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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?
00:29Now, 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.
00:44Unravel the clues and count down those final seconds from disaster.
00:54America. New York City. John F. Kennedy Airport.
01:01July 17th, 1996. Security 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.
01:47The FBI knows that many members of Youssef's terrorist cell remain at large and could still target planes for attack.
01:56We are in a very high state of alert in the United States. We've had numerous, numerous threats, hundreds of
02:02threats.
02:06Heading to JFK today are two young college students from Macon, Georgia.
02:12Becky Olsen is 20 years old. She'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. They just knew it was going to be a wonderful new adventure.
02:38They thought that this was just going to be the best thing since chocolate cake.
02:44This will be an extra special trip. Michelle's dad, Walter Becker, has saved enough air miles to upgrade the girls
02:51to first class.
02:53Back then, first class was first class. And I thought that they would really enjoy that, both going and returning
03:01back 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.
03:21Tanker trucks move in to fuel up the plane.
03:24The 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.
03:35The biggest tank, the centre wing tank, can stay as it is, almost empty.
03:42Just outside Baltimore, Maryland, 29-year-old Jamie Heard finishes up last-minute chores at the family garage.
03:48Yeah, okay, you can pick it up Tuesday. How's that?
03:50All right, thank you very much. Bye-bye.
03:53Since joining two years ago, Jamie has computerized the office for his dad, Jim.
03:59You 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? Because I think we can get some money. What do you
04:35think?
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. takeoff.
04:57Among them is Jamie Heard.
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 Kevorkan, another TWA veteran.
05:267 p.m.
05:28Captain Snyder and the flight crew are ready to go.
05:31But there's a problem.
05:33One 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.
06:2650 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.
06:56Flight 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 U.S. military zone to the south.
07:12Air traffic control keeps flights well clear of any restricted airspace during weapons testing.
07:19TWA 800, heavy New York departure, radar contact, climb and maintain, 11,000.
07:308.31.
07:31Flight 800 climbs into the evening sky.
07:36Eastwind Airlines pilot David McLean is flying a 737 into Trenton, New Jersey.
07:43He sees the jumbo jet ahead of him.
07:45It was a nice night, good visibility.
07:48There's a lot of traffic going out there, so you always got to keep your eyes out.
07:57Air traffic control clears Flight 800 to climb to its next level.
08:03TWA 800, heavy turn left heading 050.
08:07Vector climbing around traffic.
08:10Line to 1,500.
08:14Crew and passengers settle in for the flight.
08:20Then, suddenly...
08:30And I thought, gee, I must have 200 to 300 people on board.
08:36I thought it was a bomb.
08:43Twelve minutes out of JFK on a routine trip to Paris.
08:50TWA Flight 800 explodes in a huge fireball.
09:03At air traffic control.
09:05Flight 800 suddenly disappears off radar screens.
09:17Eastwind's pilot David McLean reports into air traffic control.
09:21We just saw an explosion out here, about 16,000 feet.
09:25Just went down into the water.
09:29Air traffic control tries to raise Flight 800 on the radio.
09:33TWA 800, if you hear center, eye dent.
09:38There's no response.
09:41TWA 800, if you hear center, eye dent.
09:45The terrible truth starts to dawn.
09:49TWA 800, center.
09:56Thousands of meters below, a helicopter from the Air National Guard flying on a training mission is caught beneath the
10:02blast.
10:08I looked over my right shoulder, and this fire exploded across the sky and came down like a curtain, like
10:16napalm.
10:19Flaming aircraft debris starts to fall all around them.
10:23Some of it was still on fire. We actually saw embers.
10:27Now the helicopter crew is in danger.
10:30If debris hits the rotor blades, they too could crash into the water.
10:35We have to get out of there.
10:39The helicopter makes it away safely.
10:42A race get help.
10:47Back at base, Major Mike Noyes prepares to take command of the helicopter and head out to the crash site.
10:53Obviously the adrenaline is starting to flow.
10:55I'm thinking we're going out to search for survivors.
10:59He knows that it is possible to survive a plane crash into water.
11:04And the sea temperature is around 18 degrees Celsius.
11:07If there are people in the water, they could stay alive for up to eight hours.
11:15East Mauritius Long Island gets the word that a plane has gone down.
11:19Stand by your lines.
11:20Measure two on the way, zero three P.O.B.
