package had broken at sea, "contamination would have been virtually impossible."

EAST MORICHES, N.Y. -- The TWA Flight 800 explosion instantly killed most of the passengers and knocked others

unconscious, making it unlikely anyone experienced the horror of the free fall into the ocean, the coroner said Thursday.

``It's like a car smashing into a brick wall at 400 mph,'' Charles Wetli said. ``It's an extremely violent whiplash, a separation of

the skull from the spinal cord, an instant loss of consciousness.''

Wetli, the county medical examiner, has been in charge of autopsies conducted on the 196 crash victims found so far. All 230

people aboard Paris-bound Flight 800 were killed when the plane exploded July 17.

``They were all totally unconscious or dead by the time they hit the water,'' Wetli said. ``The plane was going at 400 mph, it

suddenly changes direction, the fuselage is open so all this air and pressure is going into the cabin, and there's a sudden

decompression.''

Wetli said passengers displayed two types of injuries: those consistent with an explosion or those caused by an extreme change

in speed, cabin pressure and altitude.

Wetli said investigators were analyzing injuries suffered by passengers to see if anything could be learned about the nature of

the explosion.

Investigators say the jetliner broke apart at 13,700 feet and erupted into a fireball at 9,000 feet, then dropped into the Atlantic

about 10 miles off Long Island

On Thursday, a mammoth, badly scorched slab of wing was brought ashore along with a piece of the fuselage. The wing piece

had originally been described by authorities as 75 feet long, but the piece loaded onto a flatbed truck was about 60 feet long, with a

clean cut where it apparently was trimmed to make it easier to handle.

The wreckage is being taken to a hangar to be reconstructed and studied.

Investigators' main theory is that a bomb was placed in the front cargo hold where passenger luggage was stored. But they have

not ruld out a missile or a catastrophic mechanical malfunction.

Among the conceivable explanations for mechanical failure is a fuel-tank explosion, possibly triggered by a fire in a fuel pump,

a soure close to the investigation said.

In August 1995, the 747's manufacturer, Boeing, recommended customers check fuel pumps for electrical problems. A federal

source said there is no record that Flight 800's jet had undergone the inspection.

Another unrelated scenario being studied is an explosion in the center fuel tank, which is between the wings.

SMITHTOWN, N.Y., July 30 -- Frustrated by their inability so far to find explosive residue on pieces of Trans

World Airlines Flight 800, federal law enforcement authorities are wondering whether the bomb they strongly

believe blew up the aircraft may have been made up of something as simple as dynamite.

Unlike new high-tech explosives such as semtex, the old standard explosive dynamite, invented by Alfred Nobel in

1867, leaves less useful residue, according to law enforcement sources involved in the case.

Much deeper analysis is needed to confirm a bomb made of dynamite, such as damage patterns and

metallurgical changes in metal blasted by explosives, the sources said.

FBI officials hold little hope that any materials currently being tested at the FBI lab in Washington will yield

explosive residue, and are placing their hopes on recovery of newly located debris from the forward section of the

Boeing 747. The Navy salvage ship USS Grapple arrived today over the debris field and was to begin salvage

operations by midnight.

Investigators believe that the catastrophic event that brought down the plane on July 17, killing 230 people,

occurred in the forward section because the front of the plane cracked away while the wings and rear fuselage

continued hurtling ahead another mile and a half to the northeast before plunging into the water in a fireball.

Several key pieces of the forward part of the plane have been recovered and are undergoing preliminary field tests.

They include a cargo container, a large portion of the left side of the fuselage, and an air-conditioning pack from

the center of the fuselage under the wing.

A cargo door was found farther to the southwest of the area of debris containing the forward sections, indicating

that it was one of the first pieces to leave the airplane.

Federal investigators are eager to find other pieces from the same part of the plane, including food carts, the wheel

well, the cockpit and another cargo container. According to sources, FBI agents have interviewed food handlers at

John F. Kennedy International Airport.

