WASHINGTON, June 19 (RIA Novosti) – Former investigators of the crash of TWA Flight 800, which exploded off the coast off Long Island in 1996 killing 230 people, say the original findings were false and are calling on the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) to begin a new review.
The former investigators from the NTSB, TWA and Airline Pilots Associations claim in a new documentary to be released next month, that the original conclusion the plane was brought down by a center fuel tank explosion, probably caused by a spark from a short-circuit in the wiring, were falsified.
Skeptics and conspiracy theorists have long argued that the plane was shot down by a terrorist missile or the US Navy and witnesses to the accident reported seeing a streak of light in the sky before the plane exploded.
TWA Flight 800 had just taken off from New York’s JFK airport en route to Paris when it suddenly exploded over the Atlantic Ocean.
“Of course, everyone knows about the eyewitness statements, but we also have corroborating information from the radar data, and the radar data shows a(n) asymmetric explosion coming out of that plane – something that didn’t happen in the official theory,” the documentary’s co-producer Tom Stalcup told CNN on Wednesday.
In the documentary, “TWA Flight 800” which will premiere July 17, the 17th anniversary of the crash, on the EPIX television network, the investigators say the NTSB prevented them from speaking publically about the crash and they waited until after they retired to reveal how the agency falsified the cause of the crash.
The film’s producers are submitting a petition signed by the former investigators, calling on the NTSB to reopen the investigation based on the new evidence in the movie. In a statement, the NTSB said it would review and not ignore a petition to reopen the case.
