NEW YORK From the $ 60,000 daily cost of rented salvage ships to the price of high-tech forensic equipment to police overtime , the investigation into the crash of Trans World Airlines Flight 800 is already the nation 's most expensive aircraft-accident investigation . The investigation 's full cost will not be known until it is completed , a process that is likely to take months . But federal and local officials said that expenses were rapidly approaching $ 10 million , and a dispute has already erupted over whether TWA , its insurer and other private parties will help pay the bills . Earlier this week , National Transportation Safety Board officials sent a letter to TWA asking the airline for a voluntary payment of $ 5 million toward salvage and recovery costs , according to Mark Abels , a company spokesman . But Abels said TWA 's position was that it bore no responsibility to help pay the government 's bills . `` We think this is a government expenditure , '' Abels said . Peter Goelz , a safety board spokesman , said that the agency expected that private parties would resist paying for the inquiry if it was determined that the crash of Flight 800 was caused by a criminal act . If not , the decision of how much , if any , individual companies will pay is largely up to them . Safety board officials estimated that the investigation was costing the agency more than $ 100,000 a day , or $ 3 million to date . The agency has an annual budget of $ 38 million , but only about $ 1 million of that is dedicated to accident investigations like the TWA case . The agency 's resources have also been taxed by a other recent disasters , including the crash of a Valujet plane into the Florida Everglades in May . `` Certainly , this is the most expensive accident investigation that we have encountered , '' said Bernard Loeb , the director of the safety board 's office of aviation safety . A safety board spokesman said that before the TWA inquiry , the agency 's previous largest expenditure probably involved the investigation of the 1994 crash of a USAir jet upon its approach to Pittsburgh . He said that inquiry had cost $ 1 million . Loeb said the agency often turned to private parties like an airline 's insurer or a plane 's manufacturer to contribute to an investigation 's salvage costs . But the chairman of TWA 's insurer disputed the notion that such contributions were routine and said that an airline 's insurer typically paid only for the cost of environmental cleanups at a crash site . `` The government is obviously expending a lot of effort and cost , and there will be invitations for people to contribute if they want to contribute , '' said Howard Clark , chairman of U.S. Aviation Underwriters , which represents a pool of insurers . `` But how does this become TWA 's problem or our problem ? '' One expert in the aviation insurance industry said he believed that the cost of the TWA investigation could reach $ 50 million before it was completed . Goelz , the safety board spokesman , said that he expected the agency to seek more funds from Congress shortly . The FBI , which has assigned 500 agents to hunt for clues to the disaster , is also running up a mountain of bills for motels , meals , airline tickets and other expenses . Paul Bresson , a spokesman for the FBI in Washington , said the agency did not yet have an estimate of its costs in TWA case . But James K. Kallstrom , the assistant director in charge of the FBI 's New York office , has joked that he has been signing chits for money his office does not have . In Suffolk County , officials said the huge costs they were incurring had forced them to reach out to state and federal officials for help . `` We have never had a disaster that has required this kind of expenditure , '' said Kenneth Weiss , the county 's budget director . Weiss said that through Aug. 9 , work by the local rescue personnel , police and the medical examiner 's office had cost the county $ 4.2 million , with $ 1.4 million of that for overtime payments . Other expenses have included $ 181,000 to buy the DNA testing equipment that was used to help identify victims and $ 60,000 to enlarge a Coast Guard helicopter landing pad , he said . Both federal and local officials have said they will spare no expense in determining the disaster 's cause . But the TWA investigation is proving particularly costly because submerged fragments of the Boeing 747 are scattered over a broad area off the Long Island coast . Several federal agencies in addition to the FBI are involved in the inquiry . PHOENIX No question , it was an awesome sight : a helicopter appearing seemingly out of nowhere above Arizona State University 's Sun Devil Stadium during Super Bowl XXX and landing lightly on stage to swoop away halftime headliner Diana Ross . But it was also a potentially deadly stunt , opposed by fire and safety officials , that required a $ 400 million insurance policy . For weeks , National Football League officials and Super Bowl planners debated the risk of bringing the helicopter into the packed stadium . They even checked with Gov. Fife Symington , who gave his OK . But no one was sure until it happened that it could be pulled off . `` We did n't think it was worth it , '' said Tempe Fire Marshal Marc Scott , one of a number of fire and safety officials who said they repeatedly urged the NFL not to use the helicopter , fearing for the safety of the fans . Even Ross was a little apprehensive about it and considered using a body double , said Mark Munhall , who headed operations for the Super Bowl Host Committee . A public-address announcer assured the crowd several times , `` This stunt has been tested for your safety . Please remain in your seats . You will be a part of Super Bowl history with the takeoff and landing of an aircraft in the stadium . '' But out of sight in the tunnel at the north end zone sat a fire engine and a `` brush truck , '' which is used to douse flames quickly . All the firefighters were ready , dressed in full gear in case they were needed . About 45 firefighters were at the game , along with about a dozen doctors on call . At a nearby command post , nurses waited in flight suits . If anything had gone wrong , triage would have been set up in ASU 's Packard Stadium and victims taken there by ambulance . The helicopter pilot was Rich Lee , a highly decorated flier who made impressive pickups and drop-offs in Vietnam . At his side was a second pilot in case something went wrong in midflight . The risk was considered such that the Host Committee took out a $ 400 million insurance policy for the helicopter stunt . Originally , the committee thought $ 100 million would have been enough . `` Here comes my ride ! '' Ross shouted as the McDonnell Douglas MD Explorer came into sight . It swept over the edge of the stadium and landed on a dime on the stage . `` I can tell you , I let out a big sigh of relief when it was over , '' said Steve Patterson , president of the Host Committee . Jim Steeg , who directs all Super Bowl preparations for the NFL , said Symington was consulted because of the state 's potential liability if a disaster had occurred at the ASU stadium . The decision to go ahead was made Thursday night after Symington , ASU officials , Host Committee members and Neil Austrian , president of the NFL , watched eight landings by the helicopter . `` Each time , he landed in the same six-inch space , '' said Bill Shover , chairman of the Host Committee . But there were concerns about mechanical failures , whether someone throwing something from the stands could lodge in the rotor , and that a strong wind could toss the chopper into the stands . `` We measured the potential risk against the reward , and all the odds seemed to favor the reward , '' Steeg said . In 1980 , backlash over riots by Cuban Marielitos interned at Fort Chaffee , Ark. , under President Jimmy Carter may have cost Clinton re-election as governor . During his presidential run , Clinton raked in $ 275,000 in donations in south Florida when he backed a tough new sanctions bill and accused the Bush administration of missing `` a big opportunity to put the hammer down on Fidel Castro and Cuba . '' But once in office , Clinton found himself in the same cramped corner as eight previous presidents . Latin and world leaders pressured him to agree to a regional approach . Business leaders wanted the freedom to invest in Cuba , as Washington allowed them to do in Beijing . In 1994 , when a new wave of refugees threatened to overwhelm the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay , Clinton took away refugees ' automatic right to enter the United States , in return for Castro 's promise to end the exodus . Even though he offered some small carrots phone links , charter flights , easier passage for academics and artists his response infuriated many Miami Cubans . Ironically , Clinton 's actions may have sealed the Brothers ' determination to press a confrontation . They had won fame and donations in Miami by rescuing thousands of rafters from the Florida Straits . When the rafters could no longer gain U.S. asylum , the Brothers found a new way to torment Castro and ensure their place as the exile organization with the most moxie . Last July , when they first braved Havana airspace to drop small leaflets from a blue and white Cessna , one witness recalls , `` The usual response was `what cojones these Brothers have . '' The Miami group 's leader , Bay of Pigs veteran Jose Basulto , donated several thousand dollars to the leader of a new pro-democracy coalition in Cuba , Concilio Cubano . And he allegedly made other illegal overflights two , according to Washington ; as many as 20 , according to Havana . The Cubans complained loudly about the violations of their airspace . U.S. officials repeatedly warned the exiles to desist , and the Federal Aviation Administration was investigating whether the Brothers had filed false flight plans . Privately , State and Pentagon officials were seething about the FAA 's lethargy in revoking Basulto 's license . But the aviation officials wanted proof . Newsweek has learned that on the day of the ill-fated flight , the FAA asked the U.S. Customs Service to use its high-tech tracking gear at March Air Force Base in California to monitor all aircraft movements around Cuba . Castro was waiting , too . Just two weeks earlier , a delegation of retired U.S. officials returned from Havana warning that Cuba seemed prepared to blow the Brothers ' Cessnas out of the sky . The day before the fatal flight , one of the Miami Brothers , Juan Pablo Roque , redefected to Havana . He later charged that the Brothers were preparing a sabotage campaign in Cuba , with plans to kill Castro himself . That may have been propaganda , but Havana was primed for a showdown . Clipped wings ? Did Castro get what he wanted ? Many Cuba specialists think so . Havana had been demanding that U.S. authorities clip the Brothers ' wings , and even the Helms-Burton Act will give the Cuban strongman an excuse to fan anti-American sentiment at home . `` Castro has figured out that Helms-Burton creates more problems for us than for him , '' says Wayne Smith , former chief of the U.S. interests section in Havana . It is a classic Castro move . `` Whenever there 's an internal problem , he always looks for a conflict to show that the real problem is the United States , '' says Fernando Sanchez Lopez , a top dissident in Cuba . Whether relations deteriorate further may be up to the Brothers . A new federal order formally barring the group from Cuban airspace is no guarantee that they wo n't try to goad Castro further . And if the showdown escalates , Castro can always send forth new rafters the same present he gave Carter in an election year . `` Guantanamo was a disaster for us , '' groans one U.S. official . `` We ca n't let that happen again . '' But the White House has just bargained away most of its flexibility . Atlanta , May 22 ( Bloomberg ) ValuJet Inc. 's senior management said the company has stabilized following the crash of one of its planes but probably wo n't return to its pre-crash schedule until at least year-end . The no-frills airline said it may have to cut more flights and wo n't resume the suspended ones for at least several weeks . ValuJet may delay delivery of new jetliners as well . `` We have stabilized our situation , '' Robert Priddy , ValuJet chairman and co-founder , said in a conference call with investors . `` We can emerge from this terrible accident as a safe , strong and profitable airline . '' Executives did n't answer questions about the full financial impact of the crash , analysts said . `` I still would n't recommend that our clients buy the stock , '' said Gruntal Co. analyst Steve Lewins . He said ValuJet implied that it will post a loss for the quarter but withheld many details . Priddy said ValuJet may take a charge against second-quarter earnings . He did n't elaborate . Shares of the low-fare airline fell 1/8 to 13 in midday trading of 2.74 million . Valujet 's share price has dropped 27 percent since May 10 , the day before Flight 592 crashed in the Florida Everglades , killing all 110 aboard . ValuJet had $ 254 million in cash at the end of April , providing it with `` considerable staying power , '' Priddy said . The company declined to specify how much cash it has used in reducing its flight schedule and beefing up maintenance checks . Calls from customers booking flights have declined , ValuJet said , but demand has n't dried up or been `` significantly impacted . '' The company has refunded $ 4.1 million to customers in the past week . Passenger traffic dropped 5 percent last week , as the airline flew 80 percent of its scheduled flights , carrying three-quarters of the customers who had bought tickets . Its $ 750 million of liability insurance should be adequate to cover costs tied to the crash , including replacing the 27-year-old DC-9 that was destroyed , the airline said . ValuJet , which owns all 51 planes in its fleet , said it will consider leasing aircraft in the future . The company had planned to boost its fleet to 54 by year-end , but now it may stall delivery of some planes . `` That indicates that capacity growth may be slowed , '' said Brian Harris , an analyst at Lehman Brothers . ValuJet last week halved the number of its daily flights to 160 from 320 to ensure that it has enough planes to fly its routes . `` A two-for-one flight margin seems reasonable right now , '' Priddy said . The company 's available seat miles , a benchmark that measures airline capacity by the number of seats available for paying customer , has been reduced by at least 40 percent . ValuJet said it expects its intense aircraft inspection program to help restore public confidence and satisfy Federal Aviation Administration regulators . `` There is no airline in the country that can guarantee they wo n't be shut down the next day by the FAA , '' Priddy said . BOHEMIA , N.Y. The fiery ending of TWA Flight 800 cast a harsh light into various corners of the aviation business . But some key data for investigating the disaster came from a tiny industry niche in Bohemia that the National Transportation Safety Board never knew existed . The morning after the July 17 disaster , John R. Keller called directory assistance and asked for the New York City headquarters of the FBI . `` I have a radar map of the accident , '' Keller told the agent who answered the phone . Keller is executive vice president of Megadata Corp. , which was able to provide air-traffic records more quickly and completely than the Federal Aviation Administration of the seconds before and after the Paris-bound Boeing 747 disappeared from radar screens . The data helped investigators determine which other aircraft in the vicinity had the clearest eyewitness view of the disaster and its immediate aftermath . Tiny Megadata 's role in the investigation highlights a chink in air-to-ground communications that is not widely recognized by the public but is apparent enough to some airline and airport officials , and the company has been able to make a business of plugging the gap . Clients include United Airlines , which uses Megadata 's technology to coordinate ground crews in five cities during the last few minutes of incoming flights a period when the FAA limits communications with planes to essential conversations between cockpit and controllers . Other Megadata customers include airports though none in metropolitan New York whose managers need to know which planes were where and when if disputes arise over noise-abatement violations and the like . In essence , Megadata , based in an industrial park near Long Island MacArthur Airport , produces a $ 250,000 system that eavesdrops on radio transmissions between the FAA and commercial airplanes . Using computers and software more advanced than anything available to federal air controllers , the Megadata system massages information and converts it to an instant , real-time view of all aircraft aloft and their flight paths within a 150-mile radius . The setup maintains a data base of this information and is able to instantly reproduce air-traffic records that might take the FAA days or weeks to compile . `` It 's a completely clandestine operation ; they do n't even know we 're there , '' said George B. Litchford , an engineer who holds the system 's patent . Litchford has been licensing the technology to Megadata since 1989 . Megadata is thought to be the only company in this business so far . It is hardly a gold-mine business . Megadata , whose stock is thinly traded on the OTC Bulletin Board , has revenues of less than $ 2 million a year from a range of communications products , and it lost money last year . The shares closed at 50 cents Wednesday , down 37.5 cents each , after spiking upward Tuesday on word of the company 's involvement in the plane-crash investigation . Although the National Transportation Safety Board was unaware of Megadata 's existence before the crash , the FAA has known about the company but has ignored it . Megadata 's services may be useful to airlines for efficiently moving people on the ground , said Bill Jeffers , the FAA 's director of air traffic . But `` it does n't have to do with the safe and efficient movement of aircraft , '' which Jeffers said was his agency 's concern . New York , July 18 ( Bloomberg ) All 229 people on board a Trans World Airlines jumbo jet are thought to have died when the plane crashed into the Atlantic in a ball of flames shortly after taking off last night from New York 's John F. Kennedy Airport . At least 30 bodies have so far been recovered , according to Cable News Network reports . No survivors have been found . A human survival time of eight hours in the 65 degree Fahrenheit waters has been passed , though some reports suggest a maximum survival time of 12 hours . TWA Flight 800 , bound for Paris , disappeared from radar screens around 8:40 p.m. local time . Among the passengers was a party of 16 teenagers from a Pennsylvania high school . The 25-year-old Boeing 747-100 aircraft was bound for Paris 's Charles de Gaulle Airport , Mike Kelly , TWA vice president for airport operations , said in a press conference . The plane had flown earlier yesterday from Athens , Greece , to New York . Eyewitnesses described seeing a series of explosions before the plane went down , according to news reports . `` Anything is possible , '' Kelly said in response to questions about the possibility of terrorist action . `` Security was at one of the highest levels you can have , '' and had been increased because of the Olympic Games in Atlanta , he said . The Federal Bureau of Investigations will take part in the investigation at the crash scene , which has been established as a crime site , Pete Cosgrove of the Suffolk County , New York , police commission said in a press conference . The plane was bought by TWA in 1971 , a Boeing spokesman said . Boeing produced that model of the world 's largest airliner from 1970 through 1986 . It holds about 360 passengers in three classes . `` It 's too soon to get any hard data on what happened , '' said Boeing spokesman Doug Webb . `` We will cooperate fully with any investigation . Our thoughts are with the victims ' families . '' A two-person investigation crew will be sent by Boeing to the crash site in the morning , he said . The Boeing 747 has been involved in other accidents in its almost 30-year history . It was a Pan Am 747 that went down in Lockerbie , Scotland , in December 1988 . Investigators eventually determined that a terrorist bomb , hidden in a cassette player , caused that crash that killed 270 people . Two of the jets collided in the Canary Islands in 1977 , killing 582 people in the world 's worst aircraft disaster . In 1985 , a Japan Air Lines 747 crashed into a mountain in Japan , killing 520 people . Brian Jenkins , vice chairman of the international security firm Kroll Associates , cautioned against jumping to a quick conclusion that the explosion was caused by a terrorist bomb . `` We can crank our society up to a state of paranoia which is unnecessary , '' said the Los Angles-based terrorism expert . `` Let 's get some more information before we go too far speculating . '' Jenkins said that airport security measures have improved significantly in recent years , in the wake of terrorist tragedies . `` As the result of extraordinary security measures , commercial aviation , which was once one of the most popular targets of international terrorism , was made a more difficult target . '' He said attempts to hijack or plant bombs aboard aircraft have decreased . The crash comes two months after the crash of ValuJet Inc. plane in the Florida Everglades in which all 110 people aboard were killed . That plane was a McDonnell Douglas Corp. DC-9 . Atlanta-based Valujet was grounded by the Federal Aviation Administration one month after the crash . Earlier this month , Mary Schiavo , Inspector General of Department of Transportation , the FAA 's parent agency , resigned after charging the FAA ignored its inspectors ' warnings about problems at ValueJet . The crash comes less than a year after St. Louis- based TWA emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection , the airline 's second bankruptcy filing in two years . The average age of the aircraft in the carrier 's fleet is 18 years , Kelly said . The carrier has become competitive again by paring costs and pulling out of money-losing routes . The 72-year-old carrier earlier on Wednesday reported an almost fivefold increase in second-quarter net income to $ 25.3 million , or 46 cents a share . A toll-free number has been set up for family members of people on the flight . The number is ( 800 ) 438-9892 . What was to become the second-worst aviation disaster in American history started like any other busy summer afternoon at John F. Kennedy International Airport . At the terminals , there was a swirl of activity with passengers arriving in New York as thousands more some rushing to their gates departed to the corners of the earth . Amid the hubbub were 230 people heading to Paris for fun , to go home for love , for education , for work . The following , based on interviews with well-placed sources at the airport , the airline and those investigating the explosion , is an account of the last few hours of the plane . TWA Flight 881 touched down at 4:38 p.m. on the afternoon of July 17 , more than an hour late on the scheduled nine-hour flight from Athens . The 349 passengers and crew got off the 747 , which had developed problems with the exhaust pressure gauge in the No. 3 engine . It was not an unusual problem for the 25-year-old jet , and TWA mechanics fixed it . But it meant that TWA employees were losing the daily struggle of trying to get hundreds of people in this case ranging from an 11-year-old girl traveling alone to a couple celebrating an 80th birthday onto the plane so it could push back from Gate 27 at 7 p.m. , the scheduled departure time for TWA Flight 800 . Because the plane had arrived late , cleaning crews quickly went through the cabin . They emptied trash bins in the lavatories , refolded blankets and plumped pillows before storing them in overhead bins . Capt. Steven Snyder , 57 , who reviews the piloting skills of his colleagues , had made the trip from his home in Stratford , Conn. , to the airport to do a line check on Capt. Ralph G. Kevorkian , 58 . Together , the two men had more than 35,000 hours of flying , a remarkable confluence of experience . Also in the cockpit , high above the main passenger deck , flight engineer Richard G. Campbell , 63 , of Ridgefield , Conn. , was showing the ropes to Oliver Krick , a 25-year-old flight engineer in training who lived outside St. Louis , the hub of TWA operations . Pam Lychner , a former TWA flight attendant , was using a perk as a former employee to take her two daughters , Shannon , 10 , and Katie , 8 , to Paris for an education-filled trip . The Lychners , like 14 others , were non-paying standbys with a connection to the airline able to hitch a ride if the flight was not full . It was n't , so ticket agents let them all go down the jetway onto the plane . On the tarmac , the plane was being filled with more than 48,000 gallons of fuel for the trans-Atlantic flight , and bags , suitcases , backpacks and packages were loaded into the cargo holds , forward and aft of the huge wings . Shortly before 7 p.m. , Flight 800 was delayed when a