Thread: Does anyone remember this ?

TWA Flight 800 families mark 15 years since crash
By LARRY NEUMEISTER - Associated Press | AP – 2 hrs 52 mins ago

NEW YORK (AP) — Families and friends of some of the 230 people killed when a Paris-bound jumbo jet mysteriously exploded in the sky off the Long Island coast are planning to mark the early evening moment with a quiet beach gathering Sunday.

The destruction 15 years ago of TWA Flight 800 off east Moriches just 12 minutes after takeoff from Kennedy International Airport set off a mammoth FBI investigation amid fears that a bomb or a missile had downed the plane and introduced sky-based international terrorism to U.S. shores.

The unity of family members after the July 17, 1996, crash — and the impact of an organization formed by one of them for those who lost loved ones in disastrous circumstances — are an enduring legacy of the crash.

A 16-month federal inquiry relied on Navy divers to pull bodies and pieces of the plane off the ocean floor and rebuild a 96-foot (29-meter) section of the Boeing 747. For weeks, the crash drew heavy international interest in news conferences where details of the tragedy were spoon-fed to a worried public.

Investigators eventually determined explosives were not to blame — and that a flaming object which people on land said flared across the sky and met the plane just before it exploded was not a missile. Instead, said investigators, it was a piece of the plane itself that had broken off in an initial blast that preceded an even larger explosion.

The National Transportation Safety Board concluded the plane was destroyed by a center fuel tank explosion, likely caused by a spark from a wiring short-circuit that ignited vapors in the tank.

Those killed in the crash included Jack O'Hara, an Emmy-winning executive for ABC's Wide World of Sports, Marcel Dadi, France's best known country music guitarist and 16 teenagers from Montoursville, Pennsylvania, who were going to Paris with their high school French club.

A decade and a half later, a San Francisco woman who lost her fiance in the crash continues operating an organization she formed to bring grief counseling and relief to other people who've lost loved ones under sudden, tragic circumstances.

Heidi Snow Cinader, 39, started the group, AirCraft Casualty Emotional Support Services (ACCESS), after finding comfort for herself at a meeting of families who lost relatives in the 1988 Pan Am Flight 103 bombing.

For most of the last 15 years, Cinader has been matching hundreds of mourning family members from crashes large and small through its 24-hour hotline and 250 trained mentors, including family members from crashes that occurred more than a half century ago.

"I never had the opportunity to talk about my loss ever," Cinader recalled being told by a relative about a 1960s plane crash after discovering the organization.

Her work has attracted the attention of airlines, which have benefited from the group's expertise about grief counseling, as well as caregivers and the Red Cross, which sometimes refers people to the organization for help.

Among those helped were more than 500 family members of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, as well as families of 229 people killed when Swissair Flight 111 plunged into the Atlantic Ocean on Sept. 2, 1998, and families suffering after an EgyptAir jetliner bound for Cairo from New York crashed a year later, killing all 217 people aboard.

"It's unfathomable. It's the worst lottery you can be a part of with the commercial airline disasters. When it does happen, a lot of people have trouble coming to terms with why their loved ones were on that specific flight at that hour. It's not supposed to happen, so when it does, it kind of separates you from the rest of the world," Cinader said.

Cinader plans to publish a book through her organization in time for the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, telling the stories of relatives of people killed tragically, including the loss of a mother to a heart attack, a father to suicide, a father in a car accident, a child to sudden infant death syndrome, a fiance in a construction accident and numerous deaths from plane crashes.

She said she began gathering the stories on video in 1999 for an informational program titled "For Survivors By Survivors" but later decided the material would be valuable to crisis-response teams looking to build programs to help people deal with grief after tragic events.

The stories deliver numerous lessons, she said, including the importance of being good listeners for grief-stricken people and the understanding that recovery can be a long process. Many people expect the grief-stricken to make dramatic progress quickly and become impatient when their pain has not seemed to subside after a few months.

"After about three months, people don't want to hear about it anymore. It makes them uncomfortable. They want you to be back to normal," Cinader said.

Cinader, who is now the married mother of two girls, ages 1 and 4, said she looks forward to Sunday's memorial, the first she has attended since the 10-year anniversary.

