THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, July 18, 1996 TAG: 9607180328
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEVE STONE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 118 lines
A TWA Boeing 747 with 229 people aboard exploded in midair and plunged into the Atlantic shortly after taking off from Kennedy International Airport in New York City on Wednesday night.
There were no reports of survivors.
The Coast Guard launched a ``massive response'' and said it had aircraft and boats in the area. Efforts to locate survivors continued through the night, but rescuers had recovered no survivors as of midnight, about three and a half hours after the crash was first reported.
At least one terrorism expert quickly suggested that the midair explosion had been caused by a bomb. But a State Department official said late Wednesday that there was ``no indication'' that the explosion was the result of a terrorist act.
The Series 100 747 jumbo jet - Flight 800 - was en route to Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris when it went down about 10 miles south of Moriches Inlet, Long Island, CNN reported. Mike Kelly, a TWA vice president, said the plane had arrived in New York, about three hours before its takeoff, as Flight 881 from Athens, Greece.
The 229 people aboard, Kelly said, comprised 212 passengers, 14 flight attendants and 3 crew members in the cockpit.
He said the jet was ``lost from screen'' at 8:40 p.m.
``A C-130 aircraft in the area south of Long Island had witnessed an explosion and a fiery crash in the water,'' John Chindblom, a Coast Guard spokesman in New York, told WWOR-TV in New York. ``Bodies are starting to turn up.''
The explosion is believed to have occurred about 8:40 p.m. That's when reports of the midair blast began pouring in to the Coast Guard from boaters, pilots and witnesses on shore.
Sven Faret, a pilot who was flying in the area at the time, told WYNW Radio in New York City that he saw the landing lights of the aircraft at about 7,500 feet.
``All of a sudden, we saw a big, giant ball of flames,'' Faret said, ``the biggest orange ball I ever saw.'' He said he could see pieces of debris falling from under the flames.
Within moments, debris began hitting the water, and a fire continued to burn on the ocean for some time, he said.
Eileen Daly, who lives on Fire Island, said she and her son were out on the beach when they saw the blast.
``It looked like just one explosion,'' Daly said. ``It was a big white flash and all of a sudden an orange fireball.'' She said the ball appeared to break into flaming pieces. ``It just disappeared into the ocean. . . . We didn't hear anything.''
Another eyewitness, Vic Fehner, told CNN that he first noticed what he likened to ``a flare,'' but ``then all of a sudden it burst into a huge ball of flame.''
He said the ball of flame ``started to rotate around'' as it plunged toward the surface.
``It was a little scary,'' said Fehner, who said he was out in his boat fishing about 10 miles from the crash site.
WNYW-TV in New York City broadcast pictures late Wednesday that showed what appeared to be wreckage on the water shortly after the jet went down.
Three Coast Guard cutters were on patrol in the area when the plane went down, and they diverted immediately to the scene. They were soon joined by 10 additional Coast Guard boats; a half-dozen helicopters from Coast Guard stations from Brooklyn, N.Y., to Cape Cod; an Army Air National Guard C-130 with rescue jumpers on board; and a Navy aircraft.
``We scrambled every available rescue unit to get out to the scene,'' said Steve Sapp, a Coast Guard spokesman in New York. ``We are hoping to God we can locate some survivors.''
``As many rescue assets as we can locate we are getting out there to search for survivors,'' Sapp said. ``We are out there conducting a massive search-and-rescue operation.''
CNN said numerous small pleasure craft were helping with the search.
At The White House, President Clinton issued a statement saying his thoughts and prayers were with the families of those aboard the aircraft.
On CNN, terrorism expert Larry Johnson raised the first speculation that the flight may have been deliberately blown up. Johnson is a former deputy director for transportation security at the U.S. Department of State.
``You do not get these type of catastophic mid-air explosions on commercial airliners without an explosive on board,'' Johnson said.
Johnson has investigated numerous terrorist attacks against aircraft, including the 1988 Pan Am Flight 103 disaster in Lockerbie, Scotland.
``You get these midair fireballs when there is an explosion on board,'' Johnson said.
ABC News reported the FAA received no distress call from the pilot before the crash, suggesting there was no warning of any problem on the plane before the crash. But FAA spokesman Brenner told the AP he had no information on whether there had been any communication from the plane.
Johnson's speculation about terrorism brought an angry response from the head of the National Transportation Safety Board.
``I think it is, in many ways, irresponsible - in light of the little facts that we presently have - to speculate about the cause of this accident,'' Jim Hall, chairman of the NTSB, told CNN.
He said a team of investigators was en route to New York late Wednesday.
``We will, as we have in previous accidents, carefully investigate this accident and find out exactly what happened.''
Vernon Grose, a former official with the NTSB, also sought to discount speculation that a bomb might be responsible.
Noting some witness reports of what appeared to be a smaller fire on the aircraft before a larger explosion, Grose told CNN: ``It sounds to me like they might have had something like an engine fire or a fire in the airplane'' that sparked the larger blast.
Grose also said the discovery of bodies in the water could discredit a bomb theory. In a blast, few intact bodies would be recovered, he said.
Still, Mary Schiavo, former inspector general of the Department of Transportation, told CNN that, in recent tests of airport anti-terrorism procedures, her staff was able to get through security 40 percent of the time. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
Plane Crash
747 jet crashes south of Moriches Inlet
Graphic
Ken Wright\The Virginian-Pilot
Drawing
The 747 jumbo jet - TWA Flight 800 - was en route from New York to
Paris when it exploded about 8:40 p.m. and went down in the Atlantic
Ocean about 10 miles south of Moriches Inlet, Long Island.
KEYWORDS: AIRPLANE ACCIDENT EXPLOSION TWA FATALITY by CNB