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TWA Flight 800 leaves New York City for Paris 80 minutes late. Only 12 minutes into the flight, there are short circuits in electrical wires that cause ignition of vaporised jet fuel in the center fuel tank. The explosion causes the nose of the aircraft to break off. The aircraft continues to disintegrate as it plummets into the sea, killing all 230 on board.
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00:05A TWA jumbo jet on a routine flight from New York to Paris, France.
00:13Suddenly, it explodes and plunges, burning into the Atlantic.
00:18There are over 200 people on board.
00:21Is it a missile attack, a terrorist bomb, or a catastrophic mechanical failure?
00:28Now, using advanced computer simulation, we reveal what really went wrong on flight TWA 800.
00:39Disasters don't just happen, they're a chain of critical events.
00:43Unravel the clues and count down those final seconds from disaster.
00:54America. New York City.
00:59John F. Kennedy Airport.
01:01July 17th, 1996.
01:04Security is tight at New York's busiest airport.
01:09Tens of thousands of people will pass through JFK today on some 1,000 flights.
01:19They are all potential targets for terrorist attack.
01:26In nearby Manhattan, terrorist Ramsay Youssef is in the US Federal Court.
01:32He's on trial for trying to blow up the World Trade Center with a 600 kilogram truck bomb.
01:37But he's also accused of masterminding a plot to kill hundreds of innocent people with bombs planted on 12 US
01:44airplanes.
01:46The FBI knows that many members of Youssef's terrorist cell remain at large and could still target planes for attack.
01:56We were in a very high state of alert in the United States.
01:59We'd had numerous, numerous threats, hundreds of threats.
02:06Heading to JFK today are two young college students from Macon, Georgia.
02:12Becky Olsen is 20 years old.
02:15She's been best friends with 19-year-old Michelle Becker since high school.
02:18Do you think we're going to fit on this stuff in here?
02:21They're excited. Today they'll fly to Paris for a friend's wedding, followed by a backpacking holiday around Europe.
02:27The girls' parents have given the trip their blessing.
02:31They were very excited to be going.
02:33They just knew it was going to be a wonderful new adventure.
02:37They thought that this was just going to be the best thing since chocolate cake.
02:44This will be an extra special trip.
02:47Michelle's dad, Walter Becker, has saved enough air miles to upgrade the girls to first class.
02:53Back then, first class was first class.
02:56And I felt that they would really enjoy that, both going and returning back home.
03:054.31pm. The Boeing 747, that will become TWA Flight 800 to Paris, arrives at JFK.
03:13It's 25 years old, and has more than 16,000 flights under its belt.
03:20Tanker trucks move in to fuel up the plane.
03:23The ground crew pumps 114,000 litres of Jet A fuel into the six wing tanks.
03:31It's more than enough to fly to Paris.
03:34The biggest tank, the centre wing tank, can stay as it is, almost empty.
03:42Just outside Baltimore, Maryland, 29-year-old Jamie Hurd finishes up last-minute chores at the family garage.
03:48Yeah, okay, you pick it up Tuesday. How's that?
03:50All right, thank you very much. Bye-bye.
03:53Since joining two years ago, Jamie has computerised the office for his dad, Jim.
03:58You know, he kind of brought us into the present age, back from the dark ages.
04:05Jamie is flying to Paris to hook up with his girlfriend, Hope, who's in France on an exchange visit.
04:11It's his first flight to Europe.
04:20Inside JFK's Terminal 5, Michelle Becker calls home to ask her mother for advice.
04:25Hi, Mom.
04:26TWA is offering cash incentives for passengers to take a later flight.
04:31Do you think we should take the bump flight?
04:33Because I think we can get some money. What do you think?
04:37It's a tough dilemma.
04:40The girls don't want to risk losing their free upgrade, but as students, they could use the money.
04:486 p.m.
04:50212 passengers board Flight 800 in good time for a 7 p.m. take-off.
04:57Among them is Jamie Hurd.