"The whole front is interesting to us," said a law enforcement official involved in the investigation. "Obviously,

things like the food carts are important because they come on the plane and are put there by people."

The front is also important because all the plane's electrical equipment is located in a cabinet under the cockpit.

There are strong indications that all electricity on the aircraft ended abruptly at the same time, cutting off the

on-board recorders and the transponder, which reports the plane's altitude and identity to air traffic controllers.

At this point, the FBI says it has no reason to believe yet that dynamite caused the crash, but it is one possibility

being mulled in the investigation.

"It's one of a number of things we're looking at," the law enforcement official said.

The failure to find conclusive forensic evidence has not reversed the FBI's preliminary conclusion that a criminal

act was involved, although aviation and investigative sources said questions are being raised about the possibility

of some undiscovered mechanical or structural defect or possibly the development of an exotic new explosive that

does not leave easily detectable traces.

If it turns out that the explosion was caused by dynamite, investigators are not stymied in determining conclusively

that a bomb was involved. A bomb of any kind leaves distinctive damage patterns and leaves signature changes in

the metallurgy of the nearby structure and skin of the plane.

In the crash of Pan American Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, on Dec. 21, 1988, British investigators described

the typical damage pattern that would be applicable to any explosion: "The metal in the immediate locality was

ragged, heavily distorted, and the inner surfaces were pitted and sooted -- rather as if a very large shotgun had

been fired at the inner surface of the fuselage at close range."

Metal that has been exposed to an explosion will also be distorted by a characteristic shock wave and short-term

overpressure that will leave permanent changes in its metallurgy.

The recovery effort off the coast of Long Island picked up in intensity as new recovery vessels arrived today, but the

pace is inevitably slow in the murky waters of the Atlantic at a depth that is difficult for divers.

Robert Francis, vice chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said today that 171 bodies have been

located so far, 165 identified, 163 families notified and 157 bodies released to families.

Remote cameras have looked over the large compressor section of the third of the plane's four engines, and

officials have tentatively determined that the rest of the engine was stripped away by the impact and not because

of catastrophic engine failure. Two other engines were found largely intact; the fourth has not been found.

TWA Crash Probe Focuses on Engine

By Sylvia Adcock

Staff Writer

Investigators completed a meticulous tear-down of the right inboard engine of TWA Flight 800 yesterday and sent debris that had

been sucked into the apparently still-running engine to FBI and National Transportation Safety Board labs in Washington.

Those pieces -- and evidence of what investigators call "FOD," or foreign object damage, in the engine -- could pinpoint the

location of the explosion that brought down the Paris-bound Boeing 747 on July 17.

Meanwhile, investigators were still studying the possibility that the plane's central fuel tank exploded, and a source said Navy

divers were ordered to bring up all wreckage from the ocean floor.

Investigators working at the former Grumman plant in Calverton are also in the process of tearing down the two other engines

that have been recovered, but attention has focused on the right inboard engine because of the ingested material. The engine is

closest to the point where the front fuselage is believed to have first broken off, just where the leading edge of the wing meets the

fuselage.

The ingested pieces could turn out to be important clues to the puzzle, experts say.

"You would identify the parts and where they may have come from," said Frank Taylor, a former NTSB investigator. "If there was

an explosion in the forward part of the airplane, and that debris has been sucked into the engine because the engine is still

running, it tells you the explosion occurred in that particular location of the fuselage."

However, investigators said the FBI lab in Washington has completed metallurgical testing in addition to explosive residue

testing on all parts of the plane that have been brought up, and so far, there have been no signs of any deformity that would

indicate a bomb. Some parts of the plane are also being tested in an NTSB basement laboratory in Washington, where an

electron microscope will help investigators look for minute changes in metal that could point to or away from a bomb blast.

The massive Pratt & Whitney JT9D-7A engines are built to withstand foreign objects, although anything large can cause a

problem. Before the engines are put into use, they are tested by firing dead game birds and huge chunks of ice at 180 mph into

them as they're running. "It can tolerate a certain amount of junk, but the idea is that it can spit it out," said Mark Sullivan, a Pratt

& Whitney spokesman. "Anything of much size can cause damage. It's a very delicately balanced piece of machinery. It's very

rugged, but think of a very large Swiss watch."

