A "spark"?? LOLOLOLOL!!!

Years later and millions of dollars spent investigating, and THIS is what they are trying to feed us?? LMAO!

It's like saying that JFK wasn't murdered, he "died from a small metal foreign object impacting his brain"!

What a load of crap. The people should be outraged at the corruption and the amount of our tax dollars wasted by these "investigators".

-- (outrageous@government.corruption), August 23, 2000

Answers

So tell us the real truth, dude

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), August 23, 2000.

The truth? LOL!! If somebody paid me $67 million, I think I could at least get closer to the truth than "a spark". Witnesses, dude, witnesses are closer to the truth than anything else they have found, and they could have saved $67 million. Instead, they used the money to play games between the government and Boeing, covering up the truth and trying to come up with the answer which would create the minimal amount of problems for all parties involved.

Read it yourself, they contradict the very same things they said a little while ago...

Wednesday August 23 12:47 AM ET Officials: Short Circuit Likely Sparked TWA Crash

By Jim Wolf

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. safety investigators say a short circuit likely sparked the fuel-tank blast that killed all 230 people aboard TWA Flight 800 four years ago, not a criminal act.

Capping the costliest accident investigation in history, National Transportation Safety Board staff dismissed conspiracy theories that a bomb or missile downed the Boeing 747 off Long Island on July 17, 1996.

No problem was reported to air traffic control by crew of Flight 800 before the explosion, which broke off the front end of the jumbo jet 14 minutes after takeoff from New York's Kennedy Airport on a scheduled flight to Paris.

Bernard Loeb, head of the NTSB's office of aviation safety, told the five-member safety board reviewing the investigators' conclusions that the crash was most likely triggered by a high-voltage surge into fuel-indicator wiring leading to the aircraft's nearly empty center-wing tank.

Taking all the evidence together ``leads to the inescapable conclusion that the cause of the in-flight breakup of TWA Flight 800 was a fuel/air explosion inside the center-wing tank,'' the staff investigators found.

``Although the voltage in the fuel-quantity indication system wiring is limited by design to a very low level, a short circuit from higher-voltage wires could allow excessive voltage to be transferred to fuel-quantity indication system wires and enter the tank,'' Loeb said Tuesday, summarizing a key finding.

``We cannot be certain that this in fact occurred, but of all the ignition scenarios we considered, this scenario is the most likely,'' he said.

All told, the NTSB, an independent federal accident investigation agency, and Boeing Co. (NYSE:BA - news) spent a combined total of $67 million -- a record for an airliner crash.

Boeing Awaits Final Word From Ntsb

Loeb said the recovered wiring showed ``definite signs of deterioration and damage ... not atypical for an airplane of its age.'' The Boeing 747-100 was manufactured in November 1971 and had accumulated 93,303 flight hours.

Seattle-based Boeing, the world's biggest aircraft builder, said it was awaiting a final determination by the safety board itself on the probable cause of the crash. The board is to rule on the investigators' draft report on Wednesday.

As of Aug. 8, Boeing had settled 52 of 175 lawsuits brought by relatives of the 212 passengers and 18 crew members aboard Flight 800. Lawyers have valued some settlements in the multimillions of dollars.

In April, Boeing told the NTSB it had found no evidence to support the idea that a ``specific electrical system or component of the 747-100 fuel-quantity indicating system ignited a fuel/air explosion.''

``None of the recovered fuel system components inspected and analyzed showed any evidence of being the ignition source that initiated the accident,'' Boeing said at the time.

The officially discounted sabotage theory stemmed largely from witness reports of upward streaking lights supposedly consistent with the firing of a heat-seeking missile. A total of 258 witnesses reported seeing a streak of light, Loeb said.

In ruling out a missile hit, he said the aircraft continued in its crippled flight for about 30 seconds after the explosion blew off its nose, ``during which time burning fuel from the damaged airplane likely appeared as a streak of light.''