11:23They speed out to sea.
11:31First on the scene is the Air National Guard rescue helicopter.
11:36The sea below them is on fire.
11:39Picture a campfire that's a quarter or a half mile long, but the flames are, oh, I don't know, they're
11:44at least ten feet high.
11:48A small armada of 40 Coast Guard boats plus police and civilian craft joins the search.
11:54In the darkness, rescuers scan the wreckage for signs of life.
12:059.30 p.m.
12:07The news is filtering back to staff on the ground at JFK.
12:11TWA begins to contact relatives of the crew and check the list of passengers.
12:17Meanwhile, reports of the disaster start to break on the news channels.
12:22This is the latest we have on the flight that crashed tonight of TWA flight 800 into the waters off
12:29Long Island, New York.
12:32Among those watching are Aurelie and Walter Becker.
12:37They realize it's the flight of their daughter, Michelle.
12:39The first pictures you saw were shot from the helicopter with the debris field and the flames coming out of
12:47the water.
12:48And I said, oh, my God.
13:01But then Aurelie Becker remembers Michelle's last minute phone call from the airport.
13:05Do you think we should take the bomb flight?
13:07Because I think we can get some money.
13:09Michelle told her mother that TWA were offering cash incentives to take a later flight.
13:14Aurelie recalls with horror that she advised Michelle and her friend Becky to stay on flight 800.
13:24Now she prays that the girls ignored her advice.
13:28I said, I wonder if they ever really got on the flight.
13:32Maybe they did take a jump seat and they aren't on it.
13:38Aurelie calls Becky's parents.
13:40She speaks to Becky's father, Donald Olsen.
13:43Hey, Aurelie, what's up?
13:46I said, you didn't get a call from Becky that they took a bump ticket, did you?
13:53Donald says no.
13:57The girls didn't call.
14:00And Aurelie said, there's been a plane crash, you need to turn on CNN.
14:06A 747 aircraft has exploded in midair about 20 miles south of New York's Long Island into the Atlantic Ocean.
14:14The families realize Michelle and Becky did get on the flight.
14:19Now all they can do is helplessly watch the horrifying scenes.
14:23But they still hope that their girls may have survived the crash.
14:27You know, you talk to each other and you hold each other and you cry and you, you say, well,
14:33you know, the girls were very athletic, they were good swimmers.
14:36The search and rescue we know is a nightmare. They are looking for people who survived this.
14:45I just told Becky to swim hard.
14:49All night long.
14:53Families all over the United States and beyond endure a waking nightmare.
15:01They're only hope that somewhere in the dark and water their loved ones cling on to life long enough to
15:08be rescued.
15:15On route to Paris from JFK with 230 people on board, TWA flight 800 explodes and plunges burning into the
15:25Atlantic.
15:28Two hours later, in the deepening darkness, rescuers scour the ocean for anyone who may still be alive.
15:36Tommy Shomschick is one of hundreds of local people who raced out in boats to join the search for survivors.
15:44Instead, he finds his first body.
15:46I think she was a teenager, dressed very prettily. I believe a black skirt and a red blouse.
15:55And it was obviously an emotional, emotional situation pulling her up.
16:02After three hours of searching, none of the hundreds of rescuers can find a single survivor.
16:10They've covered 13 square kilometers of ocean.
16:13It's now clear that all 230 people on board died in the crash.
16:19The helicopter rescue team heads back to base.
16:22We did our best that night to try and find anyone who could have survived that crash.
16:29And to return empty handed was a very low blow.
16:435am.
16:46The sun rises on an ocean littered with the remains of flight 800.
16:54Boat crews bring pieces of wreckage to the coast guard station at East Mauritius.
17:01Rescuers have recovered 73 bodies, but no survivors.
17:07Jamie Heard's father, Jim, realises that any hope his 29-year-old son made it through alive is gone.
17:15It's not a good time in your life. You know, you're just thinking about, really thinking about one thing.
17:22And to me, the one thing was that I was going to go and bring him home.
17:32News reaches the FBI, a New York assistant director, James Kulstrom.
17:38Kulstrom immediately suspects the crash is no accident.
17:41My gut told me that this was probably an intervention by some criminal, some terrorist.
17:50Kulstrom recalls the loss of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie in Scotland eight years earlier.
17:57Terrorists blew apart the Pan Am plane, also a 747, with a bomb planted in the hole.