The foreign-object damage to the right inboard engine also supports the theory that the engines continued to run for a short time

after the front of the fuselage broke off, sucking up the first debris to fly off the plane. In the case of Pan Am Flight 103, engine

damage helped investigators determine the source of the bomb blast that brought down the plane, also a Boeing 747 with the

same model engines.

On the air intake of the engine closest to that explosion, the inboard left engine, Lockerbie investigators found indications that

debris had been sucked into the engine while it was running. A dent in this area matched the size of a cable used on a baggage

container. This helped confirm other evidence and led investigators to conclude that the suitcase holding the bomb exploded

inside a baggage container and blew debris out through the fuselage wall, where it was sucked into the engine.

Yesterday, conflicting reports surfaced about the likelihood of a fuel-tank explosion, which could account for the fireball reported

by pilots in the area. A senior law-enforcement official who asked not to be identified said yesterday that while some parts of the

fuel tank have a lot of fire damage, others don't, leading them to believe the tank, located between the wings, did not explode.

Another source said an opening in the tank "was seen as indicating the lack of a primary explosion," meaning the fuel may have

leaked out, accounting for the fireball.

But another federal investigator said he was told the tank showed "physical evidence of a blowout," but that officials believe the

explosion was a secondary event, probably caused by fuel vapors that ignited as the plane plunged toward the water.

The rough seas that hampered recovery efforts Tuesday calmed yesterday, and divers were back in the water. A senior

law-enforcement source said Navy divers have been instructed to bring up everything from the crash on the ocean floor.

"We have told the Navy divers to bring it all up as quickly as possible," the source said. "Looking for a key piece would only slow us

down."

Divers from the Grasp, working in a large debris field containing the middle and rear of the plane, brought up mostly small debris

yesterday, the NTSB said. The Grapple's remote-operation vehicle spent 10 hours recovering debris from an area closest to

Kennedy Airport containing parts that first blew off the plane.

"People are forgetting that we are still missing the roof, the flooring and the undercarriage" as well as a lot of material from the

section behind the cargo area, near the front wings, a source said.

Sources said the debris recovered yesterday included a section in the forward cargo hold about eight feet from the nose of the

plane, and part of the rear cargo-handling system.

Taylor, the former accident investigator, said he wouldn't be surprised if the NTSB were considering contracting a fleet of fishing

boats to use nets to literally sweep the bottom of the ocean floor. That happened when a Boeing 727 crashed in 250 feet of water in

Lake Michigan in the 1970s, he said. "I would think they have that under consideration," Taylor said.

Matthew Cox, Robert E. Kessler, Shirley Perlman, Knut Royce and Ellen Yan contributed to this story.

Last Engine Brought to Surface

By Sylvia Adcock and Matthew Cox

Staff Writers

Navy salvage ships yesterday brought to shore the last of the four engines that powered TWA Flight 800, badly mangled with

two-thirds of its titanium fan blades in front knocked off.

The right outboard engine -- in the worst shape of the four -- was pulled up from beneath the Grasp and taken to the former

Grumman plant at Calverton last night, where investigators will disassemble it to look for clues to what caused the destruction.

The engines on the right side of the plane both suffered more damage than those on the left, but the recovery of all four

diminished the possibility that a heat-seeking missile caused the crash by destroying an engine. Investigators repeated, however,

that they had not eliminated any theory -- bomb, missile or mechanical failure -- and noted that it was still conceivable that a

radar-guided missile hit the plane.

Investigators have said the right side of the Boeing 747, near where the wings meet the fuselage, suffered the most smoke and fire

damage. The right inboard engine was relatively intact but suffered ``foreign object damage'' from debris sucked inwhile it was

apparently still running. That material, recovered Tuesday, was still being analyzed in federal labs yesterday.

