17 July 1996. TWA 800 (747)

[Popeye]

17 July 1996. TWA 800 (747) flying enroute to Europe exploded in mid-air and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near East Moriches, New York, shortly after take off from Kennedy International Airport.
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> All 230 people on board (two pilots, two flight engineers, 14 flight attendants, 212 passengers) were killed as the aircraft was completely destroyed. In the face of one of the worst airline disasters in recent American history, the Navy quickly embarked on one of its most ambitious salvage and recovery efforts, which ranked in scope with the recovery of the Challenger space shuttle in 1986 and the cleanup after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941. In the first weeks after the crash, Navy Divers focused on its first priority: the recovery of human remains. When no more remains were visible, Divers collected pieces of the plane by hand and piled them into metal baskets which were then turned over to investigators. The wreckage would then be reconstructed and examined in a hangar at a Grumman facility in Calverton, N.Y.
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> Hundreds of square miles of ocean surface were searched during the initial search for victims and wreckage. Underwater efforts concentrated first on a 75 square mile location and then narrowed to a 25 square mile debris field. Diving operations took place between 115 and 130 feet deep in 50-degree water. Visibility on the ocean bottom was normally between 12 and 15 feet but was reduced to zero during periods of heavy weather and current. Within the first week, Navy divers had found and recovered both the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder. For the first month, the Divers were working around-the-clock shifts of 12 hours on and 12 hours off and recovered more than 50% of the aircraft's wreckage. During the 104 days in which the major Navy assistance took place, four Navy ships and ROVs along with more than 225 Divers from across the Navy conducted the recovery.
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> All in all, 4,344 dives were conducted during the recovery operation (1,773 total diving hours) that retrieved more than 95 percent of the jumbo jet and the remains of the 230 victims.
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> Navy officials and other investigators called the salvage operation a remarkable success because nearly all of the wreckage from the Boeing 747 was retrieved from 120 feet of water, the most debris ever recovered from a commercial jet that crashed at sea.

A side note, majority of the Navy divers were surface supplied, New York State Police Offical Scuba dive team showed up and demanded of the Navy's Supervisor od Salvage who was in charge of the operation to be put in the water ASAP, and were told to "suit up and dive off the nearest pier until we are ready to assign you targets." the NYSST later did a good job with aprox. 475+ Scuba dives on assigned targets during the recovery operation.

[kingairpilot]

From my extreamly limitted experience with things that go boom...explosive forces tend to push surfaces AWAY from the epicenter of the blast...not toward it. The Capton wiring arcing in the empty center fuel tank explanation has always bothered me. It just does not work. Several co workers where at TWA at that time. This topic has come up on occassion. They are convinced that it was a external blast that brought down the 747 and that a third party (the US Navy) was responsible. Not sure I believe the Navy did it, but like the Kennedy murder, I don't believe the official explanation either.

Thanks for the informative post on the recovery effort. I grew up in the Northeast but was in New Mexico at the time this happened.


KA

[capn_tucker]

You know the government would never admit to doing such a thing. Too worried about image and PR. Just like a very convincing theory that the second and fatal shot to JFK was caused by one of his own Secret Service men in the car in front of him accidentally discharging his weapon. In fact, the first report from the scene was "there's been an accident" (which was not heard again).
If true they would never ever admit to that one either..