Source: FBI finds possible bomb residue on TWA
wreckage
July 20, 1996
Web posted at: 8:30 a.m. EDT
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The search for clues to the crash of
TWA Flight 800 was hampered Saturday morning by gale force
winds, but speculation continued to mount that the Boeing 747
was brought down from the sky by a criminal act.
A senior law enforcement source told CNN Friday night that
FBI investigators have found residue on
wreckage from airliner that could be from a
bomb.
However, the evidence was not enough to say conclusively
that the jetliner was destroyed by a bomb, the
source said. Sources also speculated that the National
Transportation Safety Board will
soon turn the investigation over to the FBI, because of the
possibility of a criminal act.
CNN received the information shortly after Robert Francis,
NTSB vice chairman, said that less than 1 percent of the
plane -- not 10 percent as he earlier announced -- had been
recovered from the Atlantic Ocean.
Because of that, he said it was too early to say that
Wednesday's crash -- which killed all 230 people on board --
was caused by sabotage or a bomb. In fact, he said, at this
point investigators have found "nothing out of the
ordinary."
Francis told reporters at a briefing that the jumbo jet's
flight and data recorders, the so-called black boxes, were
still missing. Navy divers hoped to search for them
Saturday.
Jim Kallstrom of the FBI's anti-terrorism team said the best
experts are on the case, but he emphasized that it could be
days, even weeks, before a crash cause is known.
"We're not prepared to say something until we believe it's
absolutely true," Kallstrom said. "We really haven't said
that, because we just can't reach that level of information
yet."
Hatch convinced of sabotage
U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, who was among members of
Congress briefed Friday by FBI Director Louis Freeh, said it
looked "pretty darn conclusive" that either a bomb or a
missile caused the explosion.
"We're looking at a criminal act," Hatch said. "We're
looking
at somebody who either put a bomb on it or shot a missile, a
surface-to-air missile."
Hatch, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, told CNN he
came to his conclusions after "various conversations" with
government officials.
"I won't go so far as to say it was terrorism, but there
was
sabotage here," Hatch said. "It looks like that."
"It's very -- almost 100 percent unlikely -- that this was
a
mechanical failure," he said. "It looks pretty darn
conclusive that it was an explosion caused either internally
or externally that was caused by a criminal act."
FBI denies reports of cover-up
Kallstrom said the FBI would not take control of the TWA
investigation until more evidence was found. He also denied
reports that his team already had concluded a bomb caused the
crash, but was asked by the White House not to announce its
findings because of the start of the Olympics.
"Absolute nonsense," Kallstrom said. "No such request has
been made nor would it ever be made and, if it was made, we
wouldn't comply with it."
Rain, wind and fog hampered efforts to recover wreckage
Friday that Kallstrom said might contain vital clues. Divers
did not go into the water, which was so choppy that some
searchers became ill. "The weather is not cooperating,"
Francis said.
Sonar detected a 15-foot spike on the ocean floor --
possibly
part of the plane, Francis said. But the search had to be
suspended for fear the sonar equipment, which trails on
cables behind the ship, would be lost in the water.
Officials said a larger navy ship was on its way to search
for the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder.
No distress signal
Francis said a review of tapes and computerized air
traffic
control information revealed no distress or mayday calls from
the plane. A coast guard official said a patrol boat heard
an unidentified Mayday call on a marine frequency about the
time of the crash.
Flight 800 was flying at about 13,700 feet when the
disaster
occurred, not at 8,000 feet as previously thought, Francis
said. This is important because the higher the jet was
flying, the less likely a missile might have been used to
shoot it down.
First body identified
Suffolk County's chief medical examiner said most of the
victims suffered fatal injuries in the air and that while
some may have been conscious when they hit the water,
drowning was an unlikely cause of death.
"It looks like a great many of them died upon impact with
the
water," Dr. Charles Wetli said. "That is not to say that
serious injury or death did not occur in the sky itself."
Wetli said a Michigan teen was the first victim of the TWA
flight to be positively identified. Courtney Johns, 18, of
Clarksville, Michigan, was identified using fingerprint
records made when she got her driver's license. She graduated
from high school just a month ago and had
planned to attend Villanova University.
Four other victims have been positively identified, but
their
names have not been made public because their families have
not been notified, he said. About 100 bodies have been
recovered.
The Associated
Press contributed to this report.
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