TWA Flight 800

Hmmmmm.....conspiracy, cover up, or....

TWA Flight 800 crash wasn?t due to gas tank explosion, former investigators claim

 

This is getting a lot of TV coverage today.

I would be interested in hearing from Bob on the "fuel tank explosion" subject - has this ever happened spontaneously on aircraft fueled by Jet A in the past?

I was always a little suspicious of the explanation given at the time.
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Hopefully Bob wil chime in as well, but the answer as to whether it has ever happened in the past is "yes"-- especially on the KC-135 (another Boeing product).

This is just hype for a TV movie.

 

Was blackbox data ever released on this?

 

Weren't at least a few other CWT explosions due to lighting strikes? I can't remember, but I seem to recall there was some weather involved in at least one or two, along with more volatile fuel. I could be wrong.

Anyway, I've never been much of a conspiracy theory guy, but for various reasons, many aspects of the TWA disaster have always seemed a little "out" to me. Part of it could be due to the fact that everyone assumed it was a terrorist act or dreadful military accident from the start and it just stuck. I also don't think Pierre Salinger did just about all alternate theories any favors. But who knows?

At any rate, I remember it well and have always felt a little haunted by it as I think many are. I will say that I certainly hope the makers of the film (who I'm pretty sure have been at this for a long time) are properly motivated. I can't imagine not having an issue with getting rich off of something like this.

 

Yes. Didn't reveal much except for a buggy fuel flow meter, IIRC. Some claim the audio was edited before it was released and contains myserious gaps. I think there was some speculation that brief power outages could have caused the gaps.

 

Good LORD - I had totally forgotten what a donkey's rear Pierre Salinger made of himself during the original aftermath.

Interesting theory that this is hype for a movie - not altogether unbelievable.

 

Please don't look at me as some kind of expert in all this but I have never believed that the fuel tank quantity gage wiring caused that explosion. It never happened before that and it hasn't happened since and I know that they have made a " fix" but it seems that a rather rather nebulous explanation was put forth. That wiring is small low voltage stuff and it sounded bogus to me. AkJim posted the cause of an in-flight KC-135 explosion that I didn't know about but know that several operating items are immersed in the fuel to keep them cool. In the KC-135 case it was a hydraulic fuel pump that overheated in an empty tank. The 747 flt. 800 was near a Navy exercise where they were firing missiles and this is a strong case for a cause.

 

Heh, yeah...and even if his theory proved true tomorrow, he still violated an inviolable rule. Don't believe everything you see on the Internet!! Certainly dont run to the press with it! Of course, to be fair, the online world was still in relative infancy in '96, and he came from a totally different generation.

Bob, thanks for chiming in on this. I have to admit, I've always wondered about your thoughts on the subject.

 

Strong case for a coverup too, if that is what happened...

 

Correct, but it was an outer tank, not the center one.

In 1963, a Pan Am 707-120 was in a holding pattern over Elkton, MD, waiting for a storm to clear over PHL, and supposedly orbiting outside the thundercloud. A lightning strike caused an explosion in an outer wing tank, resulting in a crash that killed all on board.

Factors involved:
- The tank involved was mostly empty of fuel, but full of fumes, which are generally more volatile.
- The fuel was a mixture of gasoline & kerosene used heavily by the military in Puerto Rico, where the flight had originated, and that was considered more volatile than either gasoline or kerosene by themselves.
- And the aircraft had not yet been fitted with anti-static wicks on the control surfaces, which some believe also have a benefit in bleeding off charges from lightning strikes.

As a result of this disaster, the particular fuel was banned for use in commercial passenger flights in the U.S. and all jetliners not yet having anti-static wicks were directed to add them as soon as possible. I know of no other commercial airliners knocked down by lightning since, at least in the U.S.

(A P.S. on this: I believe that my parents knew at least one of the victims; we were living in Puerto Rico at the time.)

 

After all these years, there is no clear answer yet. It's so annoying..
BTW the video doesn't work to me.

