[quote] Assuming that the explosion noise source location was that provided by radar for TWA Flight 800 initial break-up, acoustic arrivals times were calculated for each ear-witness report at their NTSB-provided geographic coordinates. It may also be assumed that specific events in the viewed demise of the aircraft were seen at nearly the same time by all these observers, various estimates of the relative time differences between these events and the sound arrivals should describe a constant time for each event time on the following graph. The large variations (± 10's of seconds) actually shown by the graph demonstrates the uncertainty of ear-witnesses in describing times to seconds on days after the disaster, when they were interviewed by the FBI teams. Also, when these witnesses observed these events, they had no idea of what was happening, and only made their connections after hearing and seeing TV and newspaper reports, which were also very confused in those early days. In some cases there is disagreement between witnesses at the "same" coordinates, which were provided only to 0.01° latitude & longitude, that is for blocks 3648 ft latitude, 2795 ft longitude, but representing only 2-3 seconds arrival time differences. Some said a visible event came before the sound, others placed it after the sound.
On the whole, however, it does appear that a large fireball formed, then split into two prongs and fell to the sea surface roughly 40-60 seconds after the explosion sound was originated. [end quote][emphasis added]
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