baggage-check scan of one bag did not match with the passenger manifest . The bag was taken off the plane , but then the unidentified passenger arrived . The bag was placed on board again . Then , at 7:30 , ramp workers tried to start the baggage conveyor-belt truck , but the engine would not turn over . Shortly before 8 p.m. , a TWA tow truck finally pulled away the crippled piece of equipment . With 433 seats on the plane for the 230 passengers , some of the seasoned travelers likely looked for spare seats where they could stretch out and sleep during the seven-hour flight . Jacques Charbonnier , the 66-year-old flight service manager , had welcomed the passengers on board and announced over the speaker that the movie `` The Birdcage '' would be shown after dinner . The headphones already had been passed out by some of the 14 flight attendants . In first class , passengers were greeted with Mumm 's champagne in plastic cups . The glass flutes and china would come out after the plane was airborne . In the vast coach section , 16 high school French students from Montoursville , Pa. , giddy about their Paris trip after two years of bake sales and car washes to pay for it , settled into their seats . Some of them , leafing through the in-flight magazine , probably skipped past the classical channel offering Sibelius ' violin concerto in D minor to hear `` The Top in Pop '' on Channel 5 , offering the sounds of the Gin Blossoms and Celine Dion . On the international flight between two cosmopolitan cities were the rich and famous , but there was also Larkie Dwyer , 11 , from Arizona , who sat alone . She was traveling to visit relatives in France . Ruth and Edwin Brooks from Edgartown were seated together . The trip was to celebrate her 80th birthday . At 8:02 p.m. , the plane was pushed back from the gate . On the flight deck , Kevorkian started up the four engines . After checking with air traffic controllers in the tower overlooking the sprawling airport , the plane began its taxi to Runway 22R . Around 8:15 the plane was cleared onto the 11,351-foot-long runway . In addition to the bungled handling of intelligence reports , Washington officials come under criticism in the Dorn report in other areas . Dorn notes that the get-tough policy of the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration toward Japan designed to persuade Japan to rein in its military expansionism in China and Southeast Asia included an embargo against oil exports to Japan and the freezing of Japanese assets in the summer of 1941 . The report suggests that FDR backed Japan into a corner . Dorn also cites the `` muddied '' warnings that Washington sent 10 days before the attack to Pearl Harbor about the imminence of war and Washington 's failure to follow up its warnings to check to see what the Hawaii commanders were doing to prepare . The Dorn report noted that previous congressional , Navy and Army investigations had also `` properly recognized and criticized '' the failures of senior Washington military leaders . On the other side of the ledger , the Dorn report says Kimmel and Short had a lot of intelligence that `` was sufficient to justify a higher level of vigilance than they chose to maintain . '' For example , Dorn said , Kimmel and Short knew that war with Japan was `` highly likely '' and that Japan would strike the first blow . And they knew that the attack `` could occur within weeks or days '' because tension between the United States and Japan had been building . Both commanders had received a `` war warning '' from Washington in late November to be on the alert against a possible attack . Both commanders also knew the Japanese liked to spring surprise attacks , especially on weekends . Kimmel also knew that his intelligence staff had suddenly lost track of Japan 's aircraft carriers and that Japanese embassies and consulates had been ordered to destroy their secret codes . The report also notes the confused assumptions that governed the relationship between Kimmel and Short . For example , the Navy had responsibility for long-range defensive patrols around Pearl Harbor , but Short apparently never asked Kimmel exactly what the Navy was doing in that respect . This was a key mistake in view of the fact that Short 's fighter planes needed a four-hour warning before they could get in the air and do battle . In reality , the Navy was undertaking only minimal reconnaissance , mainly because of a lack of airplanes . Nonetheless , the Hawaii commanders did n't know when or where the attack would come . Dorn said higher alert by Kimmel and Short `` might not have discovered the ( Japanese ) carrier armada and might not have prevented the attack , but different choices could have reduced the magnitude of the disaster . '' The attack killed 2,403 Americans and sank or damaged 18 warships . The bottom line : There 's no basis to restore their higher rank . Besides , Dorn noted , `` Retirement at the two-star grade is not an insult or a stigma . '' Dorn 's decision was praised by both sides of the historical debate over Kimmel and Short . Edward L. Beach , a retired Navy captain and author of a 1994 book defending Kimmel and Short , praised the Dorn report for restoring their honor without promoting them by acknowledging that others also were guilty . This paper removes the stigma in the court of public opinion . Donald M. Goldstein , a historian at the University of Pittsburgh who helped write the best-selling Pearl Harbor history `` At Dawn We Slept , '' also lauded the report . `` Given all that we 've seen , we know it was on their watch . To exonerate them , you 'd have to go back and exonerate everybody who screwed up at Pearl Harbor . If they had caught the Japanese , they would have been heroes . But they did n't . The National Transportation Safety Board may have found a key clue in recent 737 crashes , but ca n't tell for sure because inadequate flight data recorders on older jets do n't provide crucial details . Board Chairman Jim Hall Tuesday blasted the Federal Aviation Administration for sitting on an NTSB request that all commercial jetliners be refitted with better `` black boxes '' to more accurately record what goes on in aircraft during flight . The FAA responded by saying it is close to a recommendation , 15 months after the safety board first urged the NTSB to make the change . The NTSB said a recent incident involving an Eastwind Airlines 737 appears to be have been caused by a `` misrigged '' rudder-control device . Hall said the circumstances appear to be similar to two still-unexplained crashes involving 737s . The Eastwind jet did not crash . Speculation on the causes of those crashes , which killed 157 people , has ranged from pilot error to design flaws in the 737 . Without better flight data , however , the investigation has been difficult , and nothing has been proven . Hall 's assertion about the rudder-controlling yaw damper drew some skepticism from at least one safety expert , however , who said the device could n't move enough to have caused the crashes . In a polite but pointed letter to FAA Administrator David Hinson , Hall cited four recent incidents involving an Eastwind Airlines 737-200 that unexpectedly rolled right while in flight . In each incident , most recently on June 10 , the pilot was able to correct the roll without further incident . The jet has been grounded for investigation since then . Investigation so far has revealed that the yaw damper an automatic device that prevents side-to-side wiggle in a jetliner was `` misrigged , '' Hall said , swinging 4.5 degrees in one direction instead of 3 degrees as prescribed . `` Ongoing aerodynamic analyses have not confirmed precisely the magnitude of the rudder deflection required to produce the roll event , '' Hall wrote to Hinson . `` Moreover , the pilots ' actions regarding pedal inputs cannot be determined . Unfortunately , the investigation of this incident is severely hampered by the lack of FDR ( flight data recorder ) data on the movement of the rudder pedals and the associated rudder position . '' Hall said the FAA should have moved more quickly to implement the change . `` Although the investigation of the recent Eastwind Airlines incident continues , preliminary data suggest circumstances that are similar to those of the USAir accident near Pittsburgh and the United Airlines accident near Colorado Springs , '' Hall wrote . The USAir crash killed 132 people on Sept. 8 , 1994 . The United crash killed 25 people on March 3 , 1991 . In both incidents , each involving a 737 , the planes plunged unexpectedly and crashed . USAir provides maintenance for Eastwind Airlines . Flight data recordings from each flight were of little help . The United jet had an old-style , stylus-driven recorder that reacted wildly and incorrectly during the crash . The USAir jet , like the Eastwind jet , had a digital recorder which gathered only 11 basic sets of data , including flight speed and some control-surface locations . Newer black boxes , so-called because they frequently emerge blackened from crash-related fires , digitally record hundreds of data points , including the dispositions of all flight control surfaces as well as many pilot actions . Seattle-area pilot and flight-safety expert John Nance applauded Hall 's call for flight data improvements , but said he doubts the yaw damper could have caused the crashes . `` Yaw dampers simply do not have sufficient authority to deflect the rudder far enough to create an upset , '' said Nance . If any trouble occurs , pilots are instructed to shut yaw dampers off , and they are not required equipment on commercial flights . Big jets do n't even use their rudders to turn in flight ; turning is accomplished by raising the ailerons along the trailing edge of the wings , producing the wide , banked turns that jets have to make . Computer simulations of the USAir crash showed its fateful plunge matched a rudder deflection of 17 degrees . Nance said something would have to be broken for a rudder to move that much . As Nance pointed out , however , without better flight data investigators have no way of knowing if that is what happened . Nearly two years of investigation have failed to find a cause for the crashes , either from design flaws in the 737 or from errors farther down the line . Boeing has called for advanced training to help pilots recover from unexpected flight events . Company spokesman Russ Young said the company supports the call for better flight data recorders , which are chosen by airline customers . The company earlier sent out a service bulletin telling airlines what 's needed to upgrade the recorders . `` We continue to be involved in both the USAir and Eastwind investigations providing whatever we can in the way of technical expertise and experience , '' Young said . Nance said better flight data gathering is long overdue . `` I want video cameras and good microphones , not '50s-style microphones , '' he said . `` If we 're going to do it , let 's do it right . '' The FAA said it plans to act on the recommendation soon . Authorities also believe Yousef was the mastermind of the World Trade Center bombing in February 1993 . The group said the TWA explosion was in retaliation for Yousef 's capture , ABC said . An FBI spokesman refused to comment . Investigators traveled to Athens , where the 747 spent much of Wednesday morning . The Athens airport was declared a security risk by the US Department of Transportation last March , prompting published warnings on all tickets for flights to Athens . In May , however , Transportation Secretary Federico Pena lifted the ban . Authorities are closely studying the names on the passenger list for the 747 flight from Athens to New York , to see if one might be linked to a terrorist group . CBS News reported last night that a Lebanese citizen on a terrorist watch list had sought to board the the TWA aircraft in Athens , but that neither he nor his baggage made it on the plane . The Pentagon has ruled out the possibility that the plane was hit by a missile fired from a shoulder-launcher on land , believing the jet was too far off the coast to have been within range of a missile shot from land . They are continuing to investigate the possibility , however remote , that a water-based launcher was used , sources said . A witness reported Thursday that he saw flare-like flashes in the sky before the plane exploded . But the witness , National Guard Maj. Fred Meyer , said Friday , `` There was nothing I observed that gave me any indication that the streak of light I saw was caused by a missile . I do n't know what I saw . '' TWA 's Erickson denied reports that some of the luggage on the plane may not have been X-rayed for explosives . But an aviation security expert said the airline 's difficulty in producing a complete passenger list raises questions about whether it kept proper track of the bags on board . One additional New Englander , Elaine Loffredo , 50 , an off-duty TWA employee from Glastonbury , Conn. , was added to the list of victims Friday . At the Ramada Inn at New York 's John F. Kennedy airport , family members of victims from around the world prepared to begin the process of identifying their loved ones . An estimated 110 families congregated at the hotel , where reactions ranged from anger to grief to a kind of mournful acceptance . They will not be given opportunities to see the bodies , most of which bear signs of severe disfigurement . About 75 percent of the victims were found without clothes . Family members are being asked to provide pictures of their loved ones in smiling poses , from which forensic experts will attempt to identify the corpses by their teeth . While some relatives of the victims appeared on television to express their shock and grief , others betrayed little emotion . `` It 's different from a car accident because of the numbers and the disbelief , but the feelings are the same because it 's a sudden loss . It 's just on a much bigger scale , '' said Rhoda Cataldo , a social worker from Kings Park Psychiatric Center on Long Island , describing the relatives of the victims she counseled . Investigators privately briefed the relatives . Leah Lapidus , a mental-health specialist with the Red Cross who attended the meeting , said the family members told the agents their top priority is recovering the remains of their loved ones . Only five bodies had been positively identified as of last night . New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani spent time at the hotel for a second day , continuing to press TWA for a complete passenger list . The mayor , who lost a friend in the crash , continued to berate TWA for its alleged slowness in providing information to families . Some nervous passengers may have given a final pull to tighten their seat belts . As the plane began its takeoff roll , a cockpit crew member called out the steadily increasing speed . `` 50 ... 60 ... 70 ... . '' Then came the call `` V-1 '' the point when the plane cannot stop before the end of the runway . Then came `` V-R '' for velocity rotation , the point when the nose wheel begins to lift off the ground , and finally `` V-2 '' the minimum safe flying speed , probably more than 160 m.p.h . At 8:19 , Flight 800 was in the air , the wheels in the well . After a short climb over Jamaica Bay , the jumbo jet began a sweeping turn to the left , over Rockaway Park and the Atlantic Ocean beyond . It was a beautiful night for flying . Temperatures were in the 70s . It was partly cloudy , but visibility was unrestricted . The flight plan was a staple of the New York-Europe route . Pilots and controllers call it the `` Bette One departure '' from Kennedy . Fly to a specific longitude and latitude in the ocean known as Bette , and draw a bead on the navigational aids on Nantucket . From there , the plane was to turn left again , heading north to another specific fix , known as `` Bradd '' in the Gulf of Maine , about 60 miles south of Yarmouth , Nova Scotia . Heavy with fuel , the plane continued its slow , steady climb , toward a cruising altitude of seven miles up . More than 150 miles away , at the air route traffic control center , known as the Boston Center in Nashua , N.H. , two controllers were working the Sardi sector a busy slice of air that handles traffic to the east of Kennedy . It is common practice for two controllers to work the same radar scope at the Boston Center one controller talking with the plane , the other with other controllers . They received Flight 800 from the controllers at New York at 8:25 p.m. There was no sign of trouble as Boston Center controllers routinely told the crew to climb to 15,000 feet . As usual , the pilot responded by repeating the instructions at 8:30 . `` TW 800 heavy , out of one-three for one-five , '' referring to 13,000 feet and 15,000 feet . It was the flight crew 's last communication . On board , passengers sitting on the left side of the airplane had a fabulous view of Long Island . With the sun setting at 8:24 , the string of white lights helped outline the graceful sweep of Jones Beach and the south coast of Long Island . In the galleys , flight attendants may have been getting the drink carts out of their stowed position , getting ready to offer cocktails to passengers . Then would come dinner : In coach , there was a choice of beef Mediterranean with carrots and cavatelli in a butter sauce or roast turkey with sage and onion stuffing , mashed turnips and mixed vegetables . In first class , the options included Maine lobster or beef tenderloin . Suddenly , something rocked the plane when it was at 13,700 feet . Investigators believe the event knocked out electrical power because the plane 's transponder stopped working and there was no distress call . Over the next 50 seconds or so , the plane dropped a mile , and when it was below 9,000 feet , according to investigators , it exploded . Burning jet fuel lighted the gathering darkness . The radar used by the Boston Center make sweeps every 12 seconds , updating the positions of the aircraft being monitored . TWA Flight 800 appeared on the screen with a sweep of the radar located in North Truro at 8:31 . At the next sweep 12 seconds later the blip of the plane was there but the altitude was gone . A review of the tape shows the blip was still there at 8:31 and 33 seconds and again at 8:31 and 45 seconds . At 8:31 and 57 seconds , the readout shows `` two primary hits '' or blips along the flight path of Flight 800 , an indication the plane was breaking apart . The next sweep , at 8:32 and nine seconds , shows `` a whole bunch of little plus signs '' the massive disintegration of an airplane slowly spreading out in a two-mile-wide fan across the Atlantic Ocean . The divers call it Mako City , after the medium-size sharks that prowl there . In a seabed 130 feet beneath the Atlantic nine miles off the coast of New York 's Long Island , small whales , sea turtles and sharks meander around a maze of thick wire cables and shards of jagged metal . It is forever twilight in the graveyard of TWA Flight 800 ; a diver swimming into the stygian gloom risks becoming entangled in the debris , or slicing an air hose , or coming face to face with a hammerhead . Or a corpse . Hardly an ideal working environment : entering it , one diver told The Washington Post , was like being `` lowered into hell . '' Yet out of this gloom must come answers , and none too soon . The victims ' families , who are understandably beginning to sound more like hostages than like mourners , are demanding the bodies of their loved ones . The gumshoes , on the other hand , want evidence that may lead them to a possible bomber , even if that means disturbing the watery graves of the dead . Politicians and reporters want headlines , sometimes before they have the facts to back them up . The result of all this clamor and conflict has been to confuse a public made even edgier by the Atlanta bombing . In addition to all its other cultures , America now has a culture of disaster . Hardened cops , grieving widows , CNN cameramen and grasping pols are all trapped in it together . The images are familiar : the weary bureaucrats giving guarded nonanswers to edgy reporters , the shellshocked searchers returning from the grisly scene , the angry families tired of being given the runaround . It is hard for everyone , particularly the families . But it requires special patience from the investigators , both the safety experts and the cops , who know the lessons of Lockerbie and other major air disasters : that getting the truth takes time months and years and that answers rarely fall neatly into news cycles , especially if the most important clues lie 20 fathoms beneath the sea . Top investigation officials described their thought processes to NEWSWEEK and explained why it 's a mistake to jump to conclusions . Titillating reports on the crash keep coming , only to be knocked down . Network news said several victims had shrapnel wounds that might be suffered in a bomb blast . But investigators had to point out that any crash this catastrophic could leave plane fragments in the victims ' bodies . Other reports suggested that explosive residue had been found on fragments of Flight 800 . Not yet , cautioned the Feds , though massive salvage ships will continue to fish for key parts , including the plane 's engines , from the `` debris field '' beneath the waves . More concrete was the evidence from Flight 800 's black boxes , the tape recorders of cockpit conversations and instrument readings recovered by navy divers from the ocean floor . Flight 800 's tape ends with a very brief , loud noise . Had the plane suffered a catastrophic mechanical failure , the 747 's recorders would probably have picked up telltale instrument readings , not to mention the anguished last words of the pilots . After reviewing radar tapes and interviewing witnesses , mostly pilots from planes flying near Flight 800 when it went down , investigators have reconstructed a picture of the plane 's last moments . It appears that an initial explosion of some kind sent the plane plummeting from an altitude of 13,700 feet . After about 20 seconds sheer terror for the passengers , most of whom were probably still alive the whole plane burst into flames , most likely when the aviation fuel caught fire . ( A jumbo jet crossing the ocean carries about 47,000 gallons of fuel , which is stored in the wings . ) The fuselage plunged an additional 9,000 feet into the sea , crashing about 40 seconds after the first explosion . A shower of debris kept floating through the twilight sky for as long as 15 minutes . Such evidence may be enough to make investigators say publicly what they believe privately , that a bomb took down the jumbo jet . But they still were n't ready to rule out all other theories , including the possibility that a missile struck Flight 800 . Even if the Feds finally establish what happened , they will be far from discovering the who and the why . At this stage they can only draw on the experience of earlier crashes to guess at probabilities . The problem is that guesses wo n't satisfy an impatient and frightened public , and wrong guesses only inflame the conspiracy theorists while inevitably disappointing the rest . In theory , investigators have the tools to perform miracles . FBI labs can identify a speck of explosive weighing as little as a trillionth of a gram . By listening to the four microphones feeding the cockpit recorder in a given jet , experts should be able to learn the distance and direction of shock waves , helping them pinpoint the location of an explosive . Experience has been less successful . The recordings made by the black boxes in two earlier bomb attacks on 747s Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie , Scotland , in 1988 , killing 270 , and an Air-India Flight above the Irish Sea in 1985 , killing 329 also ended abruptly with unexplained noises . The recorders failed because the disasters cut off the jet 's electrical power . After the downing of Pan Am 103 , the British government recommended that the black boxes be hooked up to batteries so they would continue recording information for a few more seconds as the plane went down . Tokyo , July 19 ( Bloomberg ) Japanese authorities probing the 1994 crash of a China Airlines jet in Nagoya , Japan , said pilot error was to blame for the accident , which left 264 people dead . But the investigators said design flaws in the Airbus Industrie A300-600R jet may have contributed to the disaster . The crash caused international controversy and sparked a $ 250 million lawsuit after tests showed the co-pilot had been legally drunk under Japanese law . China Airlines , Taiwan 's flag carrier , claims the co-pilot was a teetotaler and says alcohol could have been present because of decay in his body before the tests were made . According to the report released Friday by Japan 's Aircraft Investigation Commission , the co-pilot , who was flying the Airbus jet as it approached Nagoya Airport , caused the crash when he accidentally set the jet 's controls to abort the landing . It said the co-pilot did n't understand the purpose of the automatic abort switch , the so-called `` go '' lever , and the pilot was late in seeking to regain control from the co-pilot . Airbus was also to blame , according to the report , because its autopilot system did n't have an audio warning system to alert pilots , or a method of manual override when the plane was in danger . The report claimed there had been three similar incidents at separate airlines , though it provided no details , and faulted Airbus for not moving more firmly to address the problem . It said the Toulouse-based plane manufacturer had sent a warning to airlines , without making it a mandatory repair order . Japanese authorities also said Airbus 's flight crew operations manual was unhelpful and , in certain sections , confusing . In a statement , Airbus said it had received the report , plans to review its recommendations and `` will take action where appropriate . '' A spokesman would n't comment further . The Japanese report did n't address whether the pilots had been drinking . Taiwanese aviation officials , who accept the China Airlines explanation , have criticized the Japanese probe for not addressing the issue , saying they want to clear the pilots . China Airlines was unavailable for comment . The carrier has had a string of accident and unusual incidents , such as hard landings and runway overshoots , in recent years . After five of the incidents in 1995 , Taiwan 's Civil Aeronautics Administration suspended two pilots and ordered a new training program for its pilots . The lawsuit over the Nagoya crash , filed in Nagoya District Court , cites both the airline and Airbus as defendants . Airbus is a partnership owned by British Aerospace Plc , Germany 's Daimler Benz AG , France 's Aerospatiale and Casa of Spain . WASHINGTON Investigators looking into the cause of Saturday 's crash of a DC-9 Valujet in the Everglades are likely to look into the possibility of an electrical fire caused by chafed wire in an overhead control panel . Last month , the Federal Aviation Administration issued a final order requiring a wiring bundle on all 816 U.S.