[Author’s Name]
[Institution’s Name]
Essay on TWA Flight 800 Disaster
TWA Flight 800: An Introduction
On July 17, 1996, about 8:45pm, TWA flight 800, N93119, a Boeing 747-100, crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Long Island shortly after takeoff from Kennedy International Airport. The airplane was on a regularly scheduled flight to Paris, France. The preliminary reports are that witnesses saw an explosion and then debris descending to the ocean.
There are no reports of the flight crew reporting a problem to air traffic control. The airplane was manufactured in November 1971. It has accumulated about 93,303 flight hours and 16,869 cycles. Aboard the airplane were 212 passengers and 18 crewmembers. The airplane was destroyed and there were no survivors.
Immediately, eyewitnesses were being interviewed on radio and TV who gave an account that something strange had gone before the explosion of the 747. Witnesses, many on the ground, reported seeing a bright object "streaking" towards the 747.
The object under consideration turned in airborne as it closed on the jumbo jet. Witnesses reported horizontal travel, in addition to vertical. The broad geographical range covered by the eyewitnesses eliminates foreground/background confusion. To be seen as being near the 747 from so many different directions, the bright object had to actually be in the close vicinity of the 747. Other pilots in the air reported seeing a bright light near the jumbo jet before it exploded.
In the days following the disaster, many industry executives privately concluded that TWA 800 had been shot down.
Mystery About Bright Object
There was a preliminary report that something had been picked up on Air Traffic Control radar, however this report was quickly withdrawn. Associated Press on 1996 reported that Radar noticed a blip merging with the jet shortly before the explosion, something that could be a sign of a missile hit....
