Posted on 07/05/2006 12:14:06 PM PDT by Hal1950
With the 10th anniversary of the crash of TWA Flight 800 approaching, last week the National Transportation Safety Board released a fact sheet that reviews lessons learned from the accident investigation... and the progress toward ensuring that similar tragedies do not happen in the future.
The Board's review found that significant safety improvements have been implemented over the past ten years, but that more needs to be done to avoid another accident like TWA 800.
"The crash of TWA 800 was a watershed event for the air carrier industry," said NTSB Acting Chairman Mark V. Rosenker. "In the intervening years, a lot of thought and effort has been devoted to the issues raised by this accident, and the public is safer for it."
TWA 800, a Boeing 747, crashed on July 17, 1996, minutes after takeoff from John F. Kennedy International Airport on a flight to Paris, France. All 230 persons aboard the airplane died in the accident. The Safety Board conducted an exhaustive four-year investigation and determined that the accident was caused by an explosion in the center wing fuel tank, resulting from ignition of the flammable fuel/air mixture in the tank.
The NTSB says the most prominent issues raised by the TWA 800 accident concerned protection against flammable fuel tank vapors, and aging electrical systems.
Rosenker noted that fleet-wide inspections and analytical reviews of fuel tank design have resulted in significant measures that have the potential to reduce the likelihood of an ignition event inside a tank, and that fuel pumps, fuel quantity indicating systems, in-tank wiring, co-routed wiring, and operational procedures have been modified to make fuel systems safer.
"Equally important," Rosenker said, "is the prospect of substantially reducing fuel tank flammability exposure - something that was seen as impractical ten years ago but is now feasible, even in this difficult era when airline operators need to be extremely conscious of costs."
But while applauding the FAA and industry for the progress that has been made, Rosenker cautioned that the process is moving much too slowly.
"Ten years after the TWA accident, fuel tank inerting systems are not in place on our airliners, and flammability exposure is largely unchanged. And proposed rule changes do not include the majority of fuel tanks which are in the wings of transport airplanes, nor this country's large fleet of cargo aircraft."
Consequently, he added, reduction in fuel tank flammability remains on the NTSB's Most Wanted List of Safety Improvements.
Rosenker also expressed disappointment that the FAA did not act on the NTSB's immediate, interim recommendations, issued a few months after the TWA accident, that were aimed at reducing the fuel tank flammability problem until longer- term solutions are in place. The recommendation was closed by the Safety Board last year and given an "unacceptable action" status.
Rosenker noted that the TWA accident gave great impetus to legislation that revolutionized the ability of the families of the victims to obtain accurate and timely information about an airliner accident and the subsequent investigation.
Gotta link?
......
Steppinalloverus once slipped up and referred to the incident as a "bombing of TWA flight 800" I believe.....
Yeah, I believe him and you; but what can you do when the Media and Government together cover up the murders of these poor, helpless people?
I mean, it's been almost forty years since the Kennedy assassination and NOBODY any longer believes the official findings but as long as the MSM and Government cover it up nothing is going to change.
I know about Stephie's slip, but what did Kerry say?........
I personally believe that there very likely was a missile that brought this plane down. There is too much evidence and too many eyewitnesses to come to any other conclusion, IMO.
belive-believe
teeling=telling
Leon Panetta Just Characterized TWA 800 as Terrorism
News Blackout on Stephanopoulos's incompetence as a "correspondent."
Bull.
Harder to "disappear" a newspaper story.
They've disappeared on the net. Old FR threads are gone too because of software changes. But I found this.
Streak of light over TWA crash site probably a meteor
November 19, 1996
Web posted at: 1:45 p.m. EST
NEW YORK (CNN) -- A streak sighted by an airline co-pilot this weekend in the skies above the TWA Flight 800 crash site "very likely" was a meteor, the FBI and an astronomer said Monday.
The FBI interviewed the Pakistan International Airlines co-pilot, identified as Nasir Aziz, when he arrived in Frankfurt, Germany, and said he was the only person on the jumbo jet who reported seeing the light.
The Pentagon issued a statement Monday confirming there were no military exercises under way in the area. rule
At least the NTSB didn't handle the WTC attack or we would be hearing about the need for safer plumbing in our sky-scapers.
A full tank is the best protection against an in-tank explosion and contaminating condensation.
A lot of controversy, no doubt. If we don't have the whole story, what can be done about it, though?
That and not having the fuel tank penetrated by a jihadi missle.
On the morning 9-11-2001, I came through our office as some local Clintonites were watching replays of the second plane impact the WTC. They asked what I thought and I answered sarcastically, "Looks like some more defective fuel tank wiring to me."
Only a couple of them "got it".
ping
Have a friend who spent several years with Boeing training pilots from airlines around the world on the the latest aircraft their companies had purchased. Asked him a few years ago what he thought about TWA Flt. 800 ... he wasn't buying the center wing fuel tank exploding as a result of a electrical spark igniting the fuel/air mixture in the tank.
Most individuals experienced with flying the Boeing 747 are like my friend, very skeptical of the NTSB finding.
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