05:00He's only eight hours away from seeing his girlfriend, Hope.
05:04In charge of the crew this evening is Captain Steven Snyder.
05:09With 4,700 hours of flying time on 747s, he's one of TWA's most experienced pilots.
05:17Flying alongside Snyder is Captain Ralph Kvorken, another TWA veteran.
05:267 p.m.
05:28Captain Snyder and the flight crew are ready to go.
05:31But there's a problem.
05:32One of the passengers is not on board, but her bags are already in the hold.
05:42In 1988, Pan Am 103 exploded in mid-air over the town of Lockerbie in Scotland, killing 270 people.
05:51Terrorists checked a bag containing a bomb into the hold, but didn't board the plane.
05:57Since then, planes cannot take off with a bag in the hold if the passenger who checked it is not
06:02on board.
06:07The plane is delayed while ground staff hunt for the missing passenger.
06:12Outside, it's 28 degrees Celsius, and on the asphalt of the apron, the jumbo is getting hot.
06:19As the minutes tick by, air conditioning units under the fuselage keep the passengers cool.
06:2550 minutes go by, and there is still no sign of the mystery passenger.
06:32At 7.59 p.m., gate personnel contact the crew.
06:37TWA flight 800, sorry about that delay.
06:40We have confirmation that the passenger is on board.
06:43They were on board the whole time.
06:478.19.
06:50At last, Captain Kevorkan throttles up the 747.
06:55Flight 800 lifts off an hour and 20 minutes late.
07:00TWA 800's flight path will take it through some of the most congested airspace in the USA.
07:06It will also skirt the boundary of a US military zone to the south.
07:12Air traffic control keeps flights well clear of any restricted airspace during weapons testing.
07:198.31. Flight 800 climbs into the evening sky.
07:26East Wind Airlines pilot David McClain is flying a 737 into Trenton, New Jersey.
07:32He sees the jumbo jet ahead of him.
07:36It was a nice night, good visibility.
07:37There's a lot of traffic going out there, so you always got to keep your eyes out.
07:46Air traffic control clears flight 800 to climb to its next level.
07:52TWA 800, heavy turn left heading 050.
07:56Becker climbing around traffic.
07:59Line to one 5,000.
08:03Crew and passengers settle in for the flight.
08:08Then, suddenly...
08:19And I thought, gee, they must have two to three hundred people on board.
08:26I thought it was a bomb.
08:32Twelve minutes out of JFK on a routine trip to Paris.
08:39TWA flight 800 explodes in a huge fireball.
08:51At air traffic control, flight 800 suddenly disappears off radar screens.
09:06East Wind's pilot, David McClain reports in to air traffic control.
09:10We just saw an explosion out here.
09:13About 16,000 feet.
09:14Just went down into the water.
09:18Air traffic control tries to raise flight 800 on the radio.
09:22TWA 800, if you hear center, eye dance.
09:27There's no response.
09:30TWA 800, if you hear center, eye dance.
09:34The terrible truth starts to dawn.
09:38TWA 800, center.
09:45Thousands of meters below, a helicopter from the Air National Guard flying on a training mission is caught beneath the
09:51blast.
09:57I looked over my right shoulder and this fire exploded across the sky and came down like a curtain, like
10:05napalm.
10:08Flaming aircraft debris starts to fall all around them.
10:13Some of it was still on fire. We actually saw embers.
10:16Now the helicopter crew is in danger.
10:19If debris hits the rotor blades, they too could crash into the water.
10:24We have to get out of here.
10:28The helicopter makes it away safely.
10:31They race to get help.
10:36Back at base, Major Mike Noyes prepares to take command of the helicopter and head out to the crash site.
10:43Obviously the adrenaline is starting to flow.
10:45I'm thinking we're going out to search for survivors.
10:48He knows that it is possible to survive a plane crash into water.
10:53And the sea temperature is around 18 degrees Celsius.
10:57If there are people in the water, they could stay alive for up to eight hours.
