BY NANCY ROSENSTOCK
NEW YORK - Complete with a computer-generated video
produced by the CIA depicting the crash of Trans World Airlines
(TWA) Flight 800, the FBI announced at a November 18 press
conference that its "investigation" of the cause of the crash
was now over. James Kallstrom, the head of the New York FBI,
stated the decision to call a halt to the more than one-year
operation was "based solely on the overwhelming absence of
evidence indicating a crime, and the lack of any leads that
could bear on the issue. In fact, we ran out of things to do."
Immediately after the July 1996 crash that killed all 230
people on board, the government began trying to prove the
disaster was the result of a bomb or sabotage.
In a letter sent to the families of those who died in the plane crash, Kallstrom explained that the FBI had conducted "the largest aircraft reconstruction mock-up in commercial aviation history... Every lead has been covered, all possible avenues of investigation exhaustively explored and every resource of the United States Government has been brought to bear in this investigation."
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) will conduct hearings on Flight 800 in December that focus on mechanical failure as the cause of the crash. The hearings are being held despite the fact that as early as last February the NTSB issued recommendations urging airlines to change their operating procedures to insure that more fuel would be kept in the center fuel tank, a measure that could help prevent similar crashes.
In addition, the NTSB had earlier proposed mandating a procedure known as "inerting," which has been known for 24 years but has never been implemented due to the unwillingness of the companies to pay the high cost. "Inerting" flushes explosive vapors from the empty space in fuel tanks by pumping in nitrogen or some other nonflammable gas so that vapors that build up will not explode.
The FBI press conference also included representatives from Boeing, the manufacturer of the 747, and a representative from TWA. Both Boeing and TWA's role at the press conference was to indicate the lack of any problem with either flight 800 or 747 aircraft in general. James Brown, the TWA spokesman, declared, "At this point we're satisfied with all our procedures."
Nancy Rosenstock is a member of the International Association of Machinists and works for TWA in New York.