The fourth engine was ``badly banged around,'' said a senior law enforcement source, but the source said it wasn't clear if the

damage came from an explosion or the impact of hitting the water. Only 15 of the engine's 46 fan blades remained.

Salvage efforts by the Grasp yesterday also yielded two large fuselage sections from the area where the airline's rear parts have

been found; one of them had six windows that appeared singed. The Grapple, working in an area closest to the airport containing

debris that is believed to have blown off the plane first, recovered a galley section and small pieces of debris. Investigative

sources said yesterday that among other items, they are interested in a dumbwaiter from the front galley section used to

transport food.

Also recovered yesterday were part of the plane's tail and the two flaps, or elevators, on either side. And two more bodies were

retrieved, the first since Sunday, bringing the total to 201.

In a sign that the central fuel tank beneath the wings is still of interest, investigators plan to send the tank's pumps to the

manufacturer, Hydro-Aire of Burbank, Calif., for further inspection. Investigators have said that some pieces of the center fuel

tank are marked with soot and fire damage while others are not, raising questions as to whether the tank played a role in the

plane's breakup by exploding.

In a mid-1970s crash of a 747 owned by the Iranian air force, an explosion in the partly filled left-wing fuel tank was discovered to

be the cause even though some of its pieces were clean of blast damage.

From Flight 800's cockpit, the flight engineer's panel is headed for a federal lab in Washington where technicians will try to

decipher dozens of dials.

In Calverton, investigators continued to work toward reconstructing a 41-foot section from the center of the plane between the

wings. The section's interior includes one of the galleys, seats from about rows 13 to 27, and the rear of the forward cargo hold. The

area below, where the wings meet, includes the central fuel tank.

Robert E. Kessler, Earl Lane, Shirley Perlman and Ellen Yan contributed.

Home | Top of Pag

No Match Yet on Voiceprint

By Matthew Cox

Staff Writer

Investigators trying to decipher the ``voiceprint'' from the final sound on TWA Flight 800's cockpit voice recorder are making an

unprecedented effort to gather voiceprints from other air disasters around the world.

The information, being compiled at the National Transportation Safety Board laboratory in Washington, D.C., may help the

NTSB decide if a bomb, missile or mechanical failure was responsible for the explosion that killed 230 people aboard the Boeing

747 off the coast of Long Island on July 17.

``We're asking all our sister agencies for everything they can provide,'' said an NTSB source who asked not to be identified.

``We're compiling them, anything we can possibly get.''

So far, investigators have been frustrated in trying to decipher the only audible evidence of the blast, a sound heard for 130

milliseconds, or just over one-tenth of a second, before the recording abruptly ended. The sound lasts 20 milliseconds longer than

the one heard from the high-energy explosive planted in the front cargo hold of Pan Am Flight 103, which crashed in Lockerbie,

Scotland.

``There certainly is a different sound that we haven't known,'' NTSB vice chairman Robert Francis said yesterday in an interview

broadcast on CNN. ``All I can say is it's a different sound. It's not like Lockerbie. It's not like anything else we've documented.''

Investigators trying to analyze the sound also are hampered by Flight 800's cockpit voice recorder, which on the 25-year-old plane

relied on a single microphone, the cockpit area microphone, to pick up ambient sounds. The recorder's three other channels were

wired to crew-member headsets used only to communicate with control towers. Those microphones would not have picked up

conversation between crew members or the sound of an explosion.

The situation has so far stymied the sound analysts.

``That's what everybody wants; to tell them where it was, who placed it, how big it is, and why they did it,'' the NTSB source said.

``You do whatever you can with whatever you have to work with. It's not an exact science. No two of these are the same.''

The board has obtained cockpit-voice-recorder data from other nations before, but this is the first time the agency has made such

a concerted effort to gather and compare voiceprints, said Alan Pollock, an NTSB spokesman. ``They've never done it on the

same scale,'' he said.

A voiceprint is an electronically produced image of the frequency waves recorded on a tape. Silence will produce a flat horizontal

line, while a sudden bang creates a sharp profusion of peaks and valleys that jam together.