11:05The Coast Guard at East Mauritius, Long Island, gets the word that a plane has gone down.
11:10Stay by your lines.
11:13They speed up to sea.
11:22First on the scene is the Air National Guard rescue helicopter.
11:26The sea below them is on fire.
11:29Picture a campfire that's a quarter or a half mile long, but the flames are, oh, I don't know, they're
11:34at least ten feet high.
11:36Meanwhile, reports of the disaster start to break on the news channels.
11:42This is the latest we have on the flight that crashed tonight of TWA Flight 800 into the waters off
11:48Long Island, New York.
11:50This was on its way from...
11:51Among those watching are Aurelie and Walter Becker.
11:56They realize it's the flight of their daughter, Michelle.
11:58The first pictures you saw were shot from the helicopter.
12:03The debris field and the flames coming out of the water.
12:07And, uh...
12:10I said, oh, my God.
12:20But then Aurelie Becker remembers Michelle's last-minute phone call from the airport.
12:24Do you think we should take the bump flight?
12:26Because I think we can get some money.
12:29Michelle told her mother that TWA were offering cash incentives to take a later flight.
12:34Aurelie recalls with horror that she advised Michelle and her friend Becky to stay on Flight 800.
12:43Now she prays that the girls ignored her advice.
12:47I said, I wonder if they ever really got on the flight.
12:51Maybe they did take a jump seat and they aren't on it.
12:57Aurelie calls Becky's parents.
12:59She speaks to Becky's father, Donald Olsen.
13:03Hey, Aurelie, what's up?
13:05I said, you didn't get a call from Becky that they took a bump ticket, did you?
13:12Donald says no.
13:16The girls didn't call.
13:19And Aurelie said, there's been a plane crash, you need to turn on CNN.
13:25A 747 aircraft has exploded in midair, about 20 miles south of New York's Long Island, into the Atlantic Ocean.
13:34The families realize Michelle and Becky did get on the flight.
13:38Now all they can do is helplessly watch the horrifying scenes.
13:42But they still hope that their girls may have survived the crash.
13:46You know, you talk to each other and you hold each other and you cry and you, you say, well,
13:52you know, the girls were very athletic, they were good swimmers.
13:56A search and rescue we know is a nightmare. They are looking for people who survived this.
14:04I just told Becky to swim hard.
14:08All night long.
14:12Families all over the United States and beyond endure a waking nightmare.
14:20Their only hope, that somewhere in the darkened water, their loved ones cling on to life, long enough to be
14:27rescued.
14:35On route to Paris from JFK, with 230 people on board, TWA flight 800 explodes and plunges burning into the
14:45Atlantic.
14:47Two hours later, in the deepening darkness, rescuers scour the ocean for anyone who may still be alive.
14:55After three hours of searching, none of the hundreds of rescuers can find a single survivor.
15:02They've covered 13 square kilometers of ocean.
15:05It's now clear that all 230 people on board died in the crash.
15:11The helicopter rescue team heads back to base.
15:14We did our best that night to try and find anyone who could have survived that crash.
15:21And until we turned empty handed, it was a very low blow.
15:355 AM.
15:38The sun rises on an ocean littered with the remains of flight 800.
15:46Boat crews bring pieces of wreckage to the Coast Guard Station at East Mauritius.
15:53Rescuers have recovered 73 bodies, but no survivors.
15:59Jamie Heard's father, Jim, realizes that any hope his 29-year-old son made it through alive is gone.
16:07It's not a good time in your life.
16:09You know, you're just thinking about, really thinking about one thing.
16:14And, to me, the one thing was that I was, uh, I was going to go get you, Jamie, and
16:18bring you home.
16:25News reaches the FBI, a New York assistant director, James Kulstrom.
16:30Kulstrom immediately suspects the crash is no accident.
16:34My gut told me that this was probably an intervention by some criminal, some terrorist.
16:39Less than 12 hours after flight 800 plunged burning into the water, investigators survey the impact site.