-registered McDonnell Douglas DC-9s , MD-90s , and C-9 ( military ) aircraft to be re-wrapped and rerouted to `` prevent the potential for a fire and uncontrolled smoke throughout the cockpit . '' In the order , published in the April 15th Federal Register , the FAA noted : `` Although there have been no reported cases of damage to the wire bundle on any in-service Model DC-9 series airplane , the FAA has received reports of chafing found on the wire bundle . '' The FAA concluded that `` the potential for damage still exists when the wire bundle is improperly routed in the overhead switch panel of the cockpit such that chafing occurs . '' The order , which has been in the making since last year , is scheduled to take effect Wednesday . Although the FAA said the wires should be re-wrapped as a precautionary measure , it determined that the wrapping `` would not necessarily enhance safety , and would cause ( airlines ) to incur an unnecessary expense . '' As a result , the agency said the carriers would not be required to re-wrap the wires until they rerouted them in the cockpit or observed evidence of chafing during routine inspections . The FAA estimated the cost of re-wrapping the wires would be about $ 220 and the work would take about three and a half hours for each plane . FAA spokesman Les Dorr said he could not comment on whether chafing of the cockpit wires might have caused the smoke reported in the cockpit of the 27-year-old Atlanta-bound Valujet minutes before it crashed , shortly after takeoff from Miami International Airport , killing all 109 people aboard . But Paul Kolbenschlag , owner of Kolbenschlag Aviation Services in Falls City , Oregon , an accident investigation researcher for 16 years and a licensed airframe and power plant mechanic , said chafing `` could cause an electrical fire . '' The extent of the fire could depend on what other material was available to fuel the fire and the extent of current carried by the wires , Kolbenschlag said . He noted that insulation in the control panel would burn with `` fairly dense , black smoke . '' `` Obviously , if the FAA feels concerned enough about it to put out ( a rule ) it 's certainly something that they have on the list to look at , '' he said . The aircraft involved in Saturday 's crash is listed on 27 `` service difficulty reports '' filed over the past eight years with the FAA , according to an analysis by the National Institute for Computer Assisted Reporting . In addition , at least 10 other SDR reports were filed prior to 1988 , according to NICAR officials . Among the 27 reports , the aircraft returned to the closest airport 10 times . The most serious incident involving this plane occurred on Feb. 24 , 1981 when the plane was owned by Delta Airlines when it suddenly lost cabin pressure and made an emergency descent over Vincennes , Ind . Of the dozen reported problems since the plane joined the Valujet fleet two years ago , 10 were listed as severity level 1 the least severe one was listed as a 2 , meaning accidents from that problem were `` uncommon , '' and one was listed as a 5 , the severest rating frequently linked to an accident . That report was filed after the landing gear failed a latch check and unsafe lights were on when the gear was retracted . The DC-9 that crashed Saturday was last inspected five days earlier , said Roland Herwig , an FAA spokesman in the agency 's Oklahoma City records center . That inspection was an `` A '' level inspection , the most cursory . The aircraft received a slightly more in-depth `` B '' inspection on March 19 , and an even more intensive `` C '' level inspection on Sept. 30 , 1995 . It also received another inspection on April 10 of this year . FAA records did not indicate where the inspections were made or who conducted them . Inspections are usually performed by the airline or an independent contractor . Herwig said the FAA did not have any information available about the engines on the Valujet plane . WASHINGTON The flier whose Navy F-14A fighter plunged into a Nashville suburb on Monday , killing himself and four other people , crashed another jet into the sea last April . But Navy investigators and senior admirals forgave him , saying he made a mistake in pursuit of the combative flying that the Navy wants and encourages in its pilots . The flier , Lt . Comdr . John Stacy Bates , flew aggressively , a Navy official said on Tuesday , but he added : `` We want them to fly aggressively . Bates was highly motivated and that accident was a one-time glitch on his record . He was a great aviator . '' The Navy invests years and more than $ 1 million to train each of its fighter pilots , and is reluctant to dismiss them if senior officers believe an erring pilot can learn from mistakes . But as military investigators sifted through the wreckage on Tuesday for clues to what caused the crash that killed the fighter 's two-man crew and three people on the ground , Navy officials said they did not know what caused Bates ' second crash , or why his squadron had lost so many F-14 Tomcats . The crash was the fourth in 16 months for Fighter Squadron 213 , a 14-plane unit known as the Fighting Blacklions and one of six F-14 squadrons assigned to Miramar Naval Air Station near San Diego . The unit 's safety record is by far the worst among the Navy 's 13 F-14 squadrons . Bates was blamed for losing control of his F-14 last April while conducting training maneuvers off Hawaii . Last September , an F-14A from the squadron exploded in flight off the Philippines , but both crew members ejected safely . The cause of that accident is still under investigation . In October 1994 , one the Navy 's first female fighter pilots , Lt . Kara S. Hultgreen , died in a training accident off Southern California , rekindling tensions within the military over the decision to expand some combat roles for women . The Navy concluded that that accident resulted from a combination of pilot error and mechanical failure . `` You go back 10 or 15 years and they are snake bit , '' said a retired admiral who once commanded the squadron . `` We 've tried to put top-notch pilots and maintenance people there . You ca n't believe in luck or superstition , but they 're behind the eight ball and have stayed there . '' The Navy ordered the squadron to suspend its operations for three days for safety reasons after the second of the squadron 's four crashes . Vice Adm . Brent Bennitt , the commander of naval air forces in the Pacific , immediately ordered the squadron to stand down again after the crash on Monday to review its safety record and procedures . The crash underscores the fact that even in peacetime , operating complex weapons of war is a hazardous business . Twelve F-14 fliers have died in training accidents since 1992 . But the accident also raises questions about the F-14 's safety record . Since 1991 , the fighter has a major crash rate of 5.93 per 100,000 flight hours , compared with 4.82 major crashes per 100,000 hours for all Navy tactical aircraft . Navy officials note that since 1981 , the F-14 's major accident rate is slightly lower than the overall tactical aircraft rate . Many naval aviators have complained that the engines on the older A-model F-14 's are not powerful enough to perform the demanding aerial maneuvers they fly . The Navy is replacing them with a more powerful engine that is now on about 30 percent of the fleet 's F-14 's . Fighter Squadron 213 flies all A-model F-14 's . In the latest accident , the twin-engine , two-seat Tomcat crashed shortly after takeoff from Berry Field , an Air National Guard airfield adjacent to Nashville International Airport . The jet left Miramar Air Station in San Diego for Nashville on Friday on a routine training mission . Bennitt said on Tuesday that Navy officials approved Bates ' request to use a maximum-performance takeoff , in which a pilot turns on the jet 's after-burner and soars straight up moments after the aircraft leaves the ground . After screaming up through the clouds , the F-14 then came straight down , exploding into a huge fireball . The Tomcat was carrying 16,000 pounds of fuel on takeoff . `` We may never know why the crew did n't eject , '' Rear Adm . Skip Dirren told reporters on Tuesday morning . Newer fighter planes do have recorders , Dirren said , but they were not included when the F-14A 's were built in the 1970s . The Grumman Corp. , now the Northrop-Grumman Corp. , manufactured the F-14 's , which cost $ 32 million each . Killed besides Bates , 33 , of Chattanooga , Tenn. , was the jet 's radar operator , Lt . Graham Alden Higgins , 28 , of Dover-Foxcroft , Maine . Three civilians were also killed when the plane hit a house . They were Elmer Newsom , 66 ; his wife , Ada , 63 , and a friend , Ewing T. Wair , 53 . He was flanked on stage by his wife , other cabinet members and Vice President Al Gore . Clinton said that he had asked Brown 's wife what he should say in his remarks and that she had replied : `` Tell them Ron was proud of them , that he liked them , that he believed in them , and that he fought for the Commerce Department , and tell them that you 're going to do that now . '' Mary Good , undersecretary of commerce for technology , was named the acting head of the Commerce Department . Commerce is one of the departments that the Republican majority in Congress has targeted for closing , and Brown has been a frequent target of GOP barbs . A controversial figure , Brown was accused twice of financial improprieties , cleared in one case , and under investigation by an independent counsel in the second . At the Pentagon , Air Force Lt . Gen . Howell Estes , director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff , dismissed ground fire or sabotage as a cause of the crash , saying `` we would rule anything out of that type . '' Estes stressed that the weather was bad , with high winds . `` There were no calls made indicating any kind of a problem on board the aircraft . They were in contact with the tower , making their approach , when contact was lost , '' he said . There were initial reports that plane parts were found at sea , near the airport on the Adriatic coast . But Estes said U.S. special forces searching the area had found no floating wreckage . The crash site was on a hill about 2 miles north of the airport , he said . The ill-fated plane was built in 1973 , acquired by the Air Force in 1988 and given a thorough maintenance overhaul last June . It was the same plane used within the past few weeks for Defense Secretary William Perry 's trip to the Balkans and a visit by the first lady and her daughter to Turkey . Ron Woodard , president of the Boeing Commercial Airplane Group , had been scheduled to join the Brown mission to promote trade in the war-ravaged region , but was still in Seattle when the crash took place . The aircraft had 17,000 flying hours under its belt , and the 737 has `` a very , very good safety record , '' Estes said . Two civilian 737s have crashed in recent years one in Pittsburgh and one in Colorado and neither crash has been fully explained , despite intense investigations . Before the flight , Brown had visited U.S. peacekeeping troops in Tuzla , bringing sports videos and McDonald 's hamburgers . He was accompanied on that part of the trip by McDonald 's executives . `` Being a former Army man myself , I know what being away from home is like . So we thought we would bring a little bit of home to you , '' he told the troops . Brown 's friends and allies reacted with shock as they waited for word on the fate of the passengers . `` This is a man whose multiple talents will not easily be replaced , '' said Eleanor Holmes Norton , the District of Columbia 's delegate to Congress . `` Ronald Brown 's plane went down in the line of duty . Not only is he an excellent emissary on behalf of the United States of America , he has been an exemplary role model for American youth , '' said Rep. Cynthia McKinney , D-Ga . `` I am personally devastated . I have worked closely with Ron Brown over the years and I consider him a close personal friend as well as a strong advocate for Washington state and the Pacific Northwest , '' Sen. Patty Murray , D-Wash. , said in a written statement . Rep. Norm Dicks , D-Wash. , said : `` Ron Brown loved Washington state , its natural resources , and its trade-dependent economy . '' WASHINGTON Two passengers on a Delta Air Lines flight from Pensacola , Fla. , to Atlanta were killed on Saturday afternoon when an engine on the plane broke up as the jet was beginning to take off , sending debris into the cabin . After the takeoff was aborted , five other people were injured while being evacuated from the jet . The plane , a McDonnell Douglas MD-88 with its full capacity of 142 passengers and a crew of 5 , was about 1,500 feet down the runway when passengers reported seeing smoke from the left engine . Brenda Menard , a passenger on the plane traveling with her husband , Jean Paul , and 11-month-old child , told The Associated Press that a piece of the engine had burst through the fuselage . `` There was part of it that went through to the other side , '' she said . Other passengers described what they said sounded like an explosion or `` pop '' and an odor like burning plastic . Bruce Yelverton , director of Escambia County Emergency Medical Services , said that a woman and a young boy were killed . Five people were taken to Pensacola hospitals , including a 15-year-old boy and his 9-year-old sister and three women , one of whom is pregnant . All were listed in good condition . An injured man was evacuated by helicopter and was in serious condition , Yelverton said . The engine , a Pratt Whitney JT8D , was similar to one that broke up on a Valujet DC-9 as it was taking off from Atlanta in June 1995 , badly injuring a flight attendant . After that accident , the National Transportation Safety Board called for more frequent inspections of that type of engine , a JT8D-9a . Preliminary reports on Saturday evening were that the engines on the Delta plane were JT8D-219s , which are slightly different . Mark Sullivan , a spokesman for Pratt Whitney , said that the company believes a fan blade in the front of the left engine failed . Broken pieces of the blade probably penetrated the fan case and debris went flying , Sullivan said . `` We believe that is what happened , '' he said . `` But we have not confirmed it because we have n't examined the engine . '' Delta could not say on Saturday evening when the engine that broke up was last inspected , or even how old it was . But a spokesman , Dean Breest , said it was probably of about the same vintage as the aircraft , which was delivered to the airline in 1988 . Both the MD-88 that was involved in the accident on Saturday and Valujet 's DC-9 have engines mounted close to the fuselage at the rear of the plane . Their centers are about level with the middle of the passenger window . The National Transportation Safety Board said on Saturday evening that it was sending a team of six investigators to the scene . Michael Benson , a spokesman , said that `` uncontained engine failures , '' in which the spinning internal parts not only break up , but break out of the engine , are rare but are `` one of the worst things that can happen . '' In the Valujet case , the shrapnel severed fuel lines , which started a fire that destroyed the airplane on the runway . In May 1991 , a JT8D engine failure destroyed a Boeing 727 freighter . But the accidents are rare relative to the number of hours of service , and the engine is one of the most popular in civilian aviation , in part because of its high reliability . The safety board 's inspection recommendation arose from an incident at La Guardia Airport , in New York , on Jan. 30 . An engine on a Delta Boeing 727 failed , throwing parts through the engine cowling . The crew halted the takeoff and passengers were evacuated without injury . New York , July 17 ( Bloomberg ) A Trans World Airlines Inc. airplane bound for Paris crashed into the Atlantic Ocean about 20 miles off New York 's Long Island with 229 people aboard , a spokesman for TWA said . No survivors had been reported shortly after midnight , Steve Sapp of the U.S. Coast Guard told CNN . The flight fell off the Federal Aviation Administration radar screens around 8:45 p.m. , shortly after take off . TWA flight 800 was bound from New York 's John F. Kennedy International Airport to Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris , Mike Kelly , TWA vice president for airport operations , said in a press conference . The plane was a Boeing Co. 747-100 and had last flown from Athens , Greece , to New York . Eyewitnesses described seeing a series of explosions before the plane went down , according to news reports . `` Anything is possible , '' Kelly said in response to questions about the possibility of terrorist action . `` Security was at one of the highest level you can have , '' and had been increased because of the Olympic Games in Atlanta , he said . Coast Guard units were `` finding bodies and bringing them on to shore , '' Sapp said . He did n't know the number of bodies recovered and said the search would continue as long as possible . The 747 is the world 's largest airliner . The plane that went down was a 747-100 , which Boeing produced from 1970 through 1986 . It holds about 360 passengers in three classes . `` It 's too soon to get any hard data on what happened , '' said Boeing spokesman Doug Webb . `` We will cooperate fully with any investigation . Our thoughts are with the victims ' families . '' The crash comes less than a year after St . Louis-based TWA emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection , the airline 's second bankruptcy filing in two years . The carrier has become competitive again by paring costs and pulling out of money-losing routes . The 72-year-old carrier earlier on Wednesday reported an almost fivefold increase in second-quarter net income to $ 25.3 million , or 46 cents a share . Brian Jenkins , vice-chairman of the international security firm Kroll Associates , cautioned against jumping to a quick conclusion that the explosion was caused by a terrorist bomb . `` We can crank our society up to a state of paranoia which is unnecessary , '' said the Los Angles-based terrorism expert . `` Let 's get some more information before we go too far speculating . '' Jenkins said that airport security measures have improved significantly in recent years , in the wake of terrorist tragedies like the downing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie , Scotland . `` As the result of extraordinary security measures , commercial aviation , which was once one of the most popular targets of international terrorism , was made a more difficult target . '' He said attempts to hijack or plant bombs aboard aircraft have decreased . A toll-free number has been set up for family members of people on the flight . The number is ( 800 ) 438-9892 . The crash comes two months after the crash of ValuJet Inc. flight crash in the Florida Everglades that killed all 110 people aboard . That plane was a McDonnell Douglas Corp. DC-9-32 . Atlanta-based Valujet was grounded by the FAA one month after the crash . The Boeing 747 has been involved in other accidents in its almost 30-year history . Two of the jets collided in the Canary Islands in 1977 , killing 582 people in the world 's worst aircraft disaster . In 1985 , a Japan Air Lines 747 crashed into a mountain in Japan , killing 520 people . It was a Pan Am 747 that went down in Lockerbie , Scotland , in December 1988 after terrorists planted a bomb on the jet . That crash killed 270 people . So when is an airplane too old ? Some of the nation 's biggest airlines fly planes that are more than 25 years old . And the military operates B-52 aircraft that are more than 40 years old , flown by pilots who are younger than the planes . Valujet Airlines , whose DC-9 jet crashed near Miami on Saturday , killing 109 people on board , operates a fleet of DC-9 jets whose average age is about 26 years , making its fleet the oldest for any large airline in the United States . But aviation safety experts said that a plane 's age , in and of itself , does not necessarily make it any less safe than a younger plane . Just as with cars , other important considerations are how well a jet has been maintained and how many times it changed owners . The 27-year-old Valujet plane that crashed had only one previous owner , Delta Air Lines , the nation 's third largest airline . `` If you are going to buy something used , that 's a pretty good pedigree , '' said David Stamey , vice president of Avitas , an aviation consulting firm that appraises and inspects aircraft . The age of Valujet 's DC-9 fleet is not unusual among major airlines that use the planes . Continental , Northwest , Trans World Airlines and USAir all operate dozens of DC-9s with an average age of 24 to 26 years . Many of those aircraft will be much older by the time they are retired . Northwest Airlines , for example , plans to invest $ 6 million per plane to upgrade more than 100 of its DC-9s to comply with federal noise regulations and keep them flying beyond the year 2000 . There are many reasons why airlines like Northwest are deciding to extend the life of many planes in their fleets rather than buy new ones . New aircraft cost tens of millions of dollars , and many airlines have decided it is more economical to refurbish their old planes than buy new ones , even though older aircraft face more rigorous , and therefore more costly , requirements for maintenance and replacing parts . Many fledgling airlines , in fact , have fleets that are much younger , on average , than some of the more established carriers . Many regulations intended to guard specifically against the effects of aging were put into place after an accident involving an Aloha Airlines Boeing 737 , when the passenger cabin ripped open in 1988 because of corrosion and metal fatigue , sweeping a flight attendant to her death . After the industry was deregulated in 1978 , many airlines started expanding rapidly and ordered new aircraft . And in the 1980s , airlines generally believed that growth would lead to financial success . But in the early 1990s , the airlines lost billions of dollars , in part because of traffic declines and rising fuel costs as a result of the war in the Persian Gulf . Since then , airlines have focused more on reducing overhead costs , weighing decisions to buy new aircraft more carefully than ever before . To maintain low costs , many start-up airlines like Valujet have not only bought used aircraft but also paid companies that do heavy aircraft maintenance to work on their jets . William D. Waldock , a professor of aeronautical science and director of the aviation safety resource center at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott , Ariz. , said he was troubled by the trend . `` For the airline , it is cheaper , '' he said . `` But the people that you 've got working on airplanes for maintenance subcontractors do n't have the same level of motivation and feeling of ownership and involvement as an employee of an airline would have toward his company 's aircraft . '' The Federal Aviation Administration said Sunday that it would closely scrutinize in coming weeks the six firms that do maintenance work for Valujet . The Valujet DC-9 that crashed Saturday had been forced to return to airports seven times in the last two years for a variety of safety problems , including a faulty heat exchanger , a loss of oil because of a loose oil cap and a malfunctioning hydraulic pump . It also made an emergency landing in Memphis a year ago when the plane