[Wolverine]

 

Loss of TWA 800 about 4 min into flight.

Flight 800 - ATC audio tape - 7-17-96

[TheRake]

rm file? My media player won’t play this. Any suggestions?

[RckyRaCoCo]

Most interesting is at approx. the 6:52 mark of that recording, where an airliner(flight 507)in the vicinity witnessed the explosion. He said he had noticed something that he thought to be landing lights, and he actually turned HIS on thinking it was some kind of avoidance message being sent by that aircraft...then the aircraft exploded. The only other oddity(from the CVR transcript)was the First Officer(I believe)of TWA 800 noticing a weird behavior from some fuel flow gauge(???).

Perhaps the erratic readings noticed by the FO/FE were caused by fuel line exposure to the flames near the tank, also perhaps flight 507 witnessed the "blow torch"(landing light)that eventually cut into the fuel tank. Who knows.

While there was still some daylight at the time of the incident it was pretty dark, because of that I still think any number of commercial/civilian aircraft in the air at the time would have seen something that resembled a missile if that were the case.

I'm about 70% convinced the NTSB/FBI got in right...in theory anyway. About 20% that it was something other than what they came up with(mechanical)...and about 10% that it was something set off inside the cabin above the center fuel tank.