Flight 800 investigators are comparing printed records rather than the recordings themselves because the recordings are closely

held by governments, a former NTSB lab expert said. ``They're hard to get,'' said Paul Turner, who worked for the NTSB for 17

years before retiring in 1987. When he prepared an analysis of the cockpit voice recorder from Air India Flight 182, which crashed

off the coast of Ireland in 1985, the Indian government refused to give him a copy, he said. An Indian scientist eventually

smuggled him one.

The recordings also are hard to obtain because they can be worth millions to insurance companies attempting to apportion

blame, Turner said. And governments hold on to them to avoid the embarrassment of being upstaged.

Analysis of Flight 800's recording hasn't led to any conclusions, but the information may yet tell experts a lot if they find a similar

signature. If a fuel-vapor explosion in the center tank brought down the plane, for example, peaks and valleys on the voiceprint

would grow gradually and extend for a comparatively long period. A high-energy bomb would leave behind signals that rise and

fall faster and end sooner.

The NTSB source said the agency is looking at a method to pinpoint explosions detected only by cockpit-area microphones.

``Usually, the vibrations get there first,'' before the sound wave from the explosion itself, the source said. ``That's certainly a viable

method.''

A Canadian expert, Frank Slingerland, has used the technique successfully, but his methods have been questioned by some U.S.

and British crash investigators. The NTSB has not called upon his help.

Key clues coming from front of the jet

Investigators believe the forward section of TWA Flight 800 likely tore away from the rest of the aircraft,

plummeting to the ocean before the remainder of the crippled jet hurtled onward in a fiery plunge.

Those revelations, based on the discovery of part of the plane's forward section in a debris field nearest to

Kennedy Airport, put investigators closer to finding the point of origin of the explosive force that tore apart the

Paris-bound aircraft and sent it careening 13,700 feet to the ocean surface on July 17, killing 230 passengers and

crew. And some experts said it was yet further evidence to support the theory that saboteurs brought down the

craft.

In an indication of the gravity of the find, the Navy shifted some of its most important vessels yesterday and is

expected to deploy another highly specialized salvage ship today to help explore the new field, about a

mile-and-a-half southwest of the area where aft portions of the aircraft and so-called ``black boxes'' were found

last week.

Wreckage mapped in a 25-square-mile grid 10 miles offshore roughly follows the northeast trajectory of the

flight, so the presence of forward sections at the rear of the trail leads investigators to conclude it fell first.

``Things that come off first tend to be an indicator of what happened,'' said Robert Francis, vice chairman of the

National Transportation Safety Board ''Presumably, those were things that came off earliest, given the direction

of the aircraft.''

While Francis and lead FBI investigator James Kallstrom repeated their daily assertions that there is no

concrete evidence pointing toward sabotage, a former NTSB official was more blunt.

``That's indicative of an explosive device on the airplane,'' Frank Taylor, former head of the NTSB's

accident-investigation branch, said of the damage. ``From past experience, from other bomb accidents we've

been involved in, most of the time you find the explosive device in the forward baggage compartment.''

Such was the case in the 1988 crash of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, which killed 259 on board and

11 on the ground.

An Navy chart showed forward parts of the TWA plane, found farthest back in the flight trajectory, include a

cargo bin, the nose landing gear and three passenger-seat rows located above the cargo hold.

While stressing that he was interested in all parts of the aircraft, Kallstrom predicted more answers could

emerge from the wreckage within 48 hours.

``It could be the next piece the Navy turns over to us,'' said Kallstrom. ``I hope it is. I hope it's not the 50th piece

or 100th piece . . . I think in the next 48 hours we'll get something that I think will give us the clues we're seeking.''

Specifically, investigators hope to find forensic evidence, such as pitting of metal, chemical residues, or petaling

out of the metal that would occur near the source of an explosion.

Still, Francis noted that critical parts, including an engine and the cockpit area, have not been discovered. Each,

he said, could yield important clues to the three prevailing theories on the cause of the crash: mechanical failure,

a bomb or a missile.

