Channel4.com Text Only
[ News
| Homes
| Life
| Entertainment
| History
| Science
| Community
| Shop ]
| Sport
| Culture
| Cars
| Money
| Broadband
| Learning
| Health
| Dating
| Games ]
[ Text Only: Homepage ]
[ Graphical: Channel4 Homepage ]
TWA 800
Introduction | Crucial elements | Alternative theories | Silver linings? | Find out more
Introduction
On 17 July 1996, TWA flight 800 took off from John F Kennedy airport in New York, bound for Paris. Just over 13 minutes later, travelling at a height of over 3,960 metres (13,000 feet), the plane exploded. It took just seven seconds to split in half. After 23 seconds, the nose of the plane, ripped off by the explosion, hit the sea. The rest of the aircraft continued travelling before it too fell, hitting the water at 400mph, 49 seconds after the explosion. Two hundred and thirty people died.
Although terrible, in terms of loss of life, the TWA 800 crash would not make it into the list of the 10 worst air accidents of all time. But despite this, the explosion was the most significant air accident for over 20 years.
There were no other planes involved and no obvious evidence of pilot error or criminal damage or sabotage. This left open the possibility of mechanical failure. That this could happen aboard a Boeing 747 was a terrifying notion. 'Jumbo jets' are the most popular commercial aircraft in use. Since the first one was built in 1969, they have flown more than 33 billion miles and had, until 1996, an excellent safety record.
An investigation into the accident, carried out by the US National Transportation Safety Board, lasted four years, with investigators going to extraordinary lengths to determine what went wrong. They reconstructed more than 27m (90 feet) of the aircraft's body from wreckage salvaged from the Atlantic.
Yet they failed to find conclusive proof of what exactly went wrong. Although their report, published in 2000, gave a convincing hypothesis of how they believed an explosion had happened within the central fuel tank, exactly what sparked the event will probably never be known. As a result, sceptics still abound: several alternative theories have been put forward to suggest how TWA 800 exploded in mid-air.
^top
Introduction | Crucial elements | Alternative theories | Silver linings? | Find out more
Graphic Version (including images, flash and layout)
[ Text Only: Homepage ]
[ Graphical: Channel4 Homepage ]
[ Contact Us ]
[ Access Advice ]
[ HTML 4.01 TR Approved ]