18:03It was the first time terrorists have brought down a U.S. airliner.
18:07Now Flight 800 may have fallen victim to a second terrorist attack.
18:12If so, how did the terrorists get the bomb on board?
18:16It could have been a carry-on bag. It could have been a piece of luggage that was stored in
18:21the belly of the plane.
18:22It could be cargo.
18:25The FBI launches a major criminal investigation.
18:29Within hours, hundreds of agents and police rush to the coast.
18:37Less than 12 hours after Flight 800 plunged burning into the water, investigators survey the impact site.
18:45Even hardened law officers like Kulstrom are shocked by the destruction.
18:50I'll never forget the scene of miles, seemed like miles of debris.
18:55Pilots who were near the jet when it exploded tell FBI agents that the blast came out of the blue.
19:01But witnesses on the ground report something highly suspicious.
19:07We had 50, 60 people that had called in and said, I saw things in the sky.
19:12Some described them as ascending towards this fireball.
19:17Over time, 258 people tell the FBI they saw something streaking through the sky at the moment the 747 was
19:25lost.
19:26I followed the streak of light, red-orange in color, moving from my left center to my further left.
19:34Two people even caught an image on camera.
19:37One photo shows a mysterious trail in the sky.
19:40The other appears to show an object shaped like a missile.
19:47Kulstrom faces a horrifying possibility.
19:55Was Flight 800 shot down by a terrorist missile?
20:01Such an attack just a few kilometers off the US mainland would represent a new escalation of the terror threat
20:07facing America and the West.
20:11The US supplied shoulder-held ground-to-air missile launches to Islamic freedom fighters in Afghanistan.
20:18Kulstrom knows that many of these weapons are now in the hands of terrorists determined to strike at America.
20:24But the launchers only have a range of 8 kilometers.
20:28Since Flight 800 came down 13 kilometers from land, a missile of this type could only have been fired from
20:35the ocean.
20:36So the crime scene became, really, thousands of square miles of ocean and thousands of square miles of Long Island
20:44and New York City harbor.
20:47It was a massive undertaking.
20:51Now, by rewinding the events and going deep into the investigation, we can reveal what really happened to Flight 800.
20:58Advanced computer simulation will take us where no camera can go, into the heart of the disaster zone.
21:07Agents interview 670 eyewitnesses.
21:10They painstakingly check the movements of 20,000 craft in the area.
21:15They seize stolen and abandoned boats and run forensic tests on them.
21:20But they can't find any promising leads.
21:24Then the missile theory takes a new and astonishing turn.
21:28Stories and rumors begin to circulate on the Internet and in the press.
21:32They make an extraordinary allegation.
21:35The TWA Flight 800 was shot down, not by terrorists, but in a terrible accident by the U.S. military.
21:50The FBI knows that Flight 800 did skirt the edge of an active military weapons fire zone, Whiskey 105.
21:58An area of several thousand square kilometers south of Long Island.
22:03The Navy routinely uses it for training exercises and on occasion does fire missiles at special airborne targets.
22:13Could one have struck Flight 800 in a catastrophic targeting error?
22:19The FBI's James Kohlstrom goes straight to the top at the Pentagon.
22:25So I had a conversation the next day with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Charlie Cosvilli,
22:30and told him that we were going to need the absolute cooperation of all the military services.
22:36Kohlstrom learns that there were eight military ships, eight submarines, and five military planes within 550 kilometers of the crash
22:44site.
22:46A P3 plane and a sub were in the middle of training exercises.
22:50He orders dozens of FBI agents to scrutinize all their logs.
22:56After weeks of checking, they verify that no missiles were unaccounted for.
23:01No missiles were fired that night.
23:06The FBI also check out the two suspicious photographs.
23:11They find that in one, the photographer was facing in completely the opposite direction to Flight 800.
23:17Technicians conclude that the object captured is actually an airplane.
23:22They also find that the mysterious trail on the other is simply residue on the film.
23:30The FBI concludes that the friendly fire theory is groundless.
23:36But the story doesn't go away.
23:40Now, Pierre Salinger, John F. Kennedy's former press secretary, raises the stakes with an astonishing intervention.
23:48He says there's been a cover-up.
23:51Flight 800 was shot down by a U.S. Navy missile.
23:55And he has the evidence to prove it.