While concentrated in two distinct fields on a northeasterly axis, debris is littered all over a grid measuring 25

square nautical miles, said Francis.

Among the debris in the southwest field that drew so much attention yesterday were: a cargo bin and seat rows

9,10 and 18, located above the forward cargo area, and the nose landing gear, also located close to the cargo hold.

``We do know that that's the forward part of the fuselage; whether that includes the cockpit or not, we can't tell,''

said Francis. ``There's a lot of wreckage there.''

Taylor, the former NTSB investigator, said this type of wreckage could prove a forensic treasure trove.

``That whole section up there is a critical part of the aircraft because [of] all the central controls and electricals,''

Taylor said. ``It's the heart of the airplane.''

Investigators also identified a third engine near the first two yesterday, but it had not been examined thoroughly

with video cameras, according to Francis. He said a 50-foot segment of fuselage, believed to be from the

center-rear of the aircraft, has been identified in the northeast field.

Even as investigators said their priority was to retrieve the 77 bodies still remaining in the water yesterday, the

Navy moved the sonar-equipped Pirouette and the Diane G toward the newly uncovered southwest debris field,

which holds the forward section of the airplane.

Those ships were expected to rendezvous there today with a second salvager, The Grapple, en route from

Norfolk, Va. It is equipped with heavier lifting devices, including a remote-controlled underwater vehicle capable

of raising objects weighing up to 13,200 pounds, according to Navy spokesman Captain Gordon Peterson. The

Diane G. is equipped with a laser scanner that can operate in deep, murky water and distinguish even the writing

on the side of a pencil, according to the Navy.

Navy Rear Adm. Edward Kristensen, who commands the search, called for the ship on Friday, said Peterson.

Asked why the ships were not summoned sooner, Peterson said, ``The forces we have assigned have been

brought in at the appropriate times.''

The identification yesterday of the 50-foot piece of fuselage also raised hopes that additional bodies would be

recovered today, said Francis.

``Obviously we're hoping, given that the victims are usually near the fuselage, this may be a source of finding

morevictims,'' Francis said.

Since late Saturday night, eight more bodies were brought to the surface, bringing the tally of those recovered to

153, with all but six positively identified, and 142 of them released to families, according to Francis.

Meanwhile, experts noted strong similarities in the pattern of debris from TWA Flight 800 and the Lockerbie

crash, in which a bomb in the forward cargo area tore the front of the plane from the rest of the fuselage. The

aircraft were identical models, both Boeing 747-100s.

In both cases, final transmissions to the control tower did not reveal any signs of trouble, and the flight data and

cockpit voice recorders showed no evidence of mechanical problems.

``When the front of the airplane came off, all those in first class were blown out of the plane,'' said Barry L.

Trotter, former senior investigator for the NTSB. The force of such a blast would send a ``tremendous rushing of

air, a pressure wave'' ripping through the rest of the airplane, knocking passengers and crew unconscious, he

said.

``So in this case here, if there was a bomb explosion, it would be very likely that if it was powerful enough to blow

off the front section of the airplane or open a large part of the airplane, I'd presume they would be instantly

unconscious from the concussion of the explosion.''

That's not necessarily so, said Paul Czysz, a professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering at Parks College

in St. Louis.

``Just because an airplane breaks up, that doesn't mean everyone is instantaneously killed,'' said Czysz.

Both Czysz and Richard Stone, president of the International Society of Air Safety Investigators, said the theory

that the plane remained intact for several seconds after losing power is consistent with eyewitness reports of two

explosions.

The first would be the much-theorized bomb or missile. Then, when the plane started breaking up and the wings

falling off, the fuel lines would have ruptured, leading to a fireball -- the second and much larger explosion, they

both said.

But Czysz cautioned against putting too much weight on radar blips, which show two objects emerging on the

flight path some 24 to 36 seconds after the plane's transponder stopped transmitting.