 

In 1945 when I was at Langley a B-17 was struck by lighting that knocked out No.1 engine and fried the wiring in the airplane. It was a Mickey ship and had a lot heavy gage stuff for the radar. Somehow, even without instruments and half blind from the fire inside, the pilot managed to make a safe landing in a blinding rainstorm. Nothing else ignited. B-17 fuel was contained in rubber bladders and the airplane was equipped with static wicks as was everything else in those days.

 

Is there a way to see which 741 they used on the same flight # and route within 2 weeks prior to the incident? I flew on TWA 800 to Paris about 2-3 weeks before it blew up and our 747-100 had issues on the runway while taxiing and were told it would be a "few hours" of repairs, but ended up being 30 minutes. There was a very odd and loud sound coming from the center of the fuselage where I was seated (about 3-5 rows in front of me) that caught everyone by surprise on takeoff. Never heard it on a 747 before or since that let alone another type.

Always wondered if I flew that same plane a few weeks before and haven't been able to find a way to check...

 

Most all of my cohorts at work and my two aviation oriented sons agree that it was not a tank explosion and that the incident has been squelched by the government. Boeing ain't commenting either.

 

The fuselage is now used by the NTSB as a training aid-- effectively, it is reinvestigated every two weeks as new classes come through.

All of the senior investigators agree on what happened-- what motivation would they all have to cover it up? What motivation would Boeing have?

If it were a coverup, wouldn't the senior people, now retired, speak up?

 

Ya got me, but from other posts about possible CIA involvement it makes one wonder. Rumors are that it was a Navy screw up and it is being squelched.

 

Don't they now, as a result of TWA 800, require an inert gas in empty tanks?

And they re-routed the wiring?

Read that somewhere, I think.

 

I don't know about the inert gas, but they did reroute some wiring.

Five (maybe 6?) KC-135s have exploded due to overheating fuel pumps, combined with fuel vapors. Not exactly the same scenario, but pretty close.

If anything, Boeing would have an interest in advancing the missile theory, since it makes them look better. Especially since they have done studies on this problem going back to at least 1980, if not earlier.

 

Military fuel tanks are inert. SFAR88 heaviliy pertained to us at my last job, and flight 800 was the one we heard the most of.
The KC-135 that exploded in Milwaukee on the ground was due to faulty external grounding

 

I'd imagine you could try and contact the people involved with this film and perhaps they could clear that up for you. They'd probably also like to hear experience the weeks prior.

 

Something I always wondered about in this situation was the size/power of the ignition source and the flammability of JetA.

In and internal combustion engine, the air/fuel mixture is at immense pressure before the ignition source is introduced causing the mixture to ignite/explode and expand. Obviously in a diesel engine its only the compression that causes the ignition. (compression causes heat)


Which leads to my query, in TWA 800 we have some JetA vapor, a small ignition source but no pressure, could it really have been enough to cause such an explosion ??

Throw a match into a bucket of Diesel and the match goes out, is JetA not more like Diesel than petrol in that regards ??

As for a Navy/Government cover up, at this point that seems more feasible than the current report/conclusion.

 

The CIA created the crash sequence animation, correct?

 

Jet-A is like the AF's JP8 and is kerosene based. Nowhere near as flammable as the old gasoline based jet fuels like the JP4 we used when I first went into the AF in the early 70s, but still pretty volatile. Even though not as flammable as gasoline based fuels, Jet-A is still very flammable. A large, empty fuel tank with nothing but vapors is a bomb waiting for an ignition source, but aircraft are landed all the time with empty tanks and no problems. There were tech bulletins issued based on the accident investigation results and, IIRC, it involved both wiring changes and keeping that tank filled.

The NTSB has stated they have no intention of reopening the investigation unless someone presents new evidence, and not just finger pointing and speculation. There was absolutely no evidence of a fuselage penetration and explosion or of a proximity fuzed explosion and no extraneous parts discovered.

 

If I remember, that flight was outbound and the center tank would be full. There is slim chances that the dielectric fuel probe, fully immersed, could ignite the fuel. I still have my doubts.