16:47Even hardened law officers like Kulstrom are shocked by the destruction.
16:52I'll never forget the scene of miles, seemed like miles of debris.
16:57Pilots who were near the jet when it exploded tell FBI agents that the blast came out of the blue.
17:03But witnesses on the ground report something highly suspicious.
17:10We had 50, 60 people that had called in and said, I saw things in the sky.
17:15Some described them as ascending towards this fireball.
17:20Over time, 258 people tell the FBI they saw something streaking through the sky at the moment the 747 was
17:28lost.
17:29I followed the streak of light, red-orange in color, moving from my left center to my further left.
17:36Two people even caught an image on camera.
17:39One photo shows a mysterious trail in the sky.
17:43The other appears to show an object shaped like a missile.
17:50Kulstrom faces a horrifying possibility.
17:58Was flight 800 shot down by a terrorist missile?
18:04Such an attack just a few kilometers off the US mainland would represent a new escalation of the terror threat
18:10facing America and the West.
18:14The US supplied shoulder-held ground-to-air missile launchers to Islamic freedom fighters in Afghanistan.
18:20Kulstrom knows that many of these weapons are now in the hands of terrorists determined to strike at America.
18:27But the launchers only have a range of 8 kilometers.
18:30Since flight 800 came down 13 kilometers from land, a missile of this type could only have been fired from
18:37the ocean.
18:39So the crime scene became, really, thousands of square miles of ocean and thousands of square miles of Long Island
18:47and New York City harbor.
18:49It was a massive undertaking.
18:53Now, by rewinding the events and going deep into the investigation, we can reveal what really happened to flight 800.
19:01Advanced computer simulation will take us where no camera can go, into the heart of the disaster zone.
19:09Agents interview 670 eyewitnesses. They painstakingly check the movements of 20,000 craft in the area.
19:17They seize stolen and abandoned boats and run forensic tests on them.
19:22But they can't find any promising leads.
19:26Then the missile theory takes a new and astonishing turn.
19:30Now, stories and rumors begin to circulate on the internet and in the press.
19:34They make an extraordinary allegation that TWA Flight 800 was shot down, not by terrorists, but in a terrible accident
19:44by the U.S. military.
19:52Carlstrom learns that there were eight military ships, eight submarines, and five military planes within 550 kilometers at the crash
20:00site.
20:02A P-3 plane and a sub were in the middle of training exercises.
20:06He orders dozens of FBI agents to scrutinize all their logs.
20:12After weeks of checking, they verify that no missiles were unaccounted for.
20:17No missiles were fired that night.
20:22The FBI also check out the two suspicious photographs.
20:27They find that in one, the photographer was facing in completely the opposite direction to Flight 800.
20:33Technicians conclude that the object captured is actually an airplane.
20:38They also find that the mysterious trail on the other is simply residue on the film.
20:45The FBI concludes that the friendly fire theory is groundless.
20:52But the story doesn't go away.
20:56Now, Pierre Salinger, John F. Kennedy's former press secretary, raises the stakes with an astonishing intervention.
21:04He says there's been a cover-up.
21:07Flight 800 was shot down by a U.S. Navy missile.
21:10And he has the evidence to prove it.
21:17Thirteen kilometers off Long Island.
21:20Thirty-seven meters down, Navy divers grapple with a mammoth task.
21:25Recovering the remains of TWA Flight 800 scattered over an area of 104 square kilometers.
21:36Meanwhile, the FBI follow up a new and disturbing allegation.
21:43John Kennedy's former press secretary, Pierre Salinger, claims to have evidence that the U.S. Navy shot down Flight 800
21:50by mistake.
21:59We have now reached the point where we are totally sure that what we are saying is true.
22:06He produces an air traffic control radar tape showing a mystery object close to the doomed jet.
22:12What we see here is a missile about to hit TWA 800.
22:20Many people suspicious about the crash support Salinger's claims.
22:26His thesis points to the missile being fired by the U.S.S. Normandy, an Aegis-class missile cruiser which
22:33was at sea 340 kilometers south of Long Island.