lost cabin pressure . It also received an FAA maintenance inspection last Tuesday , in which inspectors checked , among other things , fluids and tire treads and other major equipment for signs of fatigue or cracks . FAA records show that before the crash Saturday , Valujet had 12 minor problems or more serious accidents since it started flying in 1993 , including an inoperative microphone that rendered the pilots unable to communicate with air traffic controllers and a fire in an engine on a runway in Atlanta last year that injured several people on board . WASHINGTON Commerce Secretary Ron Brown and 32 others on a Balkan trade mission were presumed killed when their plane slammed into a Croatian hillside during heavy storms Wednesday . Authorities in Washington and Croatia blamed the crash on bad weather , not hostile fire or sabotage . The plane a military version of the twin-engine Boeing 737 disappeared from radar screens just minutes before it was to have landed at Dubrovnik 's airport . There was no indication of problems before the crash . A State Department spokesman said Wednesday night that Brown was assumed dead , although officially the passengers were still listed as missing . And an official of Riggs National Bank , one of whose vice presidents was on board , told The Associated Press : `` We have been told that the crash left no survivors . '' Journalists who reached the crash site reported that one woman had been found alive but died while being rushed to a hospital by helicopter . The plane was resting on its belly , the middle portion burned out . Rescue workers with flashlights searched the area in pouring rain Wednesday night , and Croatian commanders at the scene told The New York Times they had found nine bodies . There were 33 people on board the Air Force T-43 , including Brown , 54 , other Commerce officials , American business executives and a crew of six . New York Times reporter Nathaniel Nash was also on board , the paper said . The plane crashed in extremely windy weather as it prepared to land after a 45-minute flight from the Bosnian town of Tuzla at 2:52 p.m. Croatian time ( 4 :52 a.m. PST ) . For reasons yet unknown , the plane came in north of the runway and struck the hillside . Brown , accompanied by top business executives , was in the Balkans to encourage American investment in a region torn by war and badly in need of business to rebuild its economy . As of late Wednesday night , the administration had not released a full list of people on the flight . President Clinton , expressing shock and dismay , canceled his regular schedule . He and first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton visited Brown 's wife , Alma , and son , Michael , at the Brown home . Afterward , the president paid tribute to his friend and ally in a speech to Commerce Department employees . `` He was one of the best advisers and ablest people I ever knew . And he was very , very good at everything he ever did , '' Clinton said of the Harlem-raised former civil rights activist , lawyer-lobbyist and chairman of the Democratic National Committee , who became one of the highest-ranking blacks ever to serve in government . `` Ron Brown walked and ran and flew through life , and he was a magnificent life force . And those of us who loved him will always be grateful for his friendship and his warmth , '' said Clinton , speaking in somber tones to about 700 employees in the Commerce auditorium . New York , July 18 ( Bloomberg ) Shares of Trans World Airlines Inc. fell as much as 16 percent amid concerns that last night 's fatal crash of a Paris-bound jumbo jetliner will gut the airline 's financial rebound . All 228 people on board are believed to have been killed when the Boeing Co. 747 jetliner exploded and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off Long Island , New York , about 8:40 p.m. . Officials said they have n't ruled out terrorism as a cause of the blast , which came after TWA heightened security in advance of the Olympic Games in Atlanta . `` This is very serious for TWA , '' said David Stempler , an aviation consultant in Washington , D.C. . `` It might finish them off . '' TWA emerged from its second bankruptcy in August . Stempler likened TWA 's position to that of Pan American World Airways in 1988 , after terrorists blew up a jumbo jet over Lockerbie , Scotland , killing 259 people . Passengers were afraid to fly Pan Am after the crash , which contributed to the airline 's demise . Lewins said the possibility of sabotage and the fact that Pan AM Flight 103 also was a Boeing 747 inevitably will draw comparisons . That could be detrimental if those comparisons stick in the minds of travellers . `` TWA can weather it so long as it does n't get a Pan Am 103 image in the eyes of the public , '' he said . In late trading , TWA shares fell 1 3/8 to 9 7/8 after trading as low as 9 1/2 earlier in the session . It was one of the most-active issues on U.S. markets , with about 6.97 million shares traded . Other airline stocks also fell amid speculation that the crash and mounting concerns about airline safety could lead to a decline in passenger traffic for all carriers . Shares of AMR Corp. , the parent of American Airlines , fell 3/4 to 81 1/8 and Delta Air Lines Inc. dropped 7/8 to 74 1/2 . Northwest Airlines Corp. delayed the release of its second-quarter earnings , set for this morning , until Monday because of the crash . The TWA crash , one of the worst in U.S. history , follows other aviation disasters including a May 11 crash of a ValuJet Inc. DC-9 in Florida that killed 110 people , a crash in the Balkans of a military version of the Boeing 737 that killed Commerce Secretary Ron Brown and the explosion of an engine on a Delta plane earlier this month that killed two people . At the same time , Harris said that comparisons to the ValuJet crash are unwarranted . While ValuJet 's safety record has been called into question , TWA 's was excellent . Also , the airline is one of the nation 's oldest , having flown for 75 years . ValuJet started service two years ago . Last night 's crash came just hours after St . Louis-based TWA reported a fivefold increase in second-quarter profit . TWA earned $ 25.3 million , or 46 cents a share , compared with $ 5.2 million a year earlier . Revenue rose 12 percent to $ 965.8 million from $ 860.5 million . On Tuesday , TWA announced an order for five MD-83 jets from McDonnell Douglas Corp. , with a commitment to buy as many as 10 more by the end of the year . The cost of the crash itself -- both the loss of the aircraft and the potential liability for the deaths -- likely will be covered by insurance carriers , said Steve Lewins , an analyst with Gruntal Co. Most airlines are insured for $ 2 million to $ 3 million per passenger in the event of a crash . `` From a financial standpoint , ( the crash ) is irrelevant , '' Lewins said . Analysts said the multimillion-dollar jet order , combined with the strong earnings , indicated the airline was on the mend . TWA struggled through two bankruptcy filing in recent years and even resorted to using light bulbs and spare parts as collateral for loans . It emerged from its last Chapter 11 reorganization in August . Despite its long history , TWA never has been an industry pace-setter . The carrier has had several top managers , from millionaire Howard Hughes to corporate raider Carl Icahn , who knew little about the airline business . Icahn , who took control of TWA through a hostile takeover in 1985 , feuded with labor and implemented brutal cost-cutting . His tenure ended with the carrier 's first bankruptcy . TWA Flight 800 , bound for Paris , disappeared from radar screens around 8:40 p.m. local time shortly after taking off from New York 's John F. Kennedy Airport . Eyewitnesses described seeing a series of explosions before the plane fell . NEW YORK One week after TWA Flight 800 exploded over the Atlantic Ocean , federal investigators are growing more convinced that the jumbo jet was downed by a terrorist bomb . Direct evidence is still inconclusive , but one source familiar with the investigation said Wednesday : `` We just cannot envision any other event that gives us the same scenario . '' This tentative conclusion was also presented on Capitol Hill Wednesday , as officials from the FBI and the National Transportation Safety Board briefed lawmakers on the disaster . Officials say the growing suspicion stems from several factors , including the safety record of the 747 and the lack of a distress call from the crew . But some even more compelling reasons are new including physical evidence of aircraft fragments and a second-by-second analysis of air-traffic controllers ' radar tapes . `` It appears more and more likely that it is an onboard explosion , '' said one official who attended the congressional briefings . `` They dismissed some of the other theories , '' such as a missile fired from a boat or a catastrophic mechanical failure . President Clinton was briefed Wednesday in the White House by all the federal agencies involved in the investigation . In an attempt to avoid the kind of situation that occurred Tuesday night when New York Gov. George Pataki said more bodies had been discovered only to have investigators disavow that assertion Pataki agreed to help set up a direct communications link between the families and the Navy ships searching the ocean floor for more bodies and debris . Many relatives were so outraged by the inaccurate information that they held a late-night news conference to criticize Pataki . The governor met with frustrated relatives at the Ramada Inn Wednesday in an attempt to allay their anger over the conflicting information of the night before . The new communications link will allow the relatives to be informed the moment more bodies have been recovered , without having to wait for the nightly news briefings . Divers recovered three more bodies Wednesday , bringing the total to 113 , nearly half of the 230 people who were killed . Robert Bontempi of the Suffolk County Medical Examiner 's office said 95 of those bodies have been identified . There are 12 tentative identifications . Ninety-four families have been notified and 72 bodies have been returned to families . But Bontempi said 19 of the victims ' families have not provided any information such as dental records , photos or fingerprints that would help in the identification process . U.S. and Japanese officials Tuesday called off a mock war in the Pacific as they scrambled to find out why a Japanese destroyer shot down a U.S. Navy carrier bomber instead of the aerial target the aircraft was towing at least 2 miles behind the plane . An A-6E Intruder from the carrier USS Independence was downed by gunfire from the destroyer Yuugiri during the massive `` RIMPAC `9 6 '' naval exercise in the Pacific . The exercise involves 44 warships , 250 aircraft and the navies of six nations . Both crewmen of the A-6E safely ejected after the accident and were picked up by a small boat from the Japanese warship , then flown by helicopter to the carrier , where they were treated for minor injuries . The Navy identified them as pilot Lt. Cmdr. William Royster , 33 , of Kansas City . , Mo. , and bombardier-navigator Lt. Keith Douglas , 30 , of Birmingham , Ala. , both assigned to Medium Attack Squadron 115 , Carrier Air Wing 5 aboard the Independence . Seventeen U.S. warships and nine vessels from the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force `` have suspended all live-fire events following the accident , '' Pacific Fleet spokesman Jon Yoshishige announced . `` They will conduct a safety standdown until the investigation is complete and the cause of the accident is determined . '' Another 31 U.S. warships and vessels from Australia , Canada , Chile and South Korea are training in another part of the Pacific , near Hawaii . They will continue their phase of the RIMPAC exercise with live fire and missile shots , Yoshishige said . The exercise began on May 22 and runs until June 21 . Scant details were available about the A-6E shootdown , which occurred as the aircraft was towing an aerial target for the Japanese warship to shoot with its Phalanx Close-In Weapons System cannon on Monday afternoon . The accident occurred at 4:15 p.m. Tuesday local time . Toshinori Yanagiya , a senior Defense Ministry official in charge of military training , told a news conference in Tokyo , `` The accident may have happened because of some kind of mechanical trouble ( with the Phalanx system ) , but we still do n't know the cause . '' U.S. Navy officials from the carrier USS Independence said the A-6E and its target were far apart when the mishap occurred . `` The towed target was between two or three miles behind the plane at the time it was shot down , '' said Lt . Cmdr . Jeff Alderson , another Pacific Fleet spokesman . The Phalanx gun is a defensive weapon aboard both U.S. and Japanese warships and is used as a last-ditch protection against missiles or aircraft . It uses a built-in radar to lock on the approaching target and steer a stream of depleted uranium shells at the target . The gun fires at a rate of 3,000 rounds per minute and its range is between 1,625 and 6,000 yards . The A-6E was equipped with a towed target system , consisting of a target drogue that is unreeled from a pod attached to the aircraft fuselage . The target drogue , shaped like a missile with stabilizing fins , is 12 inches in diameter and about 5 feet long . Radar reflectors on its body generate an image the same size as a tactical aircraft on warships ' radar screens . `` We do this all the time for our ships , '' one A-6E pilot said of the target towing mission . `` During workups ( pre-deployment training ) it 's very common for every ship in the battle group to take some shots . '' Standard procedure for using a towed target against a Phalanx system is for the aircraft to stream the drogue about 3 miles behind the aircraft , said the Intruder pilot , who asked that his name not be used . The aircraft approaches the ship at an altitude of about 1,000 feet and an airspeed of 300 knots . Because of aerodynamic drag , the target passes through the air at 500 feet the estimated target height of a missile closing in on the warship , the pilot said . With the accident coming at a time of political strains between Washington and Tokyo over Japan 's security role in the post-Cold War era and divisions inside Japan over U.S. military bases , the Japanese government wasted no time in apologizing for the accident that destroyed the $ 30 million bomber . President Clinton quickly accepted Japan 's `` gracious '' apology , White House spokesman Mike McCurry said . Based ashore at Atsugi , Japan , Medium Attack Squadron 115 comes under the control of the Attack Wing U.S. Pacific Fleet , with headquarters at Whidbey Island Naval Air Station at Oak Harbor . Both Royster and Douglas were stationed at other Intruder squadrons at Whidbey Island before joining VA 115 in Japan several years ago , said Attack Wing commander Capt. Terry Toms . Royster remains under medical care aboard the carrier with facial lacerations that required minor surgery , while Douglas underwent treatment and was released , Alderson said . The injuries were believed to have occurred during the aircrew 's ejection from the aircraft , he said . The mishap occurred about 730 miles south of Midway Island , on the 54th anniversary of the Battle of Midway on June 3 , 1942 , where the U.S. Navy scored its first major victory against Japan in World War II . This report includes information from The Associated Press and Reuters . CAMP LEJEUNE , N.C. Fourteen Marines were killed and two seriously injured Friday in the fiery pre-dawn collision of two helicopters during a huge U.S.-British training exercise , the Pentagon said . The helicopters , a CH-46 Sea Knight troop transport and an AH-1 Cobra attack aircraft , collided in flight about 2 a.m. , said Marine Corps Capt. Rick Long , a spokesman for the exercises . All the personnel on board were Americans , he said . Identities of the victims were not released by early Friday evening . The bodies recovered so far were badly burned , a military official told The Associated Press , and dental records will be needed for positive identification of the dead . It was not immediately clear what caused the crash in nearly impassable terrain near the Courthouse Bay boat basin at Camp Lejeune . The Cobra 's mission was to fly ahead of the larger Sea Knight and secure a landing zone for it . Once the Sea Knight approached the zone on a planned route , the Cobra was to swing back around . `` We had half a moon last night . Visibility was good , '' said Camp Lejeune spokesman Maj. Steve Little . Winds were reported as light . Recovery operations got under way almost immediately but were hampered by darkness and difficult terrain . `` Darkness hampered the effort quite a bit , '' Little said . `` The thickness of the brush and the trees and the swamp compounded the effort . '' Forestry crews were called to the densely wooded area to provide access to the crash site . It was unclear for hours after the crash how many people had died . At one point , the White House put the death toll at 16 , but later an official at Marine Corps headquarters at the Pentagon said the confirmed toll was 14 . The two injured Marines were the pilot and co-pilot of the Sea Knight . They were taken to the Camp Lejeune hospital , and the pilot was later transferred to Pitt County Memorial Hospital in Greenville , which has a critical care unit , for treatment of head and chest injuries . Both aircraft were from Marine Corps Air Station New River in Jacksonville , N.C. , officials said . The aircraft were participating in Operation Purple Star , war games involving more than 53,000 British and American troops massed off the North Carolina coast this week . The operation continued Friday after a temporary suspension of flight activity . Before Friday 's accident , nine Marine aircraft had been involved in crashes this year . Five crew members died in those crashes . In March , the Marine Corps called a two-day halt to all nonessential flight operations both airplanes and helicopters to review safety rules after the rash of unexplained crashes . Federal officials investigating the crash of Trans World Airlines Flight 800 said Monday that they were making a detailed comparison of foreign air crashes caused by bombs in their search for information that could help them prove their theory that the Boeing 747 was brought down by a bomb . Although the officials said they were not ready to declare the crash a result of a criminal act , they are comparing the evidence gathered in the TWA crash to the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie , Scotland , the 1989 downing of a French airliner over Chad and a 1985 crash of an Air India airliner that was blamed on a bomb . The federal officials said they are consulting foreign investigators and examining material from those earlier crashes as a way of testing the theory that the Paris-bound 747 was bombed . Robert Francis , the vice chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board , who is heading the investigation , said : `` Certainly , I think we 've acknowledged from the beginning that there 's a possibility that this could have been an act that would be comparable to those . And we 're doing what we would do in any accident investigation and that is comparing the things that have similarities . '' For the first time Monday , officials publicly said that the catastrophic event that apparently broke the airplane in two , whether caused by an explosion or a mechanical malfunction , occurred near the front of the airplane . Joseph Cantamessa Jr. , the special agent in charge of the FBI 's New York office , said the bodies of victims sitting near the front of the plane showed more severe injuries , indicating they `` experienced the bulk of the significant event . '' Officials have said that the front part of the plane apparently separated from the rest of the plane and plunged into the Atlantic Ocean before the rest of the aircraft . Investigators said they were one piece of evidence away from declaring the crash a criminal act , but that evidence continued to elude them Monday . Divers continued pulling large pieces of wreckage from the ocean off Long Island Monday , and preliminary tests on some of them showed traces of explosives . But for those pieces , and others pulled up in previous days , more sophisticated testing at the FBI laboratory in Washington failed to confirm the early positive tests . In addition , investigators said Monday afternoon , metal that at first seemed to bear a pockmarked pattern consistent with an explosion , turned out to have been marred by having been submerged in the ocean . Officials also said that the final loud noise picked up by the airplane 's cockpit voice recorder just before it stopped working on the night of the crash would not alone provide enough evidence for investigators to determine the nature of the cataclysmic event . `` We 're all a little frustrated by not being able to find the cause of this occurrence , '' Cantamessa said . The TWA flight crashed the day after a French magistrate left Libya , where he had been investigating the 1989 bombing of a DC-10 over the Sahara Desert . All 170 people on board that plane were killed . The French Transport Ministry said shortly after the French jet went down seven years ago that information from the plane 's data recorders `` showed that the flight proceeded in a normal manner until a total interruption , which translates as an explosion in flight . '' `` The work of the crew was proceeding normally when the recording of words and electronic data abruptly stopped , '' the statement said . The data and voice recorders on the TWA flight also stopped abruptly , but American investigators said they were drawing no conclusions from that . The Associated Press reported three days after the 1989 accident that investigators had found evidence of explosives on board . The AP also reported that a plane flying the same flight had been bombed on the ground in N'Djamena , Chad , in 1984 . Reuters reported last year that France planned to try four Libyan suspects in absentia , including a brother-in-law of Col . Moammar Gadhafy , Abdallah Senoussi . The report quoted lawyers familiar with the case as saying that Libya had refused to turn over the suspects to French officials . On July 18 , the day after the TWA flight exploded en route to Paris , Reuters quoted a spokesman for the French Foreign Ministry as saying that the magistrate , Judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere `` was received cordially by the Libyan judicial authorities . '' A senior American intelligence official said Monday night that the United States had no evidence of any connection between the TWA crash and the pursuit of suspects by French authorities in the Chad bombing . The decision to conduct more thorough comparisons with the foreign crashes does not necessarily reveal any conclusions on the part of the investigators , but it reveals some of their thinking about the crash . A steady stream of wreckage is moving from Long Island to the FBI headquarters , but none of the pieces have provided conclusive evidence to support the leading theory among law enforcement officials that the plane was destroyed by a bomb . Cantamessa said : `` Where it will wind up we do n't actually or cannot exactly say right now . We 're expecting some more results from forensic stuff that has been sent down to the laboratory . To this time , we have nothing conclusive . '' NEWPORT NEWS , Va. Illnesses , legalities , disasters and champagne . The setbacks for the USS Harry S. Truman 's christening just kept on coming , like high swells in rough seas . Saturday , literally in the aftermath of a storm , the Navy 's newest aircraft carrier is scheduled to be christened . Only at the end will organizers uncross their cramped fingers and sigh . First , the illness . Margaret Truman Daniel , Truman 's daughter , was chosen the ship 's sponsor normally a task that would grant her the honor of actually christening the ship . But Daniel is recuperating from an infection and wo n't be able to attend . `` It 's not quite healed yet , '' she said in a telephone interview from her home in New York City . Instead , the christening honors belong to Drucie S. Horton , a longtime friend of Daniel whose father , John Snyder , was Truman 's secretary of the Treasury . Then there was the business about the champagne . In a tradition that dates to Viking human sacrifices , ships have been sent to sea with the ceremonial spillage of some type of precious fluid . These days , blood has given way to champagne . And as Truman hailed from Missouri , organizers suggested a nice Missouri bubbly might do the trick . So about a month ago , Ruth Flynn , the marketing director at the Mount Pleasant Winery in Augusta , Mo. , submitted a couple of bottles of their Genesis Champagne for consideration . But like an offended oenophile , Newport News Shipbuilding rejected the offer the bottles would not break on impact . `` Rather than give up , we decided to check our supply , '' Flynn said . `` We picked out a very cheap bottle . We put our champagne in it , labeled it , and asked how many bottles they wanted . '' These bottles , much thinner and lighter , passed muster . So , at the appointed