24:0113 kilometers off Long Island.
24:0437 meters down, Navy divers grapple with a mammoth task.
24:09Recovering the remains of TWA Flight 800 scattered over an area of 104 square kilometers.
24:20Meanwhile, the FBI follow up a new and disturbing allegation.
24:27John Kennedy's former press secretary, Pierre Salinger, claims to have evidence that the U.S. Navy shot down Flight 800
24:34by mistake.
24:43We have now reached the point where we are totally sure that what we are saying is true.
24:49He produces an air traffic control radar tape showing a mystery object close to the doomed jet.
24:56What we see here is a missile about to hit TWA 800.
25:04Many people suspicious about the crash support Salinger's claims.
25:10His thesis points to the missile being fired by the U.S.S. Normandy, an Aegis-class missile cruiser which
25:17was at sea 340 kilometers south of Long Island.
25:23The FBI reexamines U.S. Navy activity in the area.
25:28It quickly finds that the U.S.S. Normandy was at least 160 kilometers beyond the range from which its
25:34missiles could hit Flight 800.
25:37We accounted for every piece of ordnance on the Normandy and every other military ship in the region.
25:44We looked at every submarine under the ocean.
25:50We looked at every aircraft transiting the area even though they were not capable of shooting a missile and taking
25:57an airplane down.
25:59But they find nothing.
26:06Scientists analyze the radar tape.
26:09They discover the traces are just interference.
26:12It's a well-known phenomenon called radar ghosting.
26:15They are simply duplicate images of Jet Express Flight 18 flying nearby.
26:26The friendly fire claims cost thousands of hours of investigators time.
26:31An exasperated Kahlstrom lambasts the conspiracy theorists at a news conference.
26:36I can assure you that we've looked at every angle, every possibility,
26:42and the military of this country has had nothing to do with this horrendous tragedy.
26:51A terrorist bomb or missile is still one of the chief suspects for the loss of Flight 800.
26:59But the only way of finding out for sure what downed the plane is to analyze the wreckage.
27:06That job falls to the FBI's co-investigators, the National Transportation Safety Board, the NTSB.
27:14Their priority, to find the plane's flight recorders or black boxes.
27:23Since the day after the crash, Navy divers have scoured the debris zone in the deep waters off Long Island.
27:30It's slow and dangerous work.
27:32The seabed is littered with razor-sharp fragments.
27:37Six days into the search and there's no sign of the black boxes.
27:41It's possible that ocean currents have buried them in the sand.
27:50Then, on day seven, a diver spots something.
27:53A flash of orange.
27:56The cockpit voice recorder.
27:58That's it!
27:59You see the beacon right on it?
28:00Do you want to take a picture of it?
28:02Aye!
28:03It's the cockpit voice recorder.
28:11Within seconds, they get lucky again.
28:14The flight data recorder lies just meters away.
28:17They got both of them?
28:18Holy cow!
28:22Divers quickly bring the boxes to the surface.
28:26To prevent damage by oxidation, they keep them submerged in salt water.
28:31For NTSB investigator Bob Swain, it's a potential breakthrough.
28:36As the divers bring the boxes up, the NTSB side of the staff, we typically get pretty excited.
28:45But there's a problem.
28:47The boxes are twisted and broken open from the massive impact.
28:54Investigators fear that there's little chance the tapes inside will have survived.
28:58But they rush them to NTSB headquarters.
29:03There, they hope they can retrieve something from the recorders.
29:10Carefully, they remove the cockpit voice tape from inside the armoured casing and thread it onto a player.
29:19Against all the odds, the tape is intact and playable.
29:37They carefully analyze all the pilots' conversations and the readings from the data recorder.
29:46Stopped climb at 1,3000.
29:50And the electric?
29:51They scour the last seconds of the recording for any clues to the plane's sudden loss.
29:575 to 1,5000.
30:00But at 8.31 and 12 seconds,
30:04the recording cuts off suddenly.
30:08Whatever happened to Flight 800, the pilots had no time to react.
30:14The excitement of the find turns to bitter disappointment.
30:19The voice recorder, and the same with the data recorder, really told us nothing.
30:24Now the investigators must rely entirely on the salvaged wreckage of the doomed jet for clues.
30:30Every fragment of the plane must be brought back to shore so that they can study it in detail.
30:36Week after week, Navy salvaged ships work to recover every piece of TWA 800.