22:39The FBI reexamines U.S. Navy activity in the area.
22:44It quickly finds that the U.S.S. Normandy was at least 160 kilometers beyond the range from which its
22:50missiles could hit Flight 800.
22:53We accounted for every piece of ordnance on the Normandy and every other military ship in the region.
23:00We looked at every submarine under the ocean.
23:05We looked at every aircraft transiting the area even though they were not capable of shooting a missile and taking
23:12an airplane down.
23:15But they find nothing.
23:22Scientists analyze the radar tape.
23:25They discover the traces are just interference.
23:28It's a well-known phenomenon called radar ghosting.
23:31They are simply duplicate images of Jet Express Flight 18 flying nearby.
23:42The friendly fire claims cost thousands of hours of investigators' time.
23:47An exasperated Karlstrom lambasts the conspiracy theorists at a news conference.
23:52I can assure you that we've looked at every angle, every possibility, and the military of this country has had
24:00nothing to do with this horrendous tragedy.
24:07A terrorist bomb or missile is still one of the chief suspects for the loss of Flight 800.
24:14But the only way of finding out for sure what down the plane is to analyze the wreckage.
24:22That job falls to the FBI's co-investigators, the National Transportation Safety Board, the NTSB.
24:30Their priority, to find the plane's flight recorders or black boxes.
24:38Since the day after the crash, Navy divers have scoured the debris zone in the deep waters off Long Island.
24:46It's slow and dangerous work.
24:48The seabed is littered with razor-sharp fragments.
24:52Six days into the search and there's no sign of the black boxes.
24:57It's possible that ocean currents have buried them in the sand.
25:06Then, on day seven, a diver spots something. A flash of orange.
25:12The cockpit voice recorder, headset. You see the beacon right on it?
25:16You want to take a picture of it?
25:18It's the cockpit voice recorder.
25:27Within seconds, they get lucky again. The flight data recorder lies just meters away.
25:33They got both of them?
25:35Holy cow!
25:38Divers quickly bring the boxes to the surface.
25:42To prevent damage by oxidation, they keep them submerged in salt water.
25:47For NTSB investigator Bob Swain, it's a potential breakthrough.
25:53As the divers bring the boxes up, the NTSB side of the staff, we typically get pretty excited.
26:01But there's a problem.
26:03The boxes are twisted and broken open from the massive impact.
26:10Investigators fear that there's little chance the tapes inside will have survived.
26:14But they rush them to NTSB headquarters.
26:19There, they hope they can retrieve something from the recorders.
26:26Carefully, they remove the cockpit voice tape from inside the armoured casing and thread it onto a player.
26:35Against all the odds, the tape is intact and playable.
26:52They carefully analyze all the pilots' conversations and the readings from the data recorder.
27:02Stopped climb at 1,3000.
27:06At the electric.
27:07They scour the last seconds of the recording for any clues to the plane's sudden loss.
27:135 to 1,5000.
27:15But at 8.31 and 12 seconds,
27:20the recording cuts off suddenly.
27:24Whatever happened to Flight 800, the pilots had no time to react.
27:30The excitement of the find turns to bitter disappointment.
27:35The voice recorder, and the same with the data recorder, really told us nothing.
27:40Now the investigators must rely entirely on the salvaged wreckage of the doomed jet for clues.
27:46If Flight 800 was brought down by a bomb or a missile, it would leave evidence behind.
27:52NTSB metallurgists examine the fragments under scanning electron microscopes.
27:58They're looking for the distinctive micro-pitting which high-explosive leaves on metal surfaces.
28:08As a veteran of the Pan Am 103 investigation, metallurgist Jim Wildey knows exactly what bomb damage looks like.
28:16But he finds no trace of it.
28:18We looked at every piece, every square inch of every piece, every fracture, every surface.
28:24Each piece as it came in was examined in detail for evidence of the bomb or explosion.
28:30And there simply was no evidence of that type on the TWA.
