WASHINGTON - July 16, 2008 - A new ballistics analysis of
radar-recorded wreckage items shows that the explosion that brought down TWA
Flight 800 was a detonation or supersonic explosion that occurred prior to the
fuel tank explosion that federal investigators say caused the jetliner’s
demise.
A simple ballistics analysis of hard data from multiple FAA radar sites shows that the explosion that brought down Flight 800 was a detonation that caused debris to eject from the area at speeds in excess of Mach 4. This debris traveled nearly perpendicular to the jetliner and slowed down quickly because of air resistance, but not before traveling half a mile south. TWA 800 was flying east from New York’s Kennedy Airport to Paris, France.
The ballistics report can be reviewed at: http://NTSBwatch.com/ballistics.pdf
In August 2000, the National Transportation Safety Board reported that an electrical spark ignited fuel-air vapors in the jetliner’s central fuel tank and that the ensuing explosion in the tank caused the crash. The NTSB based their conclusion largely upon the work of two scientists they had commissioned to conduct analyses of recovered wing tank components using simulations and computer modeling.
Joseph E. Shepherd of Cal-Tech’s Explosion Dynamics Laboratory and Melvin Baer of Sandia National Laboratories concluded that what occurred in TWA 800’s center tank was a deflagration or subsonic explosion. According to Baer, had the explosion been supersonic, the tank would have been recovered in small pieces instead of in the large sections that the Navy found.
Baer and Shepherd’s conclusions regarding the fuel tank explosion appear sound. However, as the radar data shows, this explosion was not the initiating event but a secondary explosion that followed a prior supersonic detonation. The NTSB did not ask Baer or Shepherd to review the radar data showing that a supersonic explosion had occurred prior to the fuel tank explosion.