30:43NTSB teams scrutinize the debris as it's lifted from the ocean.
30:47They load the wreckage onto flatbed lorries and drive it 32 kilometres to a hangar in Calverton, New York.
30:55Here, investigators analyze the debris for any trace of explosives.
31:00If Flight 800 was brought down by a bomb or a missile, it would leave evidence behind.
31:07NTSB metallurgists examine the fragments under scanning electron microscopes.
31:13They're looking for the distinctive micro-pitting which high-explosive leaves on metal surfaces.
31:22As a veteran of the Pan Am 103 investigation, metallurgist Jim Wildey knows exactly what bomb damage looks like.
31:30But he finds no trace of it.
31:32We looked at every piece, every square inch of every piece, every fracture, every surface.
31:38Each piece as it came in was examined in detail for evidence of a bomb or explosion.
31:45And there simply was no evidence of that type on the TWA.
31:49At the same time, FBI forensic experts take over 9,000 samples for chemical analysis.
31:56They know that traces of explosive can survive even underwater.
32:00For weeks, they too find nothing.
32:03But then, the FBI makes a momentous discovery.
32:10Microscopic, explosive traces of unknown origin have been found relating to TWA Flight 800.
32:20I got a call from our chief forensic chemist at the site, who had found some minute traces of RDX
32:31and PETN,
32:33which are two chemicals that are in plastic explosives.
32:38Investigators finally seem to be closing in on an explanation.
32:41And increasingly, it looks like a bomb.
32:45It's an extraordinary find.
32:47The traces survived weeks of immersion in 37 meters of seawater.
32:52They were preserved under a piece of sticky tape joining the carpet tiles.
32:57It's compelling evidence for a terrorist bomb on board Flight 800.
33:02But Karlstrom is skeptical.
33:05It made no sense.
33:08I mean, the initial reaction was, wow.
33:12But the facts made no sense.
33:14The flooring that was recovered, there was no sign of an explosion.
33:20The FBI probes the doomed airplane's history for explanations.
33:24They painstakingly explore the dozens of occasions when TWA hired the plane out between flights to third parties.
33:32Then, agents make a critical discovery.
33:35Just one month before the crash, police in St. Louis hired the plane to train sniffer dogs.
33:42The police dog handlers tell the FBI they used RDX and PETN, the exact same substances found in the wreckage
33:50of Flight 800.
33:52And they also revealed that one of the training aids was cracked and may have leaked tiny amounts of explosives
33:58material.
34:00The bomb traces are real, but they are not the cause of the crash.
34:06The criminal investigation, it's a brick wall.
34:12Six months after the disaster, the FBI has found no evidence of a missile strike or terrorist bomb.
34:19Now the NTSB focuses on catastrophic mechanical failure as the likely cause of the crash.
34:26In the hangar at Calverton, New York, Jim Wildey and his team start to reassemble the 747 from almost one
34:33million pieces of debris.
34:36It takes them three months to complete the center section.
34:47The fuselage is riddled with fractures.
34:51To trace where the plane's breakup started, Wildey first needs to calculate the sequence of the fractures.
34:58All of these early fractures stemmed from one location and that was right here in the fuselage just in front
35:04of the front spar near the bottom of the airplane.
35:08The fracture sequence allows Wildey to work out how the plane broke up.
35:12The fractures underneath the plane radiate out, tearing away part of the belly of the plane.
35:19With the bottom of the fuselage gone, new fractures race upwards on both sides of the jumbo jet.
35:25When they meet, the nose is torn away from the rest of the plane.
35:35Now Wildey must find what triggered the initial fracturing.
35:40He looks behind the spot where the fractures begin.
35:44It's the site of the 747's biggest fuel tank, the massive center wing tank.
35:50It's as big as a two-car garage.
35:54Panels of aluminium, called spanwise beams, divide the space into sections.
36:00Wildey hunts for clues.
36:05Inside the tank, he discovers something disturbing.
36:11A series of dents in the front of the tank, known as the front spar.
36:21It's an extraordinary discovery.
36:25Wildey believes the dents were caused by spanwise beams slamming into it.
36:32The most likely scenario for the damage?
36:35An explosion inside the tank.
36:42This impact damage fractured, it buckled and damaged these stiffeners, and started the break-up of the front spar, and
36:50then the continued break-up of the airplane from this point.