time , Drucie Horton will hurl a bottle of Genesis Champagne against the carrier . The bottle , upon impact , should explode in a spray of glass and lightly rose colored sparkling wine . Those with the appropriate nose for this sort of thing might catch the aroma of yeast , raspberries , oranges and molasses . However , another reversal came on Thursday , when President Clinton canceled plans to attend the christening after White House and campaign lawyers warned it would be considered a political event . `` The assumption was that the commander in chief could christen one of his own boats , '' White House spokesman Mike McCurry told reporters . McCurry said that according to Clinton 's legal advisers , everything a president does between his nomination and Election Day is considered political except events connected to national security or natural disasters . And speaking of disasters : Hurricane Fran struck southeast Virginia Friday morning and by noon Newport News was without power . Bunny Hodges , a spokeswoman at Newport News Shipbuilding , was operating by flashlight , and power company officials were speculating that electricity in some areas would not be restored for days . Initial plans called for about 16,000 people to attend the event . The president 's absence and the storm 's heavy hand might keep the number down . In any event , organizers are breathing a little easier at least the Secret Service , and all the stringent security details it brings along , will be staying away . So when is an airplane too old ? Some of the nation 's biggest airlines fly planes that are more than 25 years old . And the military operates B-52 aircraft that are more than 40 years old , flown by pilots who are younger than the planes . Valujet Airlines , whose DC-9 jet crashed near Miami on Saturday , killing 109 people on board , operates a fleet of DC-9 jets whose average age is about 26 years , making its fleet the oldest for any large airline in the United States . But aviation safety experts said that a plane 's age , in and of itself , does not necessarily make it any less safe than a younger plane . Just as with cars , other important considerations are how well a jet has been maintained and how many times it changed owners . The 27-year-old Valujet plane that crashed had only one previous owner , Delta Air Lines , the nation 's third largest airline . `` If you are going to buy something used , that 's a pretty good pedigree , '' said David Stamey , vice president of Avitas , an aviation consulting firm that appraises and inspects aircraft . The age of Valujet 's DC-9 fleet is not unusual among major airlines that use the planes . Continental , Northwest , Trans World Airlines and USAir all operate dozens of DC-9s with an average age of 24 to 26 years . Many of those aircraft will be much older by the time they are retired . Northwest Airlines , for example , plans to invest $ 6 million per plane to upgrade more than 100 of its DC-9s to comply with federal noise regulations and keep them flying beyond the year 2000 . There are many reasons why airlines like Northwest are deciding to extend the life of many planes in their fleets rather than buy new ones . New aircraft cost tens of millions of dollars , and many airlines have decided it is more economical to refurbish their old planes than buy new ones , even though older aircraft face more rigorous , and therefore more costly , requirements for maintenance and replacing parts . Many fledgling airlines , in fact , have fleets that are much younger , on average , than some of the more established carriers . Many regulations intended to guard specifically against the effects of aging were put into place after an accident involving an Aloha Airlines Boeing 737 , when the passenger cabin ripped open in 1988 because of corrosion and metal fatigue , sweeping a flight attendant to her death . After the industry was deregulated in 1978 , many airlines started expanding rapidly and ordered new aircraft . And in the 1980s , airlines generally believed that growth would lead to financial success . But in the early 1990s , the airlines lost billions of dollars , in part because of traffic declines and rising fuel costs as a result of the war in the Persian Gulf . Since then , airlines have focused more on reducing overhead costs , weighing decisions to buy new aircraft more carefully than ever before . To maintain low costs , many start-up airlines like Valujet have not only bought used aircraft but also paid companies that do heavy aircraft maintenance to work on their jets . William D. Waldock , a professor of aeronautical science and director of the aviation safety resource center at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott , Ariz. , said he was troubled by the trend . `` For the airline , it is cheaper , '' he said . `` But the people that you 've got working on airplanes for maintenance subcontractors do n't have the same level of motivation and feeling of ownership and involvement as an employee of an airline would have toward his company 's aircraft . '' The Federal Aviation Administration said Sunday that it would closely scrutinize in coming weeks the six firms that do maintenance work for Valujet . The Valujet DC-9 that crashed Saturday had been forced to return to airports seven times in the last two years for a variety of safety problems , including a faulty heat exchanger , a loss of oil because of a loose oil cap and a malfunctioning hydraulic pump . It also made an emergency landing in Memphis a year ago when the plane lost cabin pressure . It also received an FAA maintenance inspection last Tuesday , in which inspectors checked , among other things , fluids and tire treads and other major equipment for signs of fatigue or cracks . FAA records show that before the crash Saturday , Valujet had 12 minor problems or more serious accidents since it started flying in 1993 , including an inoperative microphone that rendered the pilots unable to communicate with air traffic controllers and a fire in an engine on a runway in Atlanta last year that injured several people on board . `` Conditions were very bad , '' the official said . `` Visibility was poor about 1,000 meters ( 3,300 feet ) which is very bad . `` Vertical visibility was 300 feet , which is extremely bad . Coupled with pouring rain it 's extremely bad conditions , '' he said . Brown 's trip came amid mounting concern that six months of peace in the region could soon come unraveled without a massive inflow of public and private investment to help rebuild Bosnia and Croatia . `` Ron 's mission was one of renewal , of trying to help rebuild Bosnia-Herzegovina , '' said David Theis , a spokesman at the World Bank . The international development organization estimates it will cost $ 5.1 billion over the next four years to rebuild Bosnia 's economic and social foundations . The hope , Theis said , is that the sort of private investment Brown 's mission was meant to encourage will twin with public funds to help people get off the battlefields and back to work across the war-torn region . `` I would n't call Bosnia a safe bet for business investment , but I would n't call it high-risk either , '' said Theis . As Wednesday 's crash underscored , Theis said , `` Nothing is certain there . '' For Americans , Wednesday 's crash was an ugly reminder of the unpredictable perils of peacemaking in Bosnia , where more American civilians have now died than soldiers . Despite the evident dangers of deploying 20,000 American troops as part of an overall NATO peacekeeping mission in Bosnia , there have been just two military fatalities one caused by a land mine and the other by a vehicle accident since the U.S. troops went to Bosnia three months ago . As diplomats struggled to end the war last August , Assistant Secretary of State Robert Frasure , Deputy Assistant Defense Secretary Joseph Kruzel and Air Force Col . S. Nelson Drew were killed when the armored personnel carrier in which they were riding crashed and burned while en route to Sarajevo over the treacherous Mount Igman road . For the people of the Balkans , Wednesday 's plane crash was yet another painful chapter in a long series of tribulations stemming from three and a half years of war . Brown 's visit had been a symptom of peace and a symbol of hope that the region might rise from the ashes of destruction . Even the Dubrovnik airport , shelled to ruin by Bosnian Serbs , had only recently been rebuilt , and Brown 's visit to the medieval port town raised hopes for a return of the tourists that in peacetime account for 80 percent of the region 's economic activity . `` It was just so encouraging to see American businessmen , and especially a delegation headed by Ron Brown , go to Dubrovnik , '' said Nazli P. Weiss , executive vice president of the Rebuild Dubrovnik Fund in Washington . `` The idea was to sort of jump-start tourism , '' she said . `` This is really a very big disappointment and tragedy . '' New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger , Jr. , sent a letter to staffers saying that Times reporter Nathaniel Nash had been on board Brown 's aircraft and was killed . The New York Times said in an editorial on Minday , July 15 : The National Transportation Safety Board has put most of the blame for the October 1994 crash of an American Eagle turboprop on the French manufacturer and French aviation officials . According to the board , the French failed to share developing knowledge of the unusual effects of freezing rain and drizzle on the airliner at low altitudes . Stuck in a holding pattern near Chicago , the plane went down in an Indiana bean field , killing all 68 people aboard , after ice on its its wings forced it to spin violently out of control . The French , in turn , have sought to blame the American pilots , but the board for the most part exonerated the crew while chiding the Federal Aviation Administration for inadequately prodding the French . The board has yet to publish its full report so that its reasoning can be tested , but its conclusions add to the FAA 's mounting burdens , which include heavy criticism for the agency 's lax supervision of Valujet Airlines . The United States dominates the manufacture of the world 's jet fleets , but airplanes like the ATR-72 the choice of short-run regional airlines are mostly produced abroad . Since the ATR was first certified for American domestic flights a decade ago , evidence has mounted that freezing rain and drizzle constitute a danger for certain aircraft . The board now says the time has come for the FAA to set stricter rules for flying under those conditions . The accident prompted two important corrections . The planes have larger wing covers to prevent ice accumulation and pilots operate under flight rules that minimize protracted holding patterns . But the FAA will need to go further . It ought to take a stronger role in evaluating the aircraft foreign makers vouch for and should follow the safety board 's advice to set higher standards for coping with icing . What Do You See ? Just look at the two police sketches , released a week apart , of the suspect in the Central Park beating case last month . Neither sketch one suggested a heavy-set , stern-faced man , while the other showed a man of more average build looked like the lanky man with slight features , John Royster , who was finally arrested . `` In an instant , any of us can see anything , '' said Kenneth Quinn , an aviation attorney and former chief counsel of the FAA . To a degree , the media may be inspired to instant pronouncements by government officials . Pena has made a practice of showing up at crash sites and declaring within hours that the airline is safe . Although he did n't go to the TWA crash scene last week , he has helped create an expectation despite the mantra of investigators that they want the right answer , not a quick answer that something definitive can be said soon after a crash . But as some crashes have shown , the appetite for a quick answer cannot always be sated . In the case of TWA Flight 800 , there is an obvious difficulty in figuring out if a bomb was aboard : Not only the black boxes that record cockpit conversations and flight data but great chunks of the fuselage had not been recovered three days after the crash . They include the passenger and cargo areas most likely to have held any bomb , and therefore most likely to show direct evidence of one . And in the more general run of accidents , so many technological aircraft problems have been solved that crashes now typically result from human error or the kind of subtle problems that never completely go away . `` It 's like having an ant bed in your back yard , '' said William Waldock , president of System Safety Inc. , an aviation-safety consulting firm in Prescott , Ariz. . `` You can put a hose on them , but you do n't get rid of them . You just move them . '' The NTSB has not yet solved the mystery of the USAir 737 crash in Pittsburgh in September 1994 that killed all 132 on board . That accident was similar to another still unsolved crash , of a United Airlines 737 near Colorado Springs in 1991 . And since the shock over these crashes settled , there has been little public clamoring for preventive measures . The safety board , for example , recommended to the FAA last year that airlines be required to install more advanced flight-data recorders on all 737s by January 1996 . That way , a mishap during some future flight could be analyzed for clues that might finally solve the Pittsburgh and Colorado Springs crashes , and prevent others like them . The FAA initially balked at the recommendation , citing the cost to the industry of such a modification . The agency then proposed a more relaxed deadline for the change , within about four years . When causes of crashes are eventually determined , aviation experts say they are often handled too narrowly . A crash , for example , may be blamed on pilot error , but that does little to focus attention on the effectiveness of the training they received and whether the cockpit should be modified to help prevent a similar accident . The Last Link Crashes result from a chain of events , and pulling a link from the chain early on can prevent the accident from occurring . Aviation experts worry that there is often too much focus on the last link . `` The important thing for air safety is , what can you do to prevent the next accident , '' said C.O. Miller , an aviation consultant and former director of aviation safety for the NTSB . Frank Shrontz , visionary : In 1989 , Shrontz had been CEO for three years and chairman for two . The economy was booming and the company was selling jetliners faster than its 165,000 employees could crank them out . The soon-to-fly 747-400 figured to solidify Boeing 's monopoly on the lucrative jumbo-jet market . The company won accolades all around ; it was in the top tier of the Fortune 500 . Inside , however , as the 747-400 suffered more teething problems than an elephant with gum disease , Shrontz was on a new mission : reinventing Boeing and the way it did business . `` We started this change when things were going well , '' Shrontz pointed out , `` and it was hard to convince some people that we needed to do it . '' First top executives , then managers , then front-line workers had to attend factory tours and special classes and make hard-won commitments to do business differently . Boeing was already more efficient than any other aerospace firm , especially among commercial producers . But those firms , weaned on cost-plus defense contracts and Cold War largesse , were not an efficient group . Executives under Shrontz preached the gospel , but the word came from him . The 777 , designed and built in the new , participatory , customer- and employee-focused style , became Boeing 's most trouble-free launch ever . Airlines responded by giving it more than 70 percent of its market segment . To Shrontz , this is his achievement : `` the start of what I think is an important cultural change , to emphasize process as well as product . '' In the end , he hopes , Boeing will turn out better jets in less time and at less cost . But at the crowning moment , the successful first flight of the new 777 in 1994 , there was Frank Shrontz , small-town guy , whipping out a small camera to snap a picture of the huge twin-engine jet lifting off the runway . The project was corporate America ; the grin was a kid from Idaho . There are some regrets . Boeing 's brief ownership of Canadian regional aircraft maker de Havilland was a small disaster . Shrontz also says he wishes he had started reinventing Boeing a little sooner . `` I would like to have done some of these cultural changes earlier . I am delighted that it 's moving forward . '' He also regrets the lost jobs , the lives changed . `` It is hard . Those are tough decisions and the results tear at you . But if we do n't do it , none of us in the company would have jobs , '' he said . `` When your military business is down by half and your commercial business is off by 30 percent , I felt we had little choice but to do what we did . '' `` We tried to modulate the impact '' of the layoffs , through an early retirement offer , retraining , spreading out the layoffs over time , instituting a hiring freeze , Shrontz said . `` It 's a lot more fun to manage when things are on the way up . '' But he does n't begrudge the pickets who 've taken his name in vain , the people who have mistaken his quiet demeanor for coldness . Shrontz said he feels `` frustration , but not bitterness . I can understand that they are looking at this thing from a different perspective . I 'm disappointed sometimes that our communication is n't better . `` We used some unfortunate terms early on , like ` shared destiny . ' People took that to mean that they would n't be leaving here unless I was leaving here , too . '' The Pentagon and U.S. Pacific Command are tight-lipped about their contingency plans for the Taiwan situation , including measures being contemplated to avoid accidental encounters between U.S. units and either China or Taiwan . But the two retired admirals warn that on-scene commanders must carve out areas in which U.S. forces will maneuver , with restrictions to avoid territorial intrusions . And they must come up with communications and identification procedures to minimize the risk of unplanned encounters with Chinese or Taiwanese military forces . Arthur and Lyons said officials from the converging three military forces need to open unofficial communications with one another to establish an ``airspace management '' plan and other understandings to minimize the chance of armed encounters . `` We will be very mindful of restricted airspace and territorial waters '' during any show-the-flag maneuver , predicted Arthur , who commanded all naval forces during the Gulf War . `` We will be very cautious in briefing our aircrews in not having a stray event , not unintentionally violating any airspace . '' Lyons said the obvious way to prevent inadvertent clashes is for the different nations , particularly Taiwan and the U.S. Navy , to carve out exclusive operating areas . `` The way you handle it is in the geographic sense , with certain areas of responsibility , '' Lyons said . `` Their ability to identify us and our ability to identify them exists , '' Arthur said of the Taiwanese military units . `` But in a high-stress , fast-paced operation , there would be concerns how well interoperability would work . '' Both admirals said U.S. forces particularly carrier-based aircraft will probably stay clear of the Taiwan Strait itself while Beijing continues its live-fire military exercises . `` I do n't think that it would be necessary nor wanted '' for carrier jets to fly inside the strait , Lyons said . `` The Taiwanese have the full capability to do that themselves . '' Although the Pentagon did dispatch the Nimitz battle group to pass through the strait while on its way to the Persian Gulf in late December , U.S. forces already near Taiwan seem to be operating in accordance with Lyons ' assessment . The cruiser USS Bunker Hill has been operating south of Taiwan monitoring the missile tests , while the Independence , three destroyers and two submarines have shifted from a point north of Taiwan to about 110 miles east of the island , military officials said . The potential hazards of an accident or unanticipated clash in the Taiwan crisis have been underscored by the escalating rhetoric between Beijing and Taipei this week . Mainland officials have said they will not rule out military force if Taiwan takes further steps toward independence , while Taipei officials say the island will retaliate if China violates its territory or waters within a 12-mile-limit . Complicating the U.S. Navy presence as the armada grows from seven to 14 ships , including at least three nuclear submarines , is the fact that the 7th Fleet has not trained or operated with Taiwan military units for more than 15 years . Connections between the U.S. fleet and mainland China naval forces are even more tenuous , since the two navies have only met in a small number of port visits , Arthur said . New York , July 18 ( Bloomberg ) All 229 people on board a Trans World Airlines jumbo jet are thought to have died when the plane crashed into the Atlantic in a ball of flames shortly after taking off last night from New York 's John F. Kennedy Airport . At least 30 bodies have so far been recovered , according to Cable News Network reports . No survivors have been found . A human survival time of eight hours in the 65 degree Fahrenheit waters has been passed , though some reports suggest a maximum survival time of 12 hours . TWA Flight 800 , bound for Paris , disappeared from radar screens around 8:40 p.m. local time . Among the passengers was a party of 16 teenagers from a Pennsylvania high school . The 25-year-old Boeing 747-100 aircraft was bound for Paris 's Charles de Gaulle Airport , Mike Kelly , TWA vice president for airport operations , said in a press conference . The plane had flown earlier yesterday from Athens , Greece , to New York . Eyewitnesses described seeing a series of explosions before the plane went down , according to news reports . `` Anything is possible , '' Kelly said in response to questions about the possibility of terrorist action . `` Security was at one of the highest levels you can have , '' and had been increased because of the Olympic Games in Atlanta , he said . The Federal Bureau of Investigations will take part in the investigation at the crash scene , which has been established as a crime site , Pete Cosgrove of the Suffolk County , New York , police commission said in a press conference . The plane was bought by TWA in 1971 , a Boeing spokesman said . Boeing produced that model of the world 's largest airliner from 1970 through 1986 . It holds about 360 passengers in three classes . `` It 's too soon to get any hard data on what happened , '' said Boeing spokesman Doug Webb . `` We will cooperate fully with any investigation . Our thoughts are with the victims ' families . '' A two-person investigation crew will be sent by Boeing to the crash site in the morning , he said . The Boeing 747 has been involved in other accidents in its almost 30-year history . It was a Pan Am 747 that went down in Lockerbie , Scotland , in December 1988 . Investigators eventually determined that a terrorist bomb , hidden in a cassette player , caused that crash that killed 270 people . Two of the jets collided in the Canary Islands in 1977 , killing 582 people in the world 's worst aircraft disaster . In 1985 , a Japan Air Lines 747 crashed into a mountain in Japan , killing 520 people . Brian Jenkins , vice chairman of the international security firm Kroll Associates , cautioned against jumping to a quick conclusion that the explosion was caused by a terrorist bomb . `` We can crank our society up to a state of paranoia which is unnecessary , '' said the Los Angles-based terrorism expert . `` Let 's get some more information before we go too far speculating . '' Jenkins said that airport security measures have improved significantly in recent years , in the wake of terrorist tragedies . `` As the result of extraordinary security measures , commercial aviation , which was once one of the most popular targets of international terrorism , was made a more difficult target . '' He said attempts to hijack or plant bombs aboard aircraft have decreased . The crash comes two months after the crash of ValuJet Inc. plane in the Florida Everglades in which all 110 people aboard were killed . That plane was a McDonnell Douglas Corp. DC-9 . Atlanta-based Valujet was grounded by the Federal Aviation Administration one month after the crash . Earlier this month , Mary Schiavo , Inspector General of Department of Transportation , the FAA 's parent agency , resigned after charging the FAA ignored its inspectors ' warnings about problems at ValueJet . The crash comes less than a year after St. Louis- based TWA emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection , the airline 's second bankruptcy filing in two years . The average age of the aircraft in the carrier 's fleet is 18 years , Kelly said . The carrier has become competitive again by paring costs and pulling out of money-losing routes . The 72-year-old carrier earlier on Wednesday reported an almost fivefold increase in second-quarter net income to $ 25.3 million , or 46 cents a share . A toll-free number has been set up for family members of people on the flight . The number is ( 800 ) 438-9892 . Federal officials investigating the crash of Trans World Airlines Flight 800 said Monday that they were making a detailed comparison of foreign air crashes caused by bombs in their search for information that could help them prove their theory that the Boeing 747 was brought down by a bomb . Although the officials said they were not ready to declare the crash a result of a criminal act , they are comparing the evidence gathered in the TWA crash to the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie , Scotland , the 1989 downing of a French airliner over Chad and a 1985 crash of an Air India airliner that was blamed on a bomb . The federal officials said they are consulting foreign investigators and examining material from those earlier crashes as a way of testing the theory that the Paris-bound 747 was bombed . Robert Francis , the vice chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board , who is heading the investigation , said : `` Certainly , I think we 've acknowledged from the beginning that there 's a possibility that this could have been an act that would be comparable to those . And we 're doing what we would do in any accident investigation and that is comparing the things that have similarities . '' For the first time Monday , officials publicly said that the catastrophic event that apparently broke the airplane in two , whether caused by an explosion or a mechanical malfunction , occurred near the front of the airplane . Joseph Cantamessa Jr. , the special agent in charge of the FBI 's New York office , said the bodies of victims sitting near the front of the plane showed more severe injuries , indicating they `` experienced the bulk of the significant event . '' Officials have said that the front part of the plane apparently separated from the rest of the plane and plunged into the Atlantic Ocean before the rest of the aircraft . Investigators said they were one piece of evidence away from declaring the crash a criminal act , but that evidence continued to elude them Monday . Divers continued pulling large pieces of wreckage from the ocean off Long Island Monday , and preliminary tests on some of them showed traces of explosives . But for those pieces , and others pulled up in previous days , more sophisticated testing at the FBI laboratory in Washington failed to confirm the early positive tests . In addition , investigators said Monday afternoon , metal that at first seemed to bear a pockmarked pattern consistent with an explosion , turned out to have been marred by having been submerged in the ocean . Officials also said that the final loud noise picked up by the airplane 's cockpit voice recorder just before it stopped working on the night of the crash would not alone provide enough evidence for investigators to determine the nature of the cataclysmic event . `` We 're all a little frustrated by not being able to find the cause of this occurrence , '' Cantamessa said . The TWA flight crashed the day after a French magistrate left Libya , where he had been investigating the 1989 bombing of a DC-10 over the Sahara Desert . All 170 people on board that plane were killed . The French Transport Ministry said shortly after the French jet went down seven years ago that information from the plane 's data recorders `` showed that the flight proceeded in a normal manner until a total interruption , which translates as an explosion in flight . '' `` The work of the crew was proceeding normally when the recording of words and electronic data abruptly stopped , '' the statement said . The data and voice recorders on the TWA flight also stopped abruptly , but American investigators said they were drawing no conclusions from that . The Associated Press reported three days after the 1989 accident that investigators had found evidence of explosives on board . The AP also reported that a plane flying the same flight had been bombed on the ground in N'Djamena , Chad , in 1984 . Reuters reported last year that France planned to try four Libyan suspects in absentia , including a brother-in-law of Col . Moammar Gadhafy , Abdallah Senoussi . The report quoted lawyers familiar with the case as saying that Libya had refused to turn over the suspects to French officials . On July 18 , the day after the TWA flight exploded en route to Paris , Reuters quoted a spokesman for the French Foreign Ministry as saying that the magistrate , Judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere `` was received cordially by the Libyan judicial authorities . '' A senior American intelligence official said Monday night that the United States had no evidence of any connection between the TWA crash and the pursuit of suspects by French authorities in the Chad bombing . The decision to conduct more thorough comparisons with the foreign crashes does not necessarily reveal any conclusions on the part of the investigators , but it reveals some of their thinking about the crash . A steady stream of wreckage is moving from Long Island to the FBI headquarters , but none of the pieces have provided conclusive evidence to support the leading theory among law enforcement officials that the plane was destroyed by a bomb . Cantamessa said : `` Where it will wind up we do n't actually or cannot exactly say right now . We 're expecting some more results from forensic stuff that has been sent down to the laboratory . To this time , we have nothing conclusive . '' Over the past decade , incidents involving hazardous cargo aboard airplanes have increased nearly seven-fold , federal Department of Transportation records show . There were 120 occurrences in 1986 and 811 in 1995 . During that decade , there were 4,029 incidents and 334 injuries . That growth is prompting some industry analysts and pilots to call for a ban on hazardous material aboard passenger aircraft . And as investigators try to determine whether hazardous material contributed to the crash of ValuJet flight 592 , the pilot 's mother is asking for a special panel to determine why flight crews are sometimes unaware of such cargo . The consequences of hazardous material problems can be disastrous . Among the worst : Baggage handlers in Greensboro , N.C. , discovered a fire as well as an illegal shipment of tear gas , volatile liquid dichloromethanecq , lamp oil , witch hazel and matches in the cargo hold of a USAir DC-9 just after touch down . An American Airlines DC-9 made an emergency landing in Nashville , Tenn. , forcing 126 passengers and crew to evacuate after chemicals illegally shipped from Austin , Texas , started a fire in the cargo hold . Three crewmen aboard a Pan Am Boeing 707 became disoriented by fumes from hazardous cargo , causing them to crash and die at Boston 's Logan Airport . The hazardous cargo aboard the ValuJet DC-9 that crashed in the Everglades on May 11 , killing 110 people , were 119 oxygen generators . Heavy insulation renders them harmless when used for emergency oxygen masks . But when improperly stowed in a cargo hold they can generate more heat than volcanic steam and have been known to cause at least one fire that demolished an American Trans Air DC-10 a decade ago . Increased flights and heightened vigilancemay account for the rise in problems detected with hazardous material , acknowledged transportation department spokeswoman Patricia Klinger . Former FAA hazardous materials coordinator , Jerry Pace , attributes the mushrooming of such incidents aboard airplanes to a combination of illicit and increased shipments , as well as increased vigilance . One advocate for increased scrutiny of hazardous materials on passenger aircraft is American Airlines Capt. Larry Bell . He knew Candalyn Kubeck , the ValuJet flight 's pilot , for 18 years . They took flying lessons at Palomar Airport in San Diego and earned their pilot 's licenses within four days of each other . `` Elimination of hazardous material in general is a good idea , '' Bell said . `` The traveling public does not know what is being carried in the cargo compartments . It 's a potential safety problem that needs to be addressed . If a small amount of hazardous cargo is approved , what constitutes too much ? It 's debatable whether it should be allowed at all . '' Industry analyst and former FAA inspector Michael Hynes agrees . Most hazardous material can be shipped more safely by truck , he said . `` Unless there 's a sense of urgency , why are you even shipping it by air ? '' Hynes wondered . `` The aggravation to the public by keeping it off the airplane I do n't think will be particularly great . '' But Frank Black and Tim Neale of the Air Transport Association , a trade association for the major airlines , maintain that outlawing hazardous materials would only lead to smuggling . `` If tomorrow there is a ban on all these things , people who need to get something in a hurry are going to put it in a box and say it 's socks when it 's whatever , '' Neale said . Marilyn Chamberlin , pilot Kubeck 's mother , wants to convene a special panel of airline pilots and Federal Aviation Administration officials to explore among other issues `` an industry-wide weakness '' of failure to notify pilots and crew when hazardous materials are stowed aboard the aircraft . Knowledge of what 's on board and where it is located can help a pilot make emergency decisions when minutes mean the difference between a safe landing and disaster , she said . `` If anything comes out of this horrible tragedy , it 's tightened oversight , '' Chamberlin said . `` Being the type of mother I am , I ca n't just say , `Okay , if she 's gone , she 's gone . ' I just ca n't sit back . '' The Department of Transportation devised extensive rules governing what can be shipped by air , how to package hazardous cargo , and how to notify the pilot and crew of its existence and location on board the aircraft . But the rules are only as good as the people who follow them , Chamberlin noted . It 's too soon to tell how the transportation department will come down on the issue . DOT spokeswoman Klinger said department officials will review comments from the public and industry before considering such a sweeping change . However , last week the department acted with uncharacteristic swiftness in banning oxygen generators as cargo aboard passenger planes in the wake of the ValuJet crash . WASHINGTON A mission of hope and renewal for the tortured Balkans exploded into an American tragedy Wednesday when the plane carrying Commerce Secretary Ronald H. Brown crashed in stormy weather near the Croatian coast . The Air Force plane carrying Brown and 32 other passengers and crew crashed into a cloud-shrouded mountain two miles shy of the Dubrovnik airport . The State Department said Brown is presumed dead . Spokesman Glyn Davies said late Wednesday that U.S. government officials had contacted the families of all passengers on the planes , but he did not release the names of those on board . `` We 've decided that we want to give the families one night to deal with this , '' Davies told reporters . Brown 's plane , the military equivalent of a Boeing 737 jetliner , left the town of Tuzla , site of U.S. military headquarters in Bosnia , Wednesday morning . It was following a radio beacon toward a runway pelted by wind-driven rain when it crashed a half-hour after takeoff . U.S. military search and rescue teams struggled into the night to reach the crash site , amid unconfirmed reports that Croatian officials had found at least four bodies and one survivor . `` We have no confirmed reports of either fatalities or survivors , '' Lt . Gen . Howell Estes stressed during a Pentagon briefing . `` We can only hope that the reports of survivors are true and that more are found . '' President Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton visited Brown 's wife , Alma , before the president spoke to about 700 Commerce Department employees , many of whom were in tears . `` We do not know for sure what happened , '' Clinton said , apparently not wanting to rule out a possible miracle on the craggy Adriatic coastline . Clinton used the past tense and spoke in solemn tones , however , about Brown and his staff , praising them for taking a chance to `` help the peace take hold in the Balkans . '' `` I am very grateful for their lives and their service , '' Clinton said . `` I hope all Americans today will be grateful for what all the people who were on that plane did ...out of a sense of what they could do to help America bring peace . '' Brown , 54 , was in the Balkans leading a delegation of about a dozen American corporate executives investigating potential business opportunities in the war-torn region . The plane he was on also carried 26 other passengers and 6 crew members , Estes said . By late Wednesday , there were more questions than answers about what caused the crash . The Pentagon ruled out hostile fire as a possible cause there 's been no fighting in the area in months and Estes said investigators would leave Washington Wednesday night en route to the accident site . `` There is no evidence of any hostile fire in the area , there is no evidence of any kind of an explosion of any type on the aircraft , '' Estes said . Asked why the aircraft was approaching the airport over a half-mile-high mountain instead of along a path running alongside the coast , Estes said , `` I have n't a clue why they ended up here . '' Weather , however , might have been a factor , an official at the airport meteorological service in the Croatian capital of Zagreb told the Reuters news agency . An earlier , smaller version of the plane , the ATR-42 , had shown similar `` roll anomalies '' on several occasions in ice , notably in December 1986 , near Detroit . Based on that incident and others , the plane 's manufacturer , then called Avions Transport Regionale , sent out a brochure to warn pilots about ice . But it did not say that an ice buildup could make an aileron pop up , leading to a sudden roll . The board concluded on Tuesday that the brochure `` was misleading and minimized the known catastrophic potential of ATR operations in freezing rain . '' And the FAA , the board said , lacked the ability to track incidents in a timely way and thus missed the opportunity to spot the severity of the problem . James Hall , the board chairman , noted that ATR had also made the cause of the accident easy to find , because it had equipped the plane with a flight data recorder that captured more than 100 kinds of data . In contrast , the board is still struggling with two Boeing 737 crashes because the `` black boxes '' on that plane captured only a handful of kinds of data . Alain Brodin , the president of AIR Marketing , which markets the ATR aircraft in the United States , said it was `` rather bizarre '' to call the brochure misleading , because it warned pilots not to operate in ice . In a statement , the manufacturer said that the plane had been operating `` well outside the certification envelope , '' or the conditions in which it was proved safe to fly . The company passed on all the information it had , the statement said , and `` based on the knowledge available in the industry before the Roselawn accident , the extreme icing scenario that led to the ATR-72 accident could not have been predicted from any of the previous ATR-42 incidents . '' The French government 's representative to the inquiry , Yves Lemercier , of the Bureau Enquetes-Accidents said the problem was that the aircraft was put in a holding pattern `` right in the freezing level . '' The flight , he said , should have taken 45 minutes but waited 42 minutes on the ground in Indianapolis , flew for 20 minutes , and was in the holding pattern for more than half an hour , until it crashed . `` I cannot understand it , '' he said . In its response , the French government questioned why the plane was put in a holding pattern , why the captain chose that time for a five-minute trip to the lavatory , why the pilots were chatting casually while in the holding pattern , and why they waited until an anti-ice alarm chimed a second time before turning on some of the anti-ice devices . At the meeting , the board said that turning on the anti-ice system late made no difference , because the devices did not cover the area where the ridge had built up . The company also said the pilots should not have been holding with the flaps down . Aviation experts said they were doing so because air traffic controllers had told them to fly at 175 knots , just above the level at which the plane will fall out of the sky without flaps . When the pilots were told to descend , the plane speeded up , so they retracted the flaps , causing the plane to change its angle relative to the wind , a change that magnified the effect of the ice ridge . But the board concluded that nothing prohibited the use of the flaps . Before the accident , the FAA had ordered small metal flaps installed on ATR-42s to divert air in a way that would prevent ice buildup ; since the accident , the ATRs have been fitted with expanded anti-ice gear and instructed not to hold in icing conditions . The FAA also undertook a major study of all turboprop aircraft and their vulnerability to ice . NEW YORK One week after TWA Flight 800 exploded over the Atlantic Ocean , federal investigators are growing more convinced that the jumbo jet was downed by a terrorist bomb . Direct evidence is still inconclusive , but one source familiar with the investigation said Wednesday : `` We just cannot envision any other event that gives us the same scenario . '' This tentative conclusion was also presented on Capitol Hill Wednesday , as officials from the FBI and the National Transportation Safety Board briefed lawmakers on the disaster . Officials say the growing suspicion stems from several factors , including the safety record of the 747 and the lack of a distress call from the crew . But some even more compelling reasons are new including physical evidence of aircraft fragments and a second-by-second analysis of air-traffic controllers ' radar tapes . `` It appears more and more likely that it is an onboard explosion , '' said one official who attended the congressional briefings . `` They dismissed some of the other theories , '' such as a missile fired from a boat or a catastrophic mechanical failure . President Clinton was briefed Wednesday in the White House by all the federal agencies involved in the investigation . In an attempt to avoid the kind of situation that occurred Tuesday night when New York Gov. George Pataki said more bodies had been discovered only to have investigators disavow that assertion Pataki agreed to help set up a direct communications link between the families and the Navy ships searching the ocean floor for more bodies and debris . Many relatives were so outraged by the inaccurate information that they held a late-night news conference to criticize Pataki . The governor met with frustrated relatives at the Ramada Inn Wednesday in an attempt to allay their anger over the conflicting information of the night before . The new communications link will allow the relatives to be informed the moment more bodies have been recovered , without having to wait for the nightly news briefings . Divers recovered three more bodies Wednesday , bringing the total to 113 , nearly half of the 230 people who were killed . Robert Bontempi of the Suffolk County Medical Examiner 's office said 95 of those bodies have been identified . There are 12 tentative identifications . Ninety-four families have been notified and 72 bodies have been returned to families . But Bontempi said 19 of the victims ' families have not provided any information such as dental records , photos or fingerprints that would help in the identification process . Pieces of an oxygen generator were found Sunday embedded in a spare tire being carried as freight on ValuJet Flight 592 , providing strong evidence that a fire or explosion in the forward cargo hold caused the plane to crash . Investigators also found first evidence of fire in the passenger cabin . The revelation about the oxygen generators by National Transportation Safety Board investigators came just four days after ValuJet 's president , Lewis Jordan , said a document prepared by a ValuJet contractor showed the canisters , which were being carried as freight , were empty . ValuJet is not authorized to carry hazardous materials such as the chemicals stored in the full generators , which provide oxygen to emergency masks , as freight . The canisters can heat up to 430 degrees and , when installed in a plane , must be covered with special insulation . NTSB investigator Greg Feith said Flight 592 carried 136 of the oxygen-generating canisters as cargo , more than double the amount previously believed . Sunday 's discoveries raise serious questions about whether the canisters were , in fact , empty . Among the items found embedded in the spare tire , investigators said , were end caps from a canister , a firing mechanism and pieces of a wrecked canister . The tire also showed signs of burning . The crew of Flight 592 reported smoke in the cockpit shortly before the DC-9 plunged into the Everglades on May 11 , killing all 110 aboard . Among the debris analyzed Sunday was a 6-inch piece of railing used for anchoring passenger seats that had heavy sooting patterns . In addition , analysis of the tire and pieces of two canisters indicate fire was present in the forward cargo hold . The canisters , Feith said , also showed signs of trauma . `` They did show evidence of stress in that they were bent and twisted , '' he said . `` To what extent they distributed or caused it , there 's no way to tell at this time . '' The canisters originally were removed two or three months ago from a ValuJet MD-80 aircraft because they had exceeded their recommended life span . The Washington Post reported in Monday 's editions that a clerk for Sabre Tech , a ValuJet contractor , listed the canisters as `` empty '' on a shipping manifest . Because the clerk saw green tags indicating they had been taken out of service , `` in his mind , he believed they may have been empty , '' said Kenneth P. Quinn , a Sabre Tech spokesman . Quinn , however , emphasized that Sabre Tech returned the canisters to ValuJet and had no way of knowing they would be put on a plane . ValuJet , he told the Post , `` made the decision to put them on the plane . '' ValuJet and Sabre Tech are already in a legal battle over who is responsible . Even after the expiration date , full canisters contain hazardous chemicals that , when activated by pin triggers , heat up and produce oxygen . Jordan , in an interview on ABC Sunday , acknowledged he could not be sure the canisters were empty , but pleaded with travelers to wait until the end of the federal investigation before drawing any conclusions about ValuJet 's safety . `` We need a little help in stopping the rush to judgment , '' Jordan said . Meanwhile , the Federal Aviation Administration came under new criticism Sunday for failing to respond aggressively enough to a study prepared earlier this year showing that ValuJet had an accident rate 14 times higher than major carriers even before the Florida crash . A low-cost airline started in 1993 , ValuJet flies the oldest fleet in the industry and has been under FAA scrutiny over its maintenance practices . `` I 've gone over that report , and I have to tell you the safety record of ValuJet does bring into mind several key questions , '' said Senate Majority Whip Trent Lott , Republican of Mississippi , who is a leading candidate to replace Bob Dole in the Senate 's top leadership position . Lott , who is on the Senate 's aviation subcommittee , said on NBC 's `` Meet The Press '' that he worries the FAA erred in not putting ValuJet under more stringent review after learning of its comparatively high accident rate . FAA administrator David Hinson , however , defended the agency and said he believes ValuJet is a safe choice for passengers . He said the FAA moved quickly to investigate ValuJet after the earlier incidents , and extracted promises from the company to upgrade maintenance procedures and slow its rate of growth . `` We do n't know what caused this accident , '' Hinson said . `` I 'm satisfied the airline is safe and our people are doing a good job . '' Last week , Jordan emphasized that no previous accident involving ValuJet had caused a fatality , and many of them were comparatively minor . He has called ValuJet 's safety record good and promised to cooperate with the federal government fully in determining the cause of the crash of Flight 592 . The government is continuing its plane-by-plane safety review of the airline . In the Everglades , where recovery workers are still trying to locate the cockpit voice recorder , crews prepared to use ground-penetrating radar to map out the crash site and pinpoint wreckage buried under the muck . The search will focus on the canisters and the voice recorder that may contain the pilots ' final minutes of conversation , Feith said . NTSB vice chairman Robert Francis said on CNN that `` there are lots of other things that can cause fires on airplanes , '' but that oxygen generators are `` high on the list in terms of what we are interested in finding and looking '' at . Search crews also hope to find a circuit-breaker panel located behind the captain 's seat . Problems with that panel delayed the plane 's