28:34At the same time, FBI forensic experts take over 9,000 samples for chemical analysis.
28:40They know that traces of explosive can survive even underwater.
28:46For weeks, they too find nothing.
28:49But then, the FBI makes a momentous discovery.
28:56Microscopic explosive traces of unknown origin have been found relating to TWA Flight 800.
29:05I got a call from our chief forensic chemist at the site, who had found some minute traces of RDX
29:16and PETN,
29:18which are two chemicals that are in plastic explosive.
29:23Investigators finally seem to be closing in on an explanation.
29:27And increasingly, it looks like a bomb.
29:31It's an extraordinary find.
29:33The traces survived weeks of immersion in 37 meters of seawater.
29:38They were preserved under a piece of sticky tape joining the carpet tiles.
29:42It's compelling evidence for a terrorist bomb on board Flight 800.
29:47But Kullstrom is skeptical.
29:51It made no sense.
29:54I mean, the initial reaction was, wow.
29:57But the facts made no sense.
29:59The flooring that was recovered, there was no sign of an explosion.
30:05The FBI probes the doomed airplane's history for explanations.
30:10They painstakingly explore the dozens of occasions when TWA hired the plane out between flights to third parties.
30:18Then, agents make a critical discovery.
30:21Just one month before the crash, police in St. Louis hired the plane to train sniffer dogs.
30:27The police dog handlers tell the FBI they used RDX and PETN, the exact same substances found in the wreckage
30:35of Flight 800.
30:38And they also revealed that one of the training aides was cracked and may have leaked tiny amounts of explosives
30:44material.
30:46The bomb traces are real, but they are not the cause of the crash.
30:52The criminal investigation hits a brick wall.
30:57Six months after the disaster, the FBI has found no evidence of a missile strike or terrorist bomb.
31:05Now the NTSB focuses on catastrophic mechanical failure as the likely cause of the crash.
31:12In the hangar at Calverton, New York, Jim Wildey and his team start to reassemble the 747 from almost one
31:19million pieces of debris.
31:21It takes them three months to complete the center section.
31:33The fuselage is riddled with fractures.
31:36To trace where the plane's breakups started, Wildey first needs to calculate the sequence of the fractures.
31:44All of these early fractures stem from one location, and that was right here in the fuselage just in front
31:50of the front spar near the bottom of the airplane.
31:53The fracture sequence allows Wildey to work out how the plane broke up.
31:58The fractures underneath the plane radiate out, tearing away part of the belly of the plane.
32:04With the bottom of the fuselage gone, new fractures race upwards on both sides of the jumbo jet.
32:10When they meet, the nose is torn away from the rest of the plane.
32:20Now Wildey must find what triggered the initial fracturing.
32:26He looks behind the spot where the fractures begin.
32:29It's the site of the 747's biggest fuel tank, the massive center wing tank.
32:36It's as big as a two-car garage.
32:39Panels of aluminium, called spanwise beams, divide the space into sections.
32:45Wildey hunts for clues.
32:50Inside the tank, he discovers something disturbing.
32:57A series of dents in the front of the tank, known as the front spar.
33:07It's an extraordinary discovery.
33:11Wildey believes the dents were caused by spanwise beams slamming into it.
33:17The most likely scenario for the damage?
33:21An explosion inside the tank.
33:27This impact damage fractured, it buckled and it damaged these stiffeners
33:33and started the break-up of the front spar and then the continued break-up of the airplane from this
33:37point.
33:41Wildey is convinced an explosion in the center wing tank must have been the fatal trigger for the plane's break
33:47-up.
33:49The obvious culprit for such a blast, jet fuel.
33:56Investigators examine the fueling records at JFK.
34:00They find that the ground crew left Flight 800's center wing tank almost empty, with just 190 litres of jet
34:07A fuel in it.
34:09That's just a puddle in the bottom.
34:11It seems a small amount of fuel to cause such extensive damage.