36:56Wildey is convinced an explosion in the center wing tank must have been the fatal trigger for the plane's break
37:02-up.
37:04The obvious culprit for such a blast, jet fuel.
37:10Investigators examine the fueling records at JFK.
37:14They find that the ground crew left flight 800's center wing tank almost empty, with just 190 litres of jet
37:21A fuel in it.
37:23That's just a puddle in the bottom.
37:26It seems a small amount of fuel to cause such extensive damage.
37:31But Wildey knows that jet A fuel has unusual properties, as this footage, taken at Federal Aviation Authority testing labs,
37:39shows.
37:40In its liquid state, jet A fuel is not highly flammable.
37:46But when it's enclosed in a tank and heated up, it vaporizes, becoming easy to ignite.
37:59Now investigators must discover whether the fuel in flight 800's center wing tank could have been heated to flashpoint.
38:06They know that right underneath the center wing tank lie the plane's air conditioning packs.
38:13They produce cool, breathable cabin air using hot air taken from the jet engines.
38:18So we have this extremely hot air, hot enough to cook a chicken, within inches of the bottom of the
38:26tank itself.
38:30Investigators calculate that the flashpoint of the fuel in the center wing tank would be remarkably low.
38:36Just 35.8 degrees Celsius.
38:39Could the air conditioners have heated the fuel enough to reach this critical temperature?
38:44To find out, NTSB and FAA scientists mount an audacious experiment to restage flight 800.
38:53They fill the center wing tank of a 747 with 189 litres of jet A fuel and fit it with
38:5990 temperature sensors.
39:02The plane sits on the tarmac with the air conditioning on for 2 hours and 45 minutes.
39:09Then the 747 takes off.
39:12It follows the same ascent profile as flight 800.
39:16It's a calculated risk, but no greater than thousands of planes undergo every day.
39:2312 minutes later, it reaches 4,200 metres, the point at which TWA 800 exploded.
39:34Investigators examine the readings from the temperature sensors.
39:39What they find horrifies them.
39:43The temperature in the center wing tank is 53 degrees Celsius, a full 17 degrees past the fuel's flashpoint.
39:50The test flight conclusively showed that the center wing tank had become flammable.
39:58To confirm that it could cause a blast strong enough to rupture the reinforced aluminium center wing tank, engineers build
40:06a one-quarter scale model.
40:11They fill it with jet fuel vapor.
40:16Then they ignite it.
40:23The force of the blast is more than enough to rupture the tank.
40:31The tests were able to show the pressures that could develop in the tank to the point that it would
40:37burst.
40:40But investigators are mystified about what might have ignited the fuel vapor.
40:45They know there were seven in-flight fuel tank explosions in the previous 33 years.
40:50All were triggered by dramatic events such as lightning strikes, sabotage or even an engine falling off.
40:57Bob Swaim investigates these and dozens more potential ignition sources.
41:05He concludes that the ignition source must be something electrical inside the fuel tank.
41:13As we ruled out numerous potential ignition sources, what we came back to again and again was the wiring and
41:23the fuel quantity indication system.
41:26Wires run from the cockpit to fuel probes inside the center wing tank.
41:31The wiring crosses near the top of the fuel tank, routed to the terminal block, as you see here.
41:38Swaim studies the terminal block.
41:40He discovers that it has dangerously sharp edges.
41:44And it was sharp and hard enough that it could cut through the insulation of the wiring.
41:50Swaim suspects there may well have been an exposed wire in the fuel tank.
41:57That could create a dangerous spark.
42:05But there's a puzzle.
42:08The wires inside the fuel tank are designed to carry a very low voltage.
42:12Too low to cause a spark.
42:16Swaim follows the fuel probe wires outside the fuel tank.
42:21Here they join high voltage wires for the cabin lights and other aircraft systems, which run in bundles through the
42:27belly of the 25-year-old plane.
42:30He looks more closely at the surviving wiring on the crashed 747 and on other jumbo jets of a similar
42:36age, and makes a disturbing discovery.
42:40We were shocked by the condition of the wiring we found.
42:44Swaim finds the remains of fluid spills and sharp metal shavings among the bundles of wire.
42:50He also finds chafed wires, wires repaired with tape, and even some with cracked insulation.
43:05He concludes that the poor state of wiring on all the 747s could allow high voltage electricity to jump into
43:12the fuel tank wires.