This revelation has led to theories, some supported by witness accounts, that some destructive force caused the

plane's systems to fail at once, but that the craft did not break up until 24-36 seconds later.

But the resolution on most radar systems is not sharp enough to distinguish things until they are 50 to 70 feet

apart, Czysz said.

Whether those aboard could have been conscious during any of this scenario would depend on where they were

in the passenger cabin, said Fred Morse, a former TWA captain. But he added that he believes the fireball would

have killed everybody long before they reached the ocean surface.

Just ashore from the wreckage yesterday morning, more than 200 TWA flight attendants, pilots, mechanics,

ticketing agents and some of the victims' family members gathered at Smith Point County Park for another

memorial service.

``Some of those people, I've known since the very first day I put a foot on an airplane,'' said Karen J. Eitelberg of

Jamaic Estates in Queens, a flight attendant for 26 years.

``You tend to be more personal with one another than with a person in a nine-to-five situation. You eat dinner

together; you stay in the same hotels. A lot of us have kind of grown up together.''

Ken Forte, a flight service manager for TWA went to the service to say goodbye to 10 good friends -- all TWA

employees.

``When you lose a loved one, it's something, but you lose a plane full of friends and relatives, it's a very sad

moment,'' Forte said.

Malfunction theory fades with exam of all four engines

By Matthew L. Wald

c.1996 N.Y. Times News Service

SMITHTOWN, N.Y. -- Preliminary examination of all four engines from Trans World Airlines Flight 800 shows "nothing really

extraordinary," according to the official in charge of the investigation, largely ruling out the idea that engine failure caused the Boeing 747 to

crash offshore here a month ago.

The finding also cast doubt on the idea that a heat-seeking missile hit the plane.

The official, Robert T. Francis, vice chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said that the engines, the fourth of which was

brought ashore only on Thursday, had been taken apart in an unusually quick process by experts from Pratt & Whitney, their builder, TWA

and the International Association of Machinists.

Francis also said that an object found in engine No. 3, the one closest to the fuselage on the right wing, was not something sucked in from

the outside but was part of the engine itself. Earlier, officials had said that the engine showed "foreign object damage," most likely from

something blown off the airplane.

But Francis' presentation, the first official briefing since Tuesday, was at times contradictory. He said technicians were adding a large piece

of wreckage found Thursday night to the reconstructed section in an old Grumman hangar in Calverton, on Long Island.

Asked what that part was, he said, at first, that it included part of the center fuel tank. But when he was asked again later, James K.

Kallstrom, the head of the New York office of the FBI, who was standing in his usual position on Francis' left side at the podium, whispered

something to him, and Francis said the wreckage was actually part of the plane's roof.

In any case, he said the part had come from the debris field farthest from Kennedy International Airport, where the wings and center and

rear portion of the fuselage were also found.

Most of the section of plane being re-assembled on the scaffolding was found in another, middle, debris field along with the nose. That field

is 1.5 miles closer to Kennedy airport. Still more wreckage has been pulled up from a third debris field, closest to the airport.

Thus it now appears that the re-assembly of the plane has reached a new level, in which pieces of the puzzle from different areas are

beginning to come together.

Francis indicated that experts were surprised to find the new piece with the main body of wreckage. Charles Welti, the investigation's Chief

Medical Examiner, reported that three more bodies had been recovered Friday, raising the total to 204. Nine days ago, officials began trying

to lower expectations about the possibility of finding the remains of all 230 people on board, but since then, they have found eight more.

Whether by chance or design, the part of the Boeing 747 that some engineers are looking at most closely is within inches of the location

identified by British investigators as the site of the bomb that destroyed Pan Am 103 eight years ago.

The final report on that crash, by the Air Accidents Investigation Branch of the British Department of Transport, refers to "a small region of

structure bounded approximately by frames 700 and 720" as the site of the bomb. The numbers are inch-by-inch locations between the nose

and the tail.