34:17But Wildey knows that jet A fuel has unusual properties,
34:21as this footage, taken at Federal Aviation Authority testing labs, shows.
34:26In its liquid state, jet A fuel is not highly flammable.
34:32But when it's enclosed in a tank and heated up, it vaporizes, becoming easy to ignite.
34:45Now investigators must discover whether the fuel in Flight 800's center wing tank
34:50could have been heated to flash point.
34:52They know that right underneath the center wing tank lie the plane's air conditioning packs.
34:58They produce cool, breathable cabin air using hot air taken from the jet engines.
35:04So we have this extremely hot air, hot enough to cook a chicken,
35:09within inches of the bottom of the tank itself.
35:16Investigators calculate that the flash point of the fuel in the center wing tank would be remarkably low,
35:21just 35.8 degrees Celsius.
35:25Could the air conditioners have heated the fuel enough to reach this critical temperature?
35:30To find out, NTSB and FAA scientists mount an audacious experiment to restage Flight 800.
35:39They fill the center wing tank of a 747 with 189 liters of jet A fuel and fit it with
35:4590 temperature sensors.
35:47The plane sits on the tarmac with the air conditioning on for 2 hours and 45 minutes.
35:55Then the 747 takes off. It follows the same ascent profile as Flight 800.
36:02It's a calculated risk, but no greater than thousands of planes undergo every day.
36:0812 minutes later, it reaches 4,200 meters, the point at which TWA 800 exploded.
36:20Investigators examine the readings from the temperature sensors.
36:24What they find horrifies them.
36:28The temperature in the center wing tank is 53 degrees Celsius,
36:32a full 17 degrees past the fuel's flash point.
36:36The test flight conclusively showed that the center wing tank had become flammable.
36:44To confirm that it could cause a blast strong enough to rupture the reinforced aluminum center wing tank,
36:51engineers build a one-quarter scale model.
36:57They fill it with jet fuel vapor.
37:01Then they ignite it.
37:09The force of the blast is more than enough to rupture the tank.
37:17The tests were able to show the pressures that could develop in the tank to the point that it would
37:22burst.
37:25But investigators are mystified about what might have ignited the fuel vapor.
37:31They know there were seven in-flight fuel tank explosions in the previous 33 years.
37:35All were triggered by dramatic events such as lightning strikes, sabotage, or even an engine falling off.
37:43Bob Swaim investigates these and dozens more potential ignition sources.
37:51He concludes that the ignition source must be something electrical inside the fuel tank.
37:58As we ruled out numerous potential ignition sources,
38:03what we came back to again and again was the wiring and the fuel quantity indication system.
38:11Wires run from the cockpit to fuel probes inside the center wing tank.
38:16The wiring crosses near the top of the fuel tank routed to the terminal block, as you see here.
38:24Swaim studies the terminal block.
38:26He discovers that it has dangerously sharp edges.
38:30And it was sharp and hard enough that it could cut through the insulation of the wiring.
38:36Swaim suspects there may well have been an exposed wire in the fuel tank.
38:42That could create a dangerous spark.
38:51But there's a puzzle.
38:53The wires inside the fuel tank are designed to carry a very low voltage.
38:58Too low to cause a spark.
39:02Swaim follows the fuel probe wires outside the fuel tank.
39:06Here they join high voltage wires for the cabin lights and other aircraft systems,
39:11which run in bundles through the belly of the 25-year-old plane.
39:16He looks more closely at the surviving wiring on the crashed 747
39:20and on other jumbo jets of a similar age, and makes a disturbing discovery.
39:26We were shocked by the condition of the wiring we found.
39:30Swaim finds the remains of fluid spills and sharp metal shavings among the bundles of wire.
39:36He also finds chafed wires, wires repaired with tape, and even some with cracked insulation.
39:51He concludes that the four state of wiring on older 747s could allow high voltage electricity to jump into the
39:58fuel tank wires.
40:00It could then pass into the fuel tank, causing a short circuit.
40:05The resulting spark would ignite the fuel vapor.