"The memorials are important because we can come together," she said. "When the worst thing in our lives occurred, we were all together. We all remember. We're certainly so proud of everybody who survived this. They are the most compelling, remarkable people, just the fact that they still get up in the morning."

http://news.yahoo.com/twa-flight-800...172235470.html


One of the families on the plane was a co-worker of my husband and we went thru prenatal and birthing classes all together. It was so shocking when it happened....


comments

Ah conspirator folks hold on. The NTSB recovered 98% of the aircraft no sign of explosion no explosive residue. 1000 must have agreed to lie? Hardly. If it wasn't a missile then Boeing and TWA were liable over bad design and poor maintanace

~~~

It's was well-known within the FAA at the time of the investigation that the aircraft was originally in service for a foreign entity and when it was purchased by TWA and added to their fleet a manditory conformity inspection by the FAA was never done, which would have shown the service bulletin to correct the wiring problem in the fuel tank are had never been accomplished. Negligence was on the part of the FAA and TWA both so the FAA helped cover it up. No conspiracy theory here. Everyone who has ever researched this was bought off or threatened.


~~~

In the 1980’s there was an episode of Miami Vice where a terrorist bought a Stinger Missile who intended to blow up a commercial jet. The plan was to blow up the jet from a speed boat, then high tail it out of there before the coast guard showed up. Then in 1996 in real life many witnessed what appeared to be a missile blowing up a plane after take-off over the Atlantic Ocean. What is more likely, the Government covering up a terrorist attack to prevent chaos among the public or a loose wire causing the plane to blow up?

The Boeing 747 plane crashed off the coast of Long Island, N.Y., in 1996
Missile theory resurfaces in plane crash that killed 230
2 hr ago |By Associated Press



AP Photo: NTSB. Investigators reconstruct the TWA Flight 800 aircraft that crashed in 1996 in Long Island Sound, NY, in this May 1997 photo.

NEW YORK — Former investigators are pushing to reopen the probe into the 1996 crash of TWA Flight 800 off the coast of New York, saying new evidence points to the often-discounted theory that a missile strike may have downed the jumbo jet. The flight from New York to Paris crashed July 17, 1996, just minutes after the jetliner took off from John F. Kennedy Airport, killing all 230 people aboard.

The effort to reopen the probe is being made in tandem with the release next month of a documentary that features the testimony of former investigators who raise doubts about the National Transportation Safety Board's conclusion that the crash was caused by a center fuel tank explosion, probably caused by a spark from a short-circuit in the wiring.

We don't know who fired the missile," said Jim Speer, an accident investigator for the Air Line Pilots Association, one of those seeking a new review of the probe. "But we have a lot more confidence that it was a missile."

In a petition filed Wednesday seeking to reopen the probe, they say they have "reviewed the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) radar evidence along with new evidence not available to the NTSB during the official investigation and contend that the NTSB's probable cause determination is erroneous and should be reconsidered and modified accordingly."

Those calling for a review of the investigation include former NTSB accident investigator Hank Hughes and Bob Young, a former senior accident investigator for the now-defunct TWA. Tom Stalcup, a physicist and co-founder of a group called Flight 800 Independent Researchers Organization, also questions the NTSB's original findings and is featured prominently in the documentary, which is slated to air on the 17th anniversary of the crash next month.

The NTSB issued a statement Wednesday morning saying it is aware of the upcoming documentary. "All petitions for reconsideration are thoroughly reviewed, and a determination is usually made within about 60 days," spokeswoman Kelly Nantel said. "While the NTSB rarely re-investigates issues that have already been examined, our investigations are never closed and we can review any new information not previously considered by the board."

She noted the TWA Flight 800 investigation lasted four years. "Investigators took great care reviewing, documenting and analyzing facts and data and held a five-day hearing to gather additional facts before determining the probable cause of the accident during a two-day board meeting."

Robert Francis, the former vice chairman of the NTSB who headed the investigation, declined to comment.

The former investigators calling for a new probe say new evidence that a missile may have taken down the jet includes analysis of radar of the jetliner. Speculation of a missile strike began almost immediately after the crash. Theories that an errant missile may have been fired from a U.S. military vessel were widely refuted, but conjecture about a shoulder-fired missile launched by terrorists in a small boat has never completely gone away.