Miami-bound flight out of Atlanta earlier on the day of the crash . The experimental low-level radar , which has been used to locate buried dinosaur bones and Egyptian tombs , has already located several objects buried in the muck , including part of a wing . Feith said an independent contractor would be hired by week 's end to bring up the larger parts . During the weekend more of the crew 's possessions , parts of the tail section , insulation , ceiling material and a metal chair track that showed evidence of soot damage were recovered . Workers have so far recovered less than 10 percent of the craft . `` Is that pyrotechnics in the sky ? '' someone on the radio asked Master Sgt. D.M. Richardson . He was in the cockpit of an Air National Guard helicopter on a practice search-and-rescue mission off Long Island when the practice ended and the grim reality began . For the orange flash was not a fireworks display but a Trans World Airlines 747 crashing in flames in the Atlantic Ocean a few miles from Richardson 's home base in Westhampton Beach , N.Y. . A long moment later , Richardson 's chopper was circling over the debris , the smoke and the ocean on fire . `` We saw this ball of fire coming down out of the sky , '' said Richardson , the helicopter 's flight engineer . `` It was a ball of fire with black smoke , and it was descending . '' The chopper had been practicing search patterns and rescue maneuvers with a C-130 Hercules , a military cargo plane . The C-130 's pilot , Col. Bill Stratemeier , banked and turned to where the passenger plane had gone down . `` We 're in the rescue business , '' he said . He and his crew were `` looking for signs of life . '' What they saw , he said , was flaming wreckage `` about the size of a football field '' and 15 to 20 bodies in the water . He also said he saw aircraft rescue slides floating in the water . The explosions rocked the quiet summer evening on eastern Long Island and the orange fireball was confusing it was as if the sunset was happening all over again , in fast-forward . On backyard decks with binoculars , in boats with fishing poles , in crowded bars with cool drinks in their hands , people watched and wondered and worried . Like Victor S. Fehner , rocking on the water in his 17-foot runabout , some thought it was a small plane ditching into the water . But the explosions were too loud , the plumes of smoke too big , to have come from a single-engine plane . And then all there was was a cloud over the ocean , and flaming wreckage . `` It looked like the wing came off , said Fehner , a 47-year-old cable splicer . `` You could see two balls of flame , then everything disappeared . '' Fehner figured it was a small plane with engine trouble , a two-seater , that had landed close to the beach after a frightening 8-to-10-second descent . Not until he had tied up his boat and called his son-in-law , a mechanic with the Coast Guard , did he learn the scope of the disaster he had seen : The plane was a jumbo jet bound for Paris and carrying more than 200 passengers . `` It was round , like a tropical sunset , '' said John Coyne , an area manager for the Peace Corps who saw the explosion through the sliding glass door of a condominium he had rented for the week in Westhampton , N.Y. . `` There was a column of fire all the way to the water , straight down . '' He said two explosions shook the apartment as the fireball hit the water . It was crowded in John Scott 's Raw Bar in Westhampton Beach 90 customers had been seated for dinner , and another 15 or so were at the bar . Jim Ahrens , the bartender , was looking over a customer 's shoulder and out the big bay window . `` It was this comet-like explosion in the sky , '' he said . `` We thought maybe it was fireworks . '' Richardson 's helicopter had circled back to Westhampton Beach and picked up two pararescuers . One , Sgt. Craig Johnson , in a wet suit , strapped himself to the side of the helicopter as it headed back out over the ocean . By then Richardson and the crew had put on night-vision goggles . Johnson had just finished a practice run and was on the tarmac when he saw `` a red glow in the sky . '' As they approached the stretch of ocean that was on fire , dozens of bodies had floated to the surface and away from where the plane had gone down , and were being carried away by the tide . He and Sgt. Shaun Brady began dropping light sticks used to mark bodies so the Coast Guard could collect the remains . SEATTLE It 's the phone call no one wants to get , but everyone knows might come one day . It came late Tuesday when Boeing got word that a chartered 757 aircraft crashed shortly after takeoff from the Dominican Republic . All 189 passengers are feared dead . The crash , only the second in the history of the Boeing 757 , came less than two months after an American Airlines 757 slammed into a mountain as it approached Cali , Colombia . Four people survived the Dec. 20 crash that killed 160 people . The cause has not yet been determined . After hearing the news of Alas Nacionales Flight 301 Tuesday night , members of Boeing 's Air Safety Investigation Group monitored the situation throughout the night and quickly assembled a team of safety experts to be on standby in case they were needed at the crash scene . One Boeing air safety investigator was expected to arrive Thursday in Puerto Plata to assist a team from the National Transportation Safety Board and the Dominican Republic in trying to determine why the two-engine jet crashed . More Boeing engineers will be called in if needed . When an accident occurs , government investigative agencies such as the NTSB for U.S. carriers are responsible for determining what went wrong . The NTSB usually invites the aircraft 's manufacturer , in this case Boeing , to help search for clues and to provide techical support if needed . A typical Boeing team , whose members are assigned to aircraft crashes on a rotating basis , usually includes an accident investigator , a pilot and a structures expert . Boeing investigators typically help gather evidence , conduct engineering analysis and , if needed , reconstruct major portions of the airplane from the wreckage . Until the supervising agency has completed its accident investigation and issued its final report , the company is prohibited from commenting on the investigation findings . Boeing spokesman Russ Young said the aircraft involved in Tuesday 's crash was delivered to Eastern Airlines in February 1985 and was powered by Rolls-Royce Plc RB-211 engines . The jetliner was the 31st off the assembly line , out of a total 694 produced to date , Young said . As of November 1995 , the plane had 29,000 flight hours and 13,400 takeoff/landing cycles . Plans for the Boeing 757 's development began in 1978 . It was first flown March 28 , 1982 , and it entered commercial service with Eastern Airlines on Jan . 1 , 1983 . The 757 is a twin-engine , medium - to long-range jetliner that can carry up to 239 passengers , depending on cabin configuration . According to Boeing , the worldwide fleet of 757s has carried more than 565 million passengers since entering commercial service . `` Is that pyrotechnics in the sky ? '' someone on the radio asked Master Sgt. D.M. Richardson . He was in the cockpit of an Air National Guard helicopter on a practice search-and-rescue mission off Long Island when the practice ended and the grim reality began . For the orange flash was not a fireworks display but a Trans World Airlines 747 crashing in flames in the Atlantic Ocean a few miles from Richardson 's home base in Westhampton Beach , N.Y. . A long moment later , Richardson 's chopper was circling over the debris , the smoke and the ocean on fire . `` We saw this ball of fire coming down out of the sky , '' said Richardson , the helicopter 's flight engineer . `` It was a ball of fire with black smoke , and it was descending . '' The chopper had been practicing search patterns and rescue maneuvers with a C-130 Hercules , a military cargo plane . The C-130 's pilot , Col. Bill Stratemeier , banked and turned to where the passenger plane had gone down . `` We 're in the rescue business , '' he said . He and his crew were `` looking for signs of life . '' What they saw , he said , was flaming wreckage `` about the size of a football field '' and 15 to 20 bodies in the water . He also said he saw aircraft rescue slides floating in the water . The explosions rocked the quiet summer evening on eastern Long Island and the orange fireball was confusing it was as if the sunset was happening all over again , in fast-forward . On backyard decks with binoculars , in boats with fishing poles , in crowded bars with cool drinks in their hands , people watched and wondered and worried . Like Victor S. Fehner , rocking on the water in his 17-foot runabout , some thought it was a small plane ditching into the water . But the explosions were too loud , the plumes of smoke too big , to have come from a single-engine plane . And then all there was was a cloud over the ocean , and flaming wreckage . `` It looked like the wing came off , said Fehner , a 47-year-old cable splicer . `` You could see two balls of flame , then everything disappeared . '' Fehner figured it was a small plane with engine trouble , a two-seater , that had landed close to the beach after a frightening 8-to-10-second descent . Not until he had tied up his boat and called his son-in-law , a mechanic with the Coast Guard , did he learn the scope of the disaster he had seen : The plane was a jumbo jet bound for Paris and carrying more than 200 passengers . `` It was round , like a tropical sunset , '' said John Coyne , an area manager for the Peace Corps who saw the explosion through the sliding glass door of a condominium he had rented for the week in Westhampton , N.Y. . `` There was a column of fire all the way to the water , straight down . '' He said two explosions shook the apartment as the fireball hit the water . It was crowded in John Scott 's Raw Bar in Westhampton Beach 90 customers had been seated for dinner , and another 15 or so were at the bar . Jim Ahrens , the bartender , was looking over a customer 's shoulder and out the big bay window . `` It was this comet-like explosion in the sky , '' he said . `` We thought maybe it was fireworks . '' Richardson 's helicopter had circled back to Westhampton Beach and picked up two pararescuers . One , Sgt. Craig Johnson , in a wet suit , strapped himself to the side of the helicopter as it headed back out over the ocean . By then Richardson and the crew had put on night-vision goggles . Johnson had just finished a practice run and was on the tarmac when he saw `` a red glow in the sky . '' As they approached the stretch of ocean that was on fire , dozens of bodies had floated to the surface and away from where the plane had gone down , and were being carried away by the tide . He and Sgt. Shaun Brady began dropping light sticks used to mark bodies so the Coast Guard could collect the remains . `` Is that pyrotechnics in the sky ? '' someone on the radio asked Master Sgt. D.M. Richardson . He was in the cockpit of an Air National Guard helicopter on a practice search-and-rescue mission off Long Island when the practice ended and the grim reality began . For the orange flash was not a fireworks display but a Trans World Airlines 747 crashing in flames in the Atlantic Ocean a few miles from Richardson 's home base in Westhampton Beach , N.Y. . A long moment later , Richardson 's chopper was circling over the debris , the smoke and the ocean on fire . `` We saw this ball of fire coming down out of the sky , '' said Richardson , the helicopter 's flight engineer . `` It was a ball of fire with black smoke , and it was descending . '' The chopper had been practicing search patterns and rescue maneuvers with a C-130 Hercules , a military cargo plane . The C-130 's pilot , Col. Bill Stratemeier , banked and turned to where the passenger plane had gone down . `` We 're in the rescue business , '' he said . He and his crew were `` looking for signs of life . '' What they saw , he said , was flaming wreckage `` about the size of a football field '' and 15 to 20 bodies in the water . He also said he saw aircraft rescue slides floating in the water . The explosions rocked the quiet summer evening on eastern Long Island and the orange fireball was confusing it was as if the sunset was happening all over again , in fast-forward . On backyard decks with binoculars , in boats with fishing poles , in crowded bars with cool drinks in their hands , people watched and wondered and worried . Like Victor S. Fehner , rocking on the water in his 17-foot runabout , some thought it was a small plane ditching into the water . But the explosions were too loud , the plumes of smoke too big , to have come from a single-engine plane . And then all there was was a cloud over the ocean , and flaming wreckage . `` It looked like the wing came off , said Fehner , a 47-year-old cable splicer . `` You could see two balls of flame , then everything disappeared . '' Fehner figured it was a small plane with engine trouble , a two-seater , that had landed close to the beach after a frightening 8-to-10-second descent . Not until he had tied up his boat and called his son-in-law , a mechanic with the Coast Guard , did he learn the scope of the disaster he had seen : The plane was a jumbo jet bound for Paris and carrying more than 200 passengers . `` It was round , like a tropical sunset , '' said John Coyne , an area manager for the Peace Corps who saw the explosion through the sliding glass door of a condominium he had rented for the week in Westhampton , N.Y. . `` There was a column of fire all the way to the water , straight down . '' He said two explosions shook the apartment as the fireball hit the water . It was crowded in John Scott 's Raw Bar in Westhampton Beach 90 customers had been seated for dinner , and another 15 or so were at the bar . Jim Ahrens , the bartender , was looking over a customer 's shoulder and out the big bay window . `` It was this comet-like explosion in the sky , '' he said . `` We thought maybe it was fireworks . '' Richardson 's helicopter had circled back to Westhampton Beach and picked up two pararescuers . One , Sgt. Craig Johnson , in a wet suit , strapped himself to the side of the helicopter as it headed back out over the ocean . By then Richardson and the crew had put on night-vision goggles . Johnson had just finished a practice run and was on the tarmac when he saw `` a red glow in the sky . '' As they approached the stretch of ocean that was on fire , dozens of bodies had floated to the surface and away from where the plane had gone down , and were being carried away by the tide . He and Sgt. Shaun Brady began dropping light sticks used to mark bodies so the Coast Guard could collect the remains . Authorities also believe Yousef was the mastermind of the World Trade Center bombing in February 1993 . The group said the TWA explosion was in retaliation for Yousef 's capture , ABC said . An FBI spokesman refused to comment . Investigators traveled to Athens , where the 747 spent much of Wednesday morning . The Athens airport was declared a security risk by the US Department of Transportation last March , prompting published warnings on all tickets for flights to Athens . In May , however , Transportation Secretary Federico Pena lifted the ban . Authorities are closely studying the names on the passenger list for the 747 flight from Athens to New York , to see if one might be linked to a terrorist group . CBS News reported last night that a Lebanese citizen on a terrorist watch list had sought to board the the TWA aircraft in Athens , but that neither he nor his baggage made it on the plane . The Pentagon has ruled out the possibility that the plane was hit by a missile fired from a shoulder-launcher on land , believing the jet was too far off the coast to have been within range of a missile shot from land . They are continuing to investigate the possibility , however remote , that a water-based launcher was used , sources said . A witness reported Thursday that he saw flare-like flashes in the sky before the plane exploded . But the witness , National Guard Maj. Fred Meyer , said Friday , `` There was nothing I observed that gave me any indication that the streak of light I saw was caused by a missile . I do n't know what I saw . '' TWA 's Erickson denied reports that some of the luggage on the plane may not have been X-rayed for explosives . But an aviation security expert said the airline 's difficulty in producing a complete passenger list raises questions about whether it kept proper track of the bags on board . One additional New Englander , Elaine Loffredo , 50 , an off-duty TWA employee from Glastonbury , Conn. , was added to the list of victims Friday . At the Ramada Inn at New York 's John F. Kennedy airport , family members of victims from around the world prepared to begin the process of identifying their loved ones . An estimated 110 families congregated at the hotel , where reactions ranged from anger to grief to a kind of mournful acceptance . They will not be given opportunities to see the bodies , most of which bear signs of severe disfigurement . About 75 percent of the victims were found without clothes . Family members are being asked to provide pictures of their loved ones in smiling poses , from which forensic experts will attempt to identify the corpses by their teeth . While some relatives of the victims appeared on television to express their shock and grief , others betrayed little emotion . `` It 's different from a car accident because of the numbers and the disbelief , but the feelings are the same because it 's a sudden loss . It 's just on a much bigger scale , '' said Rhoda Cataldo , a social worker from Kings Park Psychiatric Center on Long Island , describing the relatives of the victims she counseled . Investigators privately briefed the relatives . Leah Lapidus , a mental-health specialist with the Red Cross who attended the meeting , said the family members told the agents their top priority is recovering the remains of their loved ones . Only five bodies had been positively identified as of last night . New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani spent time at the hotel for a second day , continuing to press TWA for a complete passenger list . The mayor , who lost a friend in the crash , continued to berate TWA for its alleged slowness in providing information to families . Scott , 27 , is married and lives in Boston . The families of Mission Specialists Ron McNair and Ellison Onizuka still live in Houston . Lorna Onizuka is employed by the National Space Development Agency of Japan ; her daughters , Darien and Janelle , are now 20 and 26 years old . McNair 's children were the youngest of the crew 's offspring at the time of the accident . Joy is now 11 . Reggie is 13 and obsessed with basketball , according to his mother . Cheryl McNair confesses she is surprised by the level of concern people still express for her family 10 years after the accident . In her work with the Challenger Center and with a Houston foundation , strangers go out of their way to tell her how affected they were by the death of the crew . Her children do n't really remember their father , and they mercifully do n't remember being at Cape Canaveral , Fla. , the day he died . But their mother is convinced his life continues to make an impact on them . `` I caught Reggie when he was much younger counting his dad 's trophies , '' McNair said . `` And I said , ` Well , hey , what are you doing ? ' And he said , counting those trophies , because he was going to get as many as his dad . `` Ron did so much in the short amount of time he was here , '' McNair said . `` He was just excited about everything . `` I always thought he would do something extraordinary with his life , because he was that kind of person . '' Payload specialist Gregory Jarvis ' widow , Marcia Jarvis , lives in Mammoth Lakes , Calif. , and is on the national Challenger Center board . She likes her privacy and reportedly works at a local ski resort . She has not remarried . Jarvis ' father and stepmother live about 45 miles outside Cape Canaveral , where nearly every NASA rocket is launched . But Bruce Jarvis studiously avoids each launch , not because of the memory it conjures of that day 10 years ago , but because he thinks his presence is bad luck . `` I do n't watch them at all , '' he said . `` I wo n't go over there . '' He watched two of NASA 's early launches back in the days of the unmanned Delta rockets , he said , and they both exploded . He had n't seen another launch until Challenger . Maybe common sense tells Jarvis he is being superstitious , but he will not risk it . `` If it continues to work well , I 'll stay away from it , '' he said . Greg Jarvis , a Hughes Aircraft engineer on loan to NASA , was so excited about the Challenger mission that `` he was out of his mind , '' his father remembers . `` I was always proud of him , '' Jarvis recalled , adding , `` He did n't have to go up in that thing to make me proud . '' Jarvis lost his composure when trying to talk about his last conversation with his son . Ellen Jarvis took over , explaining that `` Bruce and his boys '' were not in the habit of sharing their feelings about each other . `` In his last brief conversation ... Greg said , ` I love you dad . ' And Bruce was able to reply , ` I love you son I 'm proud of you . ' `` Those were the last words that were ever said , '' Ellen Jarvis said . What Do You See ? Just look at the two police sketches , released a week apart , of the suspect in the Central Park beating case last month . Neither sketch one suggested a heavy-set , stern-faced man , while the other showed a man of more average build looked like the lanky man with slight features , John Royster , who was finally arrested . `` In an instant , any of us can see anything , '' said Kenneth Quinn , an aviation attorney and former chief counsel of the FAA . To a degree , the media may be inspired to instant pronouncements by government officials . Pena has made a practice of showing up at crash sites and declaring within hours that the airline is safe . Although he did n't go to the TWA crash scene last week , he has helped create an expectation despite the mantra of investigators that they want the right answer , not a quick answer that something definitive can be said soon after a crash . But as some crashes have shown , the appetite for a quick answer cannot always be sated . In the case of TWA Flight 800 , there is an obvious difficulty in figuring out if a bomb was aboard : Not only the black boxes that record cockpit conversations and flight data but great chunks of the fuselage had not been recovered three days after the crash . They include the passenger and cargo areas most likely to have held any bomb , and therefore most likely to show direct evidence of one . And in the more general run of accidents , so many technological aircraft problems have been solved that crashes now typically result from human error or the kind of subtle problems that never completely go away . `` It 's like having an ant bed in your back yard , '' said William Waldock , president of System Safety Inc. , an aviation-safety consulting firm in Prescott , Ariz. . `` You can put a hose on them , but you do n't get rid of them . You just move them . '' The NTSB has not yet solved the mystery of the USAir 737 crash in Pittsburgh in September 1994 that killed all 132 on board . That accident was similar to another still unsolved crash , of a United Airlines 737 near Colorado Springs in 1991 . And since the shock over these crashes settled , there has been little public clamoring for preventive measures . The safety board , for example , recommended to the FAA last year that airlines be required to install more advanced flight-data recorders on all 737s by January 1996 . That way , a mishap during some future flight could be analyzed for clues that might finally solve the Pittsburgh and Colorado Springs crashes , and prevent others like them . The FAA initially balked at the recommendation , citing the cost to the industry of such a modification . The agency then proposed a more relaxed deadline for the change , within about four years . When causes of crashes are eventually determined , aviation experts say they are often handled too narrowly . A crash , for example , may be blamed on pilot error , but that does little to focus attention on the effectiveness of the training they received and whether the cockpit should be modified to help prevent a similar accident . The Last Link Crashes result from a chain of events , and pulling a link from the chain early on can prevent the accident from occurring . Aviation experts worry that there is often too much focus on the last link . `` The important thing for air safety is , what can you do to prevent the next accident , '' said C.O. Miller , an aviation consultant and former director of aviation safety for the NTSB . WASHINGTON While Navy investigators contend three F-14 fighter crashes in recent months are not connected , service officials said Tuesday they are taking steps to prevent future accidents . After record safety years in 1994 and 1995 , the Navy 's aircraft program was shaken early this year by three F-14 crashes in just four weeks . Naval investigators have concluded that two of the crashes were caused by pilot error . A third is under investigation . `` At this point , we still do not believe there is a common thread , '' Adm . Jay L. Johnson , vice chief of naval operations , told the House National Security Committee 's procurement subcommittee . `` The causes of aircraft mishaps are varied and complex , '' Johnson said . `` Sometimes we find human error . Sometimes we find mechanical problems . Often it 's a combination of both . And sometimes , despite everyone 's best efforts , the cause remains undetermined . '' Last Friday , Navy officials said pilot error was to blame for the Jan. 29 crash of a jet fighter in Nashville which killed the pilot , his back-seat crewmember and three people on the ground . The plane 's pilot , trying to show off for his parents who were watching from the ground , attempted a steep takeoff and lost his bearings , investigators found . Investigators blame the Feb. 22 crash of an F-14 into the Persian Gulf on pilot error . Both the pilot and crewmember survived . A third crash , in which both crewmen died when their plane crashed off the California coast Feb. 18 , is under investigation . Since the crashes , the Navy has eliminated a program that allowed navigators , weapons experts and radio officers to become pilots . The program was blamed for creating pilots who because of their previous experience in the back seat were thought to have more flying expertise than they actually did . The service is installing a new cockpit light that warns pilots of impending engine failure and has put strict limits on the use of the F-14 's powerful afterburners . The Navy also is reviewing its training and ejection procedures . But Johnson said the Navy decided not to replace the F-14 's engines because the fighters are scheduled to go out of service by 2004 . `` We made the decision not to upgrade the engines because they would be too expensive to put in an aircraft which would be removed from service a few years after being re-engined , '' he told the committee . Rep. Duncan Hunter , R-Calif. , said he is concerned that money needed to improve military equipment instead is being used to boost personnel and operations accounts . `` We must ask if there are things the services could have done to improve the safety of these aircraft but were unable to do because of a lack of modernization resources , '' said Hunter , the panel 's chairman . `` Are the services in the difficult position of having to choose between combat upgrades or safety improvements ? '' he asked . Under questioning from Hunter , Marine Corps Lt . Gen . Harold W. Blot , deputy chief of staff for aviation , said lack of money led the service to curtail a safety upgrade program for AV-8B Harriers . Four of the planes that did not receive the upgrade have crashed since Jan. 1 . The Marines are refurbishing the Harriers with a new engine , radar and other features in part because the jets have one of the worst accident rates among all military aircraft . Blot said the upgrade has sliced Harrier accident rates in half . While the Marines fly 181 jump jets , Blot said 24 aircraft wo n't get the safety improvements `` because of the fiscal constraints that were placed on the program . '' Hunter said he will consider adding money to the defense budget for the Harrier improvement program . Atlanta , May 22 ( Bloomberg ) ValuJet Inc. 