40:17Investigators know there are some 1,200 other 747s in service around the world.
40:23Any one of them could be flying with a fatal flaw, putting thousands of passengers in serious danger.
40:35The NTSB believe a fuel tank explosion blew apart Flight 800 when a short circuit caused a fatal spark.
40:45But they have no proof. Short circuits often leave no physical trace in wiring.
40:51Their one hope of proving the theory is the plane's black boxes, which hold the only surviving flight data.
41:06The 13-minute cockpit voice recording seems unremarkable.
41:10Find the one 5,000.
41:12But as they replay the tape, investigators hear something intriguing.
41:17Just before the recording cuts off, there are two miniscule pauses.
41:25They're each just two microseconds long.
41:31But they're tell-tale signs of a momentary loss of power to the recorder.
41:39It's an astounding discovery.
41:41The pause in the recording backs the investigators' theory that there was a short circuit on Flight 800.
41:49And it could happen on any one of 1,200 other 747s in service around the world.
41:58It's the final piece of the puzzle.
42:01Investigators now know the probable chain of events that triggered the loss of TWA Flight 800.
42:08What tore apart a 300-tonne jumbo jet just 12 minutes into a routine flight
42:14and left 230 passengers and crew seconds from disaster?
42:2112 and a half minutes to disaster.
42:24Flight 800 takes off.
42:26Air conditioners have been keeping passengers cool during the delay.
42:30But they've also heated the jet A fuel in the center wing tank to flashpoint.
42:36It's now filled with almost 50 cubic meters of highly explosive fuel-air mix.
42:43The 747 is a flying bomb.
42:5144 seconds to go.
42:55Find the one 5000.
42:59Damaged wiring allows high-voltage current to jump into wiring outside the center wing tank
43:05and run down into the tank.
43:08When the current reaches a section of bare wire, it jumps to another metal surface, forming a short circuit.
43:18The resulting spark ignites the deadly mix of fuel and air.
43:24Disaster strikes.
43:25The explosion blows out one of the inner panels.
43:29It strikes the tank's outer skin, smashing it into the plane's fuselage.
43:35At a speed of some 650 kilometers per hour, the aircraft is flying under massive pressure.
43:41And the first fuselage fracture spreads fast.
43:44Now multiple fractures race around the plane.
43:47In four seconds they meet, severing the 747's nose.
43:53The nose plunges downward like a bullet.
43:58The rest of the plane, with most of the passengers still in it, soars upwards.
44:04Investigators believe that this is the trail of light eyewitnesses see streaking up into the sky.
44:10At 4,600 meters, the main section stalls.
44:16A tiny spark has brought down the enormous jumbo jet, killing 230 people.
44:29It's over a year before remains of all the crash victims are identified, most by using DNA analysis.
44:37The families of the victims band together to build a memorial to their loved ones on Long Island.
44:43The monument in Smith Point is a labor of love.
44:49They got a piece of black marble that they made the centerpiece of it, inscribing all the names on the
44:56front.
45:01It's a place for Jim Hurd to remember his son, Jamie.
45:06This is the closest place I can be to where he's buried because really most of him is out there
45:12in the ocean.
45:13Or that's where he went.
45:19When the fog begins to roll in, or at the very early morning, when the mist is gently there, you
45:27can feel the presence of souls.
45:35The disaster is a wake-up call to the aviation industry.
45:41The Federal Aviation Administration issues more than 70 airworthiness directives to eliminate any possible source of accidental ignition,
45:49and improve insulation of wiring to fuel tanks.
45:53They affect 7,500 aircraft in the U.S. transport fleet.
45:59Boeing implements the FAA orders, and also introduces fuel tank inerting,
46:04a system that tops up fuel tanks with nitrogen, preventing jet fuel from catching fire.
46:12The first commercial jumbo jet, fitted with an inerting system, rolled out in the summer of 2005.
46:19And starting from 2007, all new Boeing 7 series planes will feature the new technology.
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