Conspiracy theories have been fueled by the timing of the crash -- amid criminal prosecutions in the 1993 bombing of New York's World Trade Center and heightened concern about terrorism at the 1996 Olympic games in Atlanta that summer.

Investigators ruled out the possibility of a bomb or a missile after finding no evidence of sabotage in the 95 percent of the aircraft recovered from the ocean floor, though Loeb said the FBI had found traces of ``explosive residue'' on three pieces of the wreckage.

``However, these three pieces contained no evidence of pitting, cratering, hot gas washing or petaling, which would have been there had these trace amounts resulted from a bomb or a missile,'' he told the opening session of a two-day safety board meeting to consider the staff's report.

Loeb, who had overall responsibility for the investigation, said the explosive residues could have resulted from, among other things, ferrying troops during the 1991 Persian Gulf War or ``dog-training explosive detection exercises conducted on the accident airplane about one month before the accident.''

James Wildey of the NTSB's Materials Laboratory Division specified that telltale bomb damage would not have been limited to the less than five percent of unrecovered wreckage, citing lessons from the Dec. 21, 1988, mid-air explosion of Pan Am Flight 103 that killed 270 people in the air and on the ground at Lockerbie, Scotland.

Even without knowing for sure what sparked the accident, the investigation has led to far-reaching changes in design and maintenance procedures that are said by experts to have made commercial aviation safer.

Joe Lychner of Houston, who lost his 37-year-old wife, Pam, and two daughters, Shanon, 10, and Katie, 8, in the crash took no comfort in any of the findings.

``Boeing is continuing to play Russian roulette with the flying public,'' he said.

-- (military.incomptence.or.terrorism?@we'll.never.know), August 23, 2000.

It's over. Honest.

Local Riverside CA paper broke and pushed the missile deal with all the fuel residue on the seats and stuff. Wound up making them look as stupid as they are. (consider: they dumped Shoe for Baldo in the comics. Not huevos enough for Boondocks even.)

It's over. Honest.

-- Carlos (riffraff@cybertime.net), August 23, 2000.

Interesting recent related thread at

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=003dtc

-- (linking@lurker.rus), August 23, 2000.

Are we expected to believe that an Airplane taking off for Paris, would do so with an almost empty fuel tank ?

-- Dan Newsome (BOONSTAR1@webtv.net), August 23, 2000.

I think it was a Y2K problem.

-- (hmm@hmm.hmm), August 23, 2000.

It's true an electrical short isn't nearly as satisfying as a terrorist missile, which is less satisfying than the Navy shooring it down, which in turn is less exciting than N-Rays from space aliens.

But it does make us realize that maintenance has its limits, and no amount of maintenance can keep these things airworthy forever. Insulation deteriorates, metal fatigues, moving parts abrade, age takes its toll on everything. Does anyone know how many planes are retired each year as no longer sufficiently reliable? Do retired planes get purchased by bargain airlines and kept in service until they finally crash?

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), August 23, 2000.

Oh Flint, you're no fun. You some kinda engineer or sumpin?

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), August 23, 2000.

no flint's just a jerk, and twa is not a bargain airline

-- (flint@is.a.dullard), August 23, 2000.

Dan Newsome (BOONSTAR1@webtv.net),

>Are we expected to believe that an Airplane taking off for Paris, would do so with an almost empty fuel tank?

Yes, Dan, you are.

The 747 has several fuel tanks; fuel does not have to be drawn from each of them at the same rate, nor do all the tanks have to be filled to the same level. Note that the story referred to the "center-wing tank", not all the tanks in general, as being nearly empty.

A 747 with a full fuel load has a far longer range than New York to Paris. Carrying extra fuel, fuel not needed even for a safety margin in case of rerouting, costs a lot of money (and, by raising takeoff and landing weights, increases the risks involved in those phases of flight).

-- No Spam Please (nos_pam_please@hotmail.com), August 24, 2000.

Listen to this man on Coast to Coast AM tonight, or over the net at ArtBell.com He knows what he is talking about.

twa 800

-- (gubmint@full.o.shit), August 30, 2000.