43:14It could then pass into the fuel tank, causing a short circuit.
43:20The resulting spark would ignite the fuel vapor.
43:31Investigators know there are some 1,200 other 747s in service around the world.
43:37Any one of them could be flying with a fatal flaw, putting thousands of passengers in serious danger.
43:49The NTSB believe a fuel tank explosion blew apart Flight 800 when a short circuit caused a fatal spark.
43:59But they have no proof. Short circuits often leave no physical trace in wiring.
44:05Their one hope of proving the theory is the plane's black boxes, which hold the only surviving flight data.
44:20The 13-minute cockpit voice recording seems unremarkable.
44:24Find the one 5,000.
44:27But as they replay the tape, investigators hear something intriguing.
44:31Just before the recording cuts off, there are two minuscule pauses.
44:39They're each just two microseconds long.
44:45But they're telltale signs of a momentary loss of power to the recorder.
44:53It's an astounding discovery.
44:56The pause in the recording backs the investigators' theory that there was a short circuit on Flight 800.
45:03And it could happen on any one of 1,200 other 747s in service around the world.
45:12It's the final piece of the puzzle.
45:16Investigators now know the probable chain of events that triggered the loss of TWA Flight 800.
45:22What tore apart a 300-tonne jumbo jet just 12 minutes into a routine flight
45:28and left 230 passengers and crew seconds from disaster?
45:3512 and a half minutes to disaster.
45:38Flight 800 takes off.
45:41Air conditioners have been keeping passengers cool during the delay.
45:45But they've also heated the jet A fuel in the center wing tank to flashpoint.
45:50It's now filled with almost 50 cubic meters of highly explosive fuel-air mix.
45:58The 747 is a flying bomb.
46:0544 seconds to go.
46:095 to 1,500.
46:13Damaged wiring allows high-voltage current to jump into wiring outside the center wing tank
46:19and run down into the tank.
46:22When the current reaches a section of bare wire, it jumps to another metal surface, forming a short circuit.
46:32The resulting spark ignites the deadly mix of fuel and air.
46:38Disaster strikes.
46:40The explosion blows out one of the inner panels.
46:43It strikes the tank's outer skin, smashing it into the plane's fuselage.
46:49At a speed of some 650 kilometers per hour, the aircraft is flying under massive pressure.
46:55And the first fuselage fracture spreads fast.
46:58Now multiple fractures race around the plane.
47:01In four seconds, they meet, severing the 747's nose.
47:07The nose plunges downward like a bullet.
47:12The rest of the plane, with most of the passengers still in it, soars upwards.
47:18Investigators believe that this is the trail of light eyewitnesses see streaking up into the sky.
47:23At 4,600 meters, the main section stalls.
47:30A tiny spark has brought down the enormous jumbo jet, killing 230 people.
47:43It's over a year before remains of all the crash victims are identified, most by using DNA analysis.
47:52The families of the victims band together to build a memorial to their loved ones on Long Island.
47:58The monument in Smith Point is a labor of love.
48:03They got a piece of black marble that they made the centerpiece of it, inscribing all the names on the
48:11front.
48:15It's a place for Jim Hurd to remember his son, Jamie.
48:20This is, this is the closest place I can be to where he's, he's buried because really most of him
48:26is out there in the ocean.
48:28Or that's where he, he went.
48:34When the fog begins to roll in with the very early morning, when the, when the mist is gently there,
48:41you can feel the presence of souls.
48:49The disaster is a wake-up call to the aviation industry.
48:55The Federal Aviation Administration issues more than 70 airworthiness directives
49:00to eliminate any possible source of accidental ignition and improve insulation of wiring to fuel tanks.
49:07They affect 7,500 aircraft in the U.S. transport fleet.
49:14Boeing implements the FAA orders and also introduces fuel tank inerting.
49:19A system that tops up fuel tanks with nitrogen, preventing jet fuel from catching fire.
49:26The first commercial jumbo jet fitted with an inerting system rolled out in the summer of 2005.
49:32And starting from 2007, all new Boeing 7 series planes will feature the new technology.
49:44Of course it aims to use electric-up.
49:44Of course the middle of day they will be starting to switch quite quickly,
49:54by saying thanks to this plane to hari-store.
49:55They'll be distracted by a few miles.
49:55And more
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