The petitioners contend that the testimony of more than 200 witnesses who reported seeing streaks of light headed toward the plane should be reconsidered. The NTSB said after the first investigation that it found no evidence of a missile strike. It explained that what witnesses likely saw was the jetliner pitching upward in the first few moments after the explosion, but some witnesses still maintain that the streak of light they saw emanated from the waterline and zoomed upward toward the plane.

The petition filed with the NTSB to reopen the probe claims "new analyses of the FAA radar evidence demonstrate that the explosion that caused the crash did not result from a low-velocity fuel-air explosion as the NTSB has determined. Rather, it was caused by a detonation or high-velocity explosion."

John Seaman, the longtime leader of an organization of TWA Flight 800 victims' families, noted there have been several attempts over the years to reopen the investigation. "Unless something was to develop that would be very clear and compelling, then a lot of these interested parties are not really helpful," said Seaman, whose niece died on the flight. He spoke to The Associated Press in a telephone interview from upstate New York on Tuesday, ahead of the formal filing of the petition.

"They reopen wounds," he said of the petitioners. "Personally I can't keep going over it again and again. I think most families feel that way."

The documentary airs on the EPIX premium television channel. An EPIX spokeswoman declined to say how much the filmmakers were paid for the documentary.

http://news.msn.com/us/missile-theor...t-killed-230-1

Former TWA Flight 800 investigators want new probe
By FRANK ELTMAN / Associated Press / June 19, 2013

MINEOLA, N.Y. (AP) — Former investigators are pushing to reopen the probe into the 1996 crash of TWA Flight 800 off the coast of New York, saying new evidence points to the often-discounted theory that a missile strike may have downed the jumbo jet.

The New York-to-Paris flight crashed July 17, 1996, just minutes after the jetliner took off from John F. Kennedy Airport, killing all 230 people aboard.

The effort to reopen the probe is being made in tandem with the release next month of a documentary that features the testimony of former investigators who raise doubts about the NTSB’s conclusion that the crash was caused by a center fuel tank explosion, probably caused by a spark from a short-circuit in the wiring.

In a petition seeking to reopen the probe, they say they have ‘‘reviewed the FAA radar evidence along with new evidence not available to the NTSB during the official investigation and contend that the NTSB’s probable cause determination is erroneous and should be reconsidered and modified accordingly.’’

Those calling for a review of the investigation include former NTSB accident investigator Hank Hughes and Bob Young, a former senior accident investigator for the now-defunct TWA. Tom Stalcup, a physicist and co-founder of a group called Flight 800 Independent Researchers Organization, also questions the NTSB’s original findings and is featured prominently in the documentary, which is slated to air on the 17th anniversary of the crash next month.

The NTSB issued a statement Wednesday morning saying it is aware of the upcoming documentary. ‘‘All petitions for reconsideration are thoroughly reviewed, and a determination is usually made within about 60 days,’’ spokeswoman Kelly Nantel said. ‘‘While the NTSB rarely re-investigates issues that have already been examined, our investigations are never closed and we can review any new information not previously considered by the board.’’

She noted the TWA Flight 800 investigation lasted four years. ‘‘Investigators took great care reviewing, documenting and analyzing facts and data and held a five-day hearing to gather additional facts before determining the probable cause of the accident during a two-day board meeting.’’

The former investigators calling for a new probe say they have new evidence that a missile may have taken down the jet.

They contend that the testimony of more than 200 witnesses who reported seeing streaks of light headed toward the plane should be reconsidered. The NTSB said after the first investigation that it found no evidence of a missile strike. It explained that what witnesses likely saw was the jetliner pitching upward in the first few moments after the explosion, but some witnesses still maintain that the streak of light they saw emanated from the waterline and zoomed upward toward the plane.

The petition filed with the NTSB to reopen the probe claims ‘‘new analyses of the FAA radar evidence demonstrate that the explosion that caused the crash did not result from a low-velocity fuel-air explosion as the NTSB has determined. Rather, it was caused by a detonation or high-velocity explosion.’’

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/20...pLP/story.html