Engineers in the hangar here are looking very closely at the area between inches 700 and 740, a section near the front of the part of the plane

that is now being rebuilt. Parts that make up that area come from the debris field nearest Kennedy, meaning they were the ones that came

off the plane first and presumably are nearest to where the catastrophe began.

An obvious difference between the two crashes is that the Lockerbie bomb was in the cargo hold, and indications so far is that if the TWA

explosion was caused by a bomb, it was not in a cargo container but probably in the passenger cabin.

Another difference is that aviation experts believe that to do as much damage, a bomb exploding on Flight 800 at 13,700 feet -- its maximum

altitde -- would have to be larger than the bomb on the Lockerbie plane, which was cruising at 31,000 feet, where the outside air is thinner.

If Flight 800 was brought down by a bomb, it had to be larger, because the plane apparently lost all electric power almost instantaneously.

Power could be knocked out by a bomb in the electrical and electronic compartment, near the cockpit, but that wreckage does not show

blast damage.

Another way to cut all power would be to sever the electric cables. These run from the point where the wings come together to the front of the

plane, under the passengers' feet. But those cables, one each from four generators, each located next to an engine, run in pairs, and the two

pairs are separated by 8 to 10 feet, implying a big blast.

As the job of sorting and re-assembling wrecked airplane parts continued in the hangar, Safety Board managers have carried out plans to

rotate experts.

Immediately after the accident, many of them had been working 12-hour days with only occasional days off. Recognizing that the

reconstruction will likely take weeks or months, safety board managers say more engineers are being sent back to their home bases, in

Washington or elsewhere, for longer periods.

By PAT MILTON

Associated Press Writer

HAUPPAUGE, N.Y. (AP) -- The coroner who oversaw autopsies on most of the

victims of TWA Flight 800 has started releasing details to family members,

though he can't understand why they would want the ``chilling documents.''

Dr. Charles Wetli, the Suffolk County medical examiner, reluctantly began

releasing the autopsy reports after being pressured by family members who

sought the details on how their loved ones died.

So far, only a couple of families have actually received the reports; Wetli

declined to give specifics.

Some wanted to learn whether their relatives had suffered; others sought

information that might be useful in lawsuits against TWA and the Boeing Co.,

which made the 747 that exploded in the air just minutes after taking off

from Kennedy Airport on July 17 and killed all 230 aboard.

``I would not want to read the autopsy of my loved one,'' Wetli told The

Associated Press on Friday. He added: ``They are very cold, chilling

documents.''

The medical examiner said the conditions of the bodies were ``horrendous.''

Nonetheless, ``a lot of families want to know what happened to their loved

ones,'' said John Seaman of Clifton Park, N.Y., who lost his niece, Michelle

Becker, a University of Georgia student.

Wetli said he had delayed releasing the documents because the crash was

potentially a criminal case and he did not want to jeopardize the

investigation. Investigators have still not determined if the explosion was

caused by a bomb, missile or mechanical malfunction.

But the head of the criminal probe, FBI Assistant Director James Kallstrom,

told the medical examiner last week that he had no objection to the release

of the autopsy reports to the next of kin.

In addition, at Wetli's request, state Attorney General Dennis Vacco issued

an opinion on Tuesday saying the families were legally entitled to the

documents.

Wetli began releasing them this week, saying it was necessary for the

families to contact him in writing to obtain the documents.

He emphasized the explosion of the Paris-bound flight was different from some

crashes in which victims may experience the horror of knowing that they are

about to die.

``In this crash, the victims were killed instantly or were unconscious by the

time they hit the water,'' he said.

Large numbers of those killed in the TWA 800 disaster suffered separation of

the skull from their spines, making it likely that death was instantaneous,

he said.

There were some individuals whose heart might have still been beating when

they hit the water but it was unlikely that they were conscious, he said.

The medical examiner said he still could not understand why passengers were

not burned even though investigators have determined that the center fuel

tank somehow exploded, knocking the plane out of the sky.

``As far as I can tell, I don't believe anyone suffered,'' he said. ``It's

not impossible but it's highly unlikely.''

To 9 Jan 97