TWA Flight 800 - Accident Flight

Accident Flight

All times in this article are Eastern Daylight Time (EDT).

The accident airplane, registration N93119, was manufactured by Boeing in July 1971, and purchased new by TWA. The aircraft had completed 16,869 flights with 93,303 hours of operation. On the day of the accident the airplane departed Athens, Greece, as TWA Flight 881, and arrived at the gate at John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) about 16:38. The aircraft was refueled, and there was a crew change; the new flight crew consisted of Captain Ralph G. Kevorkian, Captain/Check Airman Steven E. Snyder and Flight Engineer/Check Airman Richard G. Campbell (all with more than 30 years employment at TWA), and Flight Engineer Trainee Oliver Krick, who was starting the sixth leg of his initial operating experience training.

Because of technical problems with the thrust reverser sensors during the landing of TWA 881 at JFK, prior to flight 800 the ground-maintenance crew locked-out the thrust reverser for engine #3 (treated as a minimum equipment list item). In addition, severed cables for the engine #3 thrust reverser were replaced. During refueling of the aircraft, the volumetric shutoff (VSO) control was believed to have been triggered before the tanks were full. To continue the pressure fueling, a TWA mechanic overrode the automatic VSO by pulling the volumetric fuse and an overflow circuit breaker. Maintenance records indicate that the airplane had numerous VSO-related maintenance writeups in the weeks before the accident.

TWA 800 was scheduled to depart JFK for Paris around 19:00, but the flight was delayed until 20:02 by a disabled piece of ground equipment and a passenger/baggage mismatch. After the owner of the baggage in question was confirmed to be on board, the flight crew prepared for departure and the aircraft pushed back from gate 27 at the TWA Flight Center.

TWA 800 then received a series of heading changes and generally increasing altitude assignments as it climbed to its intended cruising altitude. Weather in the area was light winds with scattered clouds, and there were dusk lighting conditions. The last radio transmission from the airplane occurred at 20:30 when the flight crew received and then acknowledged instructions from Boston Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC) to climb to 15,000 feet (4,600 m). The last recorded radar transponder return from the airplane was recorded by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) radar site at Trevose, Pennsylvania at 20:31:12.

Thirty-eight seconds later, the captain of an Eastwind Airlines Boeing 737 reported to Boston ARTCC that he "just saw an explosion out here," adding, "we just saw an explosion up ahead of us here...about 16,000 feet or something like that, it just went down into the water." Subsequently, many air traffic control facilities in the New York/Long Island area received reports of an explosion from other pilots operating in the area. Many witnesses in the vicinity of the crash stated that they saw or heard explosions, accompanied by a large fireball or fireballs over the ocean, and observed debris, some of which was burning, falling into the water.

Although individuals in various civilian, military and police vessels reached the crash site and searched for survivors within minutes of the initial water impact, no survivors were found, making TWA 800 the second deadliest aircraft accident in the United States at that time.