TWA Flight 800

You might check w/ other sites... airliners.net for instance. Or do a search.

It very well might be. It often flew from Greece to NY and went back to Rome via Paris with just a short clean/refuel in NY.

Plane was N93119.

 

Flying magazine has an article about it on line. An interesting read.

Art

 

It was outbound. Had just fueled.

Everything I've read said the center wing tank was partly full only.

After the investigation, the NTSB recommended (besides wiring changes) that all new planes have a 'nitrogen inert gas' system to fill empty tanks. Also, recommended it be fitted on existing planes where feasible.
Don't know if any were actually installed.

 

Leaving the center tank empty or partially filled is common on these wide bodies. Yes there is a fuel inert campaign out now for the B747 but I thin the compliance time is way out. As much as I hate to agree the Navy may be deep in the middle of this tragedy. The probes that they are pointing to are very low voltage. No expert but have been in the business for many years and have never seen anything in the fuel system that would have such an effect. The system is designed not to do that and has been in service on many platforms for many years with no events....just sayin.

SW

 

Cool. Will try to check when I have free time in a few weeks. Wish I kept my ticket stubs back then...all I've kept to this day was some Pepsi can I was given on the flight because it was some weird Arabic version with the strangest tab opening I've ever seen. I'm 99% sure I got that on flight 800 even though I flew on a 747SP (Iran Air) shortly after getting in Paris and they wouldn't serve something with Arabic on it.

 

I just read something on another forum which sparked (sorry) my interest even more.

Basically it said, if the whole 787 fleet was grounded for some overheating wiring and smoke, would the 747's have not been grounded to fix wiring that would destroy the aircraft. ??

Everything I have read by people claiming to be 747 pilots or crew are with Bob Parks on this one and believe there is more to the story.

 

But why cover up an accidental shootdown? To protect some weapons systems operators? A ship's captain? After 230 innocent people died? That doesn't make sense to me.

 

Makes absolute sense when dealing with the government.

Ive said it before but I know nothing about planes but to think this thing blew to high heaven like the Scotland bombing just doesn't add up from what I've read.

 

Just look at the shuffling and dealing from the bottom of the deck on Benghazi. I used to think that such a thing was unthinkable, but not any more.

 

I don't know how old you are. But as someone who came of age in the late '60s and early '70s, you learned to never trust our government because they would lie even when the truth would do. The worst was discovering that they lied because they believed it was the right thing to do.

My dad flew PBYs in the Pacific. He told me later that we gave the Japs almost as good as we got, and everybody, including the press, covered it up. Telling the truth would be bad for morale. This father knows best attitude continued on through Korea and Vietnam.

So would the Navy lie about a bad missile shot? I dunno. I think that would be their first reaction. However, it would be difficult in the day and age to keep a secret like that. After all, there would be potentially several hundred people who would know at least some aspects of a cover up.

My completely uneducated guess would be that this was a perfect-storm fubar. **** happens and sometimes we never know why.

 

I’ve kept tabs on this since ‘96 and never fell for the official punch line. Too many witness accounts and leaks from those with insider info. Even read the fictional book by Nelson Demille, “Night Fall,” which was a plausible hypothetical story centering on this event. My take from years of reading:

--Missile strike, perhaps kinetic, but from outside terrorist org. Those LI waters were a regular outbound flight path from Kennedy. Navy had the whole ocean to perform exercises with safe buffer. Not sure why there would be a surface-air installation nearby, doing active training at that time.
--Read that real target may have been an outbound El Al 747. Israeli intelligence knew of this potential threat and had pilots stand-down from runway taxi and/or take alternate outbound course.
--Acknowledging the truth—assuming terrorist rocket—would have dented flyers’ confidence in domestic air, exposed gaping holes in national security, and usher calls for immediate retaliation. The latter is something gov’t probably didn’t want to undertake until a bigger punch was landed. And it did a few years later.

 

Where did you read that? Have not heard that before.

Any documentation, or is it just some wild theory, like from deMille's book?

 

Hans- Great theory shot down by the facts. First, they were well above SA-7/SA-16 max effective altitude (~15,000' for just about all ManPADS), and second, no warhead explosion pattern anywhere on the aircraft. Plus the warhead on an ManPADS is so small, a 747 would likely survive one hit and continue flying.

Have a little experience with SA-16s since one was fired at me in Desert Storm. We were at 12,000' in an F-111F (killing tanks with GBU-12s), but outclimbed the little bugger. That 747 was still climbing, too.

 

Not doubting your facts, but I thought 800 was just passing through 13k when she blew. Would that 2000ft still make a manPADS strike unlikely?

Regardless, I tend to think the terrorist missile theory is pretty unlikely.

 

15,000' is the upper limit and you would have to be in perfect position to hit a climbing target at 13,000'. I thought she was much higher. Still extremely unlikely it was a ManPADS.

IIRC, they did not fill that center tank because a trip to Paris going east was a pretty short hop by 747 standards. So it was empty except for vapor.

 

So you believe that the low voltage wires ignited the tank vapors?

I am skeptical.

 

If this is true, why didn't some whacko group claim credit? Being an anonymous terrorist group is a contradiction in terms.

 

Actually, there WAS a claim that was faxed to one of the larger newspapers but I think it came from a group who would probably have claimed a mudslide. There was never a credible claim as far as I know. Some people seem to think it is a smoking gun, but I don't know if even it's origin was ever verified.

Just another little bit of a very strange and tragic story...

 

I hate to be a downer for all you conspiracy guys, but if the Navy shot it down, wouldn't someone from the ship be the whistleblower?

Have you ever heard from anyone on the ship about this? Ever?

 

If weapon hit it, then the wereckage would indicate this. There is no way that hundreds of investigators would be able to cover it up without someone blabbing.

Some type of laser igniting the fuel or something maybe.

I seem to remmebr hearing that a Phillipines airline 737 had a center tank blow but while on the taxi way. Apparently the tank was over the ac units and the heat turned the nearly empy tank fuel to vapor. I dont think it tkes much of a spark to ignite hot vapors.

 

What are you talking about?

 

Are there any of these massive conspiracy theories which have actually proven out to be true?

I know the Russians opening the KGB files put a lot of them to rest back in the 90s...

 

TWA 800 had the A/C packs directly under the center wing tank also and it was a very hot day.


They theorized that the A/C could have heated the vapors in the tank above them and a small spark ignited it. A contributory factor.

I've read accounts that the center tank was empty, and another source said it was partly full.

 

No, we do not automatically believe the theories - but there are still a lot of questions.