's senior management said the company has stabilized following the crash of one of its planes but probably wo n't return to its pre-crash schedule until at least year-end . The no-frills airline said it may have to cut more flights and wo n't resume the suspended ones for at least several weeks . ValuJet may delay delivery of new jetliners as well . `` We have stabilized our situation , '' Robert Priddy , ValuJet chairman and co-founder , said in a conference call with investors . `` We can emerge from this terrible accident as a safe , strong and profitable airline . '' Executives did n't answer questions about the full financial impact of the crash , analysts said . `` I still would n't recommend that our clients buy the stock , '' said Gruntal Co. analyst Steve Lewins . He said ValuJet implied that it will post a loss for the quarter but withheld many details . Priddy said ValuJet may take a charge against second-quarter earnings . He did n't elaborate . Shares of the low-fare airline fell 1/8 to 13 in midday trading of 2.74 million . Valujet 's share price has dropped 27 percent since May 10 , the day before Flight 592 crashed in the Florida Everglades , killing all 110 aboard . ValuJet had $ 254 million in cash at the end of April , providing it with `` considerable staying power , '' Priddy said . The company declined to specify how much cash it has used in reducing its flight schedule and beefing up maintenance checks . Calls from customers booking flights have declined , ValuJet said , but demand has n't dried up or been `` significantly impacted . '' The company has refunded $ 4.1 million to customers in the past week . Passenger traffic dropped 5 percent last week , as the airline flew 80 percent of its scheduled flights , carrying three-quarters of the customers who had bought tickets . Its $ 750 million of liability insurance should be adequate to cover costs tied to the crash , including replacing the 27-year-old DC-9 that was destroyed , the airline said . ValuJet , which owns all 51 planes in its fleet , said it will consider leasing aircraft in the future . The company had planned to boost its fleet to 54 by year-end , but now it may stall delivery of some planes . `` That indicates that capacity growth may be slowed , '' said Brian Harris , an analyst at Lehman Brothers . ValuJet last week halved the number of its daily flights to 160 from 320 to ensure that it has enough planes to fly its routes . `` A two-for-one flight margin seems reasonable right now , '' Priddy said . The company 's available seat miles , a benchmark that measures airline capacity by the number of seats available for paying customer , has been reduced by at least 40 percent . ValuJet said it expects its intense aircraft inspection program to help restore public confidence and satisfy Federal Aviation Administration regulators . `` There is no airline in the country that can guarantee they wo n't be shut down the next day by the FAA , '' Priddy said . WASHINGTON Defense Secretary William Perry suggested on Thursday that malfunctioning instruments may have caused the crash of an Air Force jet that took the life of Commerce Secretary Ron Brown and at least 32 others in Croatia on Wednesday . Returning from a trip to Egypt , Perry told reporters on his plane : `` It was a classic sort of accident that good instrumentation should be able to prevent . '' He did not specify whether he was referring to instruments on the ground or in the plane . Brown 's plane , a military version of the Boeing 737 , smashed into a mountain near Dubrovnik , the storied port on the Adriatic Sea . More than 36 hours after the crash , it was still not clear how many passengers were aboard , though it was evident there were no survivors . After rescue teams searched all Wednesday night and all day on Thursday , hampered by fog and rain , Miomir Zuzul , the Croatian ambassador to the United States , said they had discovered 33 bodies . The Pentagon used the same figure . But the plane 's manifest , issued by the State Department , listed 35 people : Brown and 11 Commerce Department aides , including Charles F. Meissner , assistant secretary for international trade , whose wife , Doris , heads the Immigration and Naturalization Service , and William Morton , deputy assistant secretary for international economic development ; Lee F. Jackson , an American working at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development ; James M. Lewek , a Central Intelligence Agency analyst ; a photographer and an interpreter from the American Embassy in Zagreb ; 12 business executives ; 6 crewmen ; and Nathaniel C. Nash , Frankfurt bureau chief of The New York Times . Unable to fully explain the discrepancy , Glyn Davies , a State Department spokesman said at an afternoon briefing : `` We 've made every effort with regards to this list to confirm its accuracy , and there are no indications that anyone listed on this manifest was not on the plane that crashed . '' Davies added on Thursday night : `` The condition of the remains is such that it 's difficult to say with certainty that there are 33 or 35 bodies there . '' The cause of the crash was no clearer on Thursday than on Wednesday , but a few more details emerged . It was established , for example , that Cilipi Airport , southeast of Dubrovnik , had no instrument landing system the sophisticated aid to bad-weather navigation that major airports use . It was a casualty of the 1991 war . But the airport has a less advanced system , a VHF Omnidirectional Radio beacon , or VOR , that should have sufficed . `` People in Dubrovnik say that it was the worst storm they have seen in a decade , '' said Peter Galbraith , the U.S. ambassador to Croatia . `` The plane was obviously not where it should have been . It seems to have flown up , not along the coast but along a valley one ridge over . '' Lt . Gen . Howell Estes , director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff , said that many aircraft had landed at Cilipi without difficulty , including several during the foul weather on Wednesday , both before and after the accident . No one disputed that the plane was almost two miles off course . Authorities also believe Yousef was the mastermind of the World Trade Center bombing in February 1993 . The group said the TWA explosion was in retaliation for Yousef 's capture , ABC said . An FBI spokesman refused to comment . Investigators traveled to Athens , where the 747 spent much of Wednesday morning . The Athens airport was declared a security risk by the US Department of Transportation last March , prompting published warnings on all tickets for flights to Athens . In May , however , Transportation Secretary Federico Pena lifted the ban . Authorities are closely studying the names on the passenger list for the 747 flight from Athens to New York , to see if one might be linked to a terrorist group . CBS News reported last night that a Lebanese citizen on a terrorist watch list had sought to board the the TWA aircraft in Athens , but that neither he nor his baggage made it on the plane . The Pentagon has ruled out the possibility that the plane was hit by a missile fired from a shoulder-launcher on land , believing the jet was too far off the coast to have been within range of a missile shot from land . They are continuing to investigate the possibility , however remote , that a water-based launcher was used , sources said . A witness reported Thursday that he saw flare-like flashes in the sky before the plane exploded . But the witness , National Guard Maj. Fred Meyer , said Friday , `` There was nothing I observed that gave me any indication that the streak of light I saw was caused by a missile . I do n't know what I saw . '' TWA 's Erickson denied reports that some of the luggage on the plane may not have been X-rayed for explosives . But an aviation security expert said the airline 's difficulty in producing a complete passenger list raises questions about whether it kept proper track of the bags on board . One additional New Englander , Elaine Loffredo , 50 , an off-duty TWA employee from Glastonbury , Conn. , was added to the list of victims Friday . At the Ramada Inn at New York 's John F. Kennedy airport , family members of victims from around the world prepared to begin the process of identifying their loved ones . An estimated 110 families congregated at the hotel , where reactions ranged from anger to grief to a kind of mournful acceptance . They will not be given opportunities to see the bodies , most of which bear signs of severe disfigurement . About 75 percent of the victims were found without clothes . Family members are being asked to provide pictures of their loved ones in smiling poses , from which forensic experts will attempt to identify the corpses by their teeth . While some relatives of the victims appeared on television to express their shock and grief , others betrayed little emotion . `` It 's different from a car accident because of the numbers and the disbelief , but the feelings are the same because it 's a sudden loss . It 's just on a much bigger scale , '' said Rhoda Cataldo , a social worker from Kings Park Psychiatric Center on Long Island , describing the relatives of the victims she counseled . Investigators privately briefed the relatives . Leah Lapidus , a mental-health specialist with the Red Cross who attended the meeting , said the family members told the agents their top priority is recovering the remains of their loved ones . Only five bodies had been positively identified as of last night . New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani spent time at the hotel for a second day , continuing to press TWA for a complete passenger list . The mayor , who lost a friend in the crash , continued to berate TWA for its alleged slowness in providing information to families . LONDON As the chief executive of Trans World Airlines ( TWA ) , Jeffrey Erickson , raced back from London to New York Thursday to take charge of the airline 's investigation into the crash of TWA Flight 800 , uncomfortable memories loomed large of the fate that befell another American pioneer of the skies . The bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie in 1987 marked the beginning of the end for America 's most famous flag-carrier . Lockerbie sapped what little consumer confidence Pan Am still commanded . Within five years the airline which invented the transatlantic clipper service was gone , its international routes and hubs auctioned off to rival airlines and the rump of the business left to wither and die in bankruptcy protection . TWA is not Pan Am . The skids were already under Pan Am long before the Lockerbie disaster as a result of its failure to react quickly enough to the deregulation of the U.S. airline market . It was also the U.S. flag-carrier without a home base . By contrast TWA has big hub operations at St . Louis and New York and ranks as the world 's thirteenth largest airline , carrying 21 million passengers last year . But there are also some startling similarities . TWA , like Pan Am , has had a torrid time since the world airline industry went into recession at the end of the 1980s . In 1991 TWA , then under the control of the U.S. corporate raider Carl Icahn , and Pan Am were both forced to sell off their routes from the U.S. to Heathrow , London to survive . TWA 's were sold to American Airlines , Pan Am 's to United Airlines . But it did neither struggling carrier much good . Within a year TWA was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection , as rising oil prices , the Gulf War and intense competition took their toll . It survived and emerged from Chapter 11 a year later only to return to bankruptcy protection in 1995 . It re-emerged following an employee buyout backed by a handful of Wall Street institutions but it remains saddled with debts of $ 1.5 billion . Since its founding in the late 1920s , TWA has been associated with some famous initiatives and famous names . It was the first to launch an innovative rail and air trip from New York to Los Angeles that slashed coast-to-coast travel time to 48 hours . In 1939 it was bought by the billionaire Howard Hughes who finally sold out in 1965 , by which time TWA was among the world 's top three carriers . Under Erickson , TWA has big plans for the airline . At present it operates only one flight to Britain from St . Louis to Gatwick but wants permission to re-introduce daily services from New York to Heathrow . By coincidence Erickson was in Britain on Wednesday night as Flight 800 took off from JFK airport , lobbying MPs on the subject . Erickson also wants to replace many of the aircraft in TWA 's 189-strong fleet , the oldest in the U.S. Wednesday 's disaster off the coast of Long Island may have put paid to that and much more besides . So when is an airplane too old ? Some of the nation 's biggest airlines fly planes that are more than 25 years old . And the military operates B-52 aircraft that are more than 40 years old , flown by pilots who are younger than the planes . Valujet Airlines , whose DC-9 jet crashed near Miami on Saturday , killing 109 people on board , operates a fleet of DC-9 jets whose average age is about 26 years , making its fleet the oldest for any large airline in the United States . But aviation safety experts said that a plane 's age , in and of itself , does not necessarily make it any less safe than a younger plane . Just as with cars , other important considerations are how well a jet has been maintained and how many times it changed owners . The 27-year-old Valujet plane that crashed had only one previous owner , Delta Air Lines , the nation 's third largest airline . `` If you are going to buy something used , that 's a pretty good pedigree , '' said David Stamey , vice president of Avitas , an aviation consulting firm that appraises and inspects aircraft . The age of Valujet 's DC-9 fleet is not unusual among major airlines that use the planes . Continental , Northwest , Trans World Airlines and USAir all operate dozens of DC-9s with an average age of 24 to 26 years . Many of those aircraft will be much older by the time they are retired . Northwest Airlines , for example , plans to invest $ 6 million per plane to upgrade more than 100 of its DC-9s to comply with federal noise regulations and keep them flying beyond the year 2000 . There are many reasons why airlines like Northwest are deciding to extend the life of many planes in their fleets rather than buy new ones . New aircraft cost tens of millions of dollars , and many airlines have decided it is more economical to refurbish their old planes than buy new ones , even though older aircraft face more rigorous , and therefore more costly , requirements for maintenance and replacing parts . Many fledgling airlines , in fact , have fleets that are much younger , on average , than some of the more established carriers . Many regulations intended to guard specifically against the effects of aging were put into place after an accident involving an Aloha Airlines Boeing 737 , when the passenger cabin ripped open in 1988 because of corrosion and metal fatigue , sweeping a flight attendant to her death . After the industry was deregulated in 1978 , many airlines started expanding rapidly and ordered new aircraft . And in the 1980s , airlines generally believed that growth would lead to financial success . But in the early 1990s , the airlines lost billions of dollars , in part because of traffic declines and rising fuel costs as a result of the war in the Persian Gulf . Since then , airlines have focused more on reducing overhead costs , weighing decisions to buy new aircraft more carefully than ever before . To maintain low costs , many start-up airlines like Valujet have not only bought used aircraft but also paid companies that do heavy aircraft maintenance to work on their jets . William D. Waldock , a professor of aeronautical science and director of the aviation safety resource center at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott , Ariz. , said he was troubled by the trend . `` For the airline , it is cheaper , '' he said . `` But the people that you 've got working on airplanes for maintenance subcontractors do n't have the same level of motivation and feeling of ownership and involvement as an employee of an airline would have toward his company 's aircraft . '' The Federal Aviation Administration said Sunday that it would closely scrutinize in coming weeks the six firms that do maintenance work for Valujet . The Valujet DC-9 that crashed Saturday had been forced to return to airports seven times in the last two years for a variety of safety problems , including a faulty heat exchanger , a loss of oil because of a loose oil cap and a malfunctioning hydraulic pump . It also made an emergency landing in Memphis a year ago when the plane lost cabin pressure . It also received an FAA maintenance inspection last Tuesday , in which inspectors checked , among other things , fluids and tire treads and other major equipment for signs of fatigue or cracks . FAA records show that before the crash Saturday , Valujet had 12 minor problems or more serious accidents since it started flying in 1993 , including an inoperative microphone that rendered the pilots unable to communicate with air traffic controllers and a fire in an engine on a runway in Atlanta last year that injured several people on board . Its loss last year narrowed to $ 227.5 million -- including charges of $ 155.8 million -- from a loss of $ 435.8 million in 1994 . Revenue fell 2.6 percent to $ 3.32 billion from $ 3.41 billion , reflecting planned cuts in domestic and international capacity . TWA ended 1995 with $ 286.8 million cash , more than twice as much as the $ 121.3 million it had a year earlier . That cash gives TWA room to make quick upgrades . One project in the works : a $ 10 million automation of back-office accounting operations and new inventory control systems at its Kansas City , Missouri , maintenance base . `` We 're trying to catch up to where everybody 's been , '' said Peiser , adding that management is racing to get the company in shape to withstand an inevitable economic downturn . TWA pioneered U.S. coast-to-coast air travel with a helping hand from legendary aviator Charles Lindbergh , who scouted routes . Another air industry legend , Howard Hughes , bought the carrier in 1939 and owned it for the next 27 years . TWA floundered in the 1970s and 1980s as part of a holding company with interests in vending machines , hotels and fast-food chains . Then corporate raider Icahn took control in 1986 , winning a takeover fight with airline executive Frank Lorenzo . Icahn took TWA private in 1988 , piling on debt and using money that could have been earmarked for new aircraft and other equipment at TWA for investments in other businesses . He sold TWA 's New York-to-London route , gutting international service . The airline filed for bankruptcy protection in early 1992 after losing more than $ 920 million from 1990 through 1992 . Icahn left a year later , turning over control to longtime employees Glenn Zander and Robin Wilson . TWA emerged from the bankruptcy in November 1993 . Zander and Wilson left and in 1994 TWA hired Jeffrey Erickson , former president and chief executive of startup Reno Air , as president and CEO . The company also rehired Peiser , a former TWA executive who was working at turnaround firm Bahadur , Balan Kazerski . Finding that TWA 's first restructuring plan saddled it with too much debt , Erickson and Peiser placed the company under bankruptcy protection again in early 1995 . The second bankruptcy rattled TWA 's bread-and-butter business travelers , who had stuck with the carrier on the first trip to bankruptcy court . Now , they booked flights on rival carriers . This was reflected in a drop in TWA 's first-quarter 1995 yield , which measures how much a passenger pays to fly one mile , to 10.9 cents from 12 cents a year earlier . To woo business travelers , the airline last spring launched a premium service called Trans World One . It offers amenities such as comforters and big pillows along with champagne and premium wines on long flights at business-class fares . In its first year , Trans World One helped boost the percentage of available seats actually sold to 72.2 percent from a combined 53.5 percent for business and first-class cabins from a year earlier , the airline said . `` Three years ago , people were telling me I 'd better use my frequent flyer miles , '' said business traveler Dave Guelker as he stepped off a TWA flight at Kansas City International Airport . `` I have n't yet . '' TWA has gone down for the count twice . Even with customers like Guelker , it ca n't afford a third time . WASHINGTON The flier whose Navy F-14A fighter plunged into a Nashville suburb on Monday , killing himself and four other people , crashed another jet into the sea last April . But Navy investigators and senior admirals forgave him , saying he made a mistake in pursuit of the combative flying that the Navy wants and encourages in its pilots . The flier , Lt . Comdr . John Stacy Bates , flew aggressively , a Navy official said on Tuesday , but he added : `` We want them to fly aggressively . Bates was highly motivated and that accident was a one-time glitch on his record . He was a great aviator . '' The Navy invests years and more than $ 1 million to train each of its fighter pilots , and is reluctant to dismiss them if senior officers believe an erring pilot can learn from mistakes . But as military investigators sifted through the wreckage on Tuesday for clues to what caused the crash that killed the fighter 's two-man crew and three people on the ground , Navy officials said they did not know what caused Bates ' second crash , or why his squadron had lost so many F-14 Tomcats . The crash was the fourth in 16 months for Fighter Squadron 213 , a 14-plane unit known as the Fighting Blacklions and one of six F-14 squadrons assigned to Miramar Naval Air Station near San Diego . The unit 's safety record is by far the worst among the Navy 's 13 F-14 squadrons . Bates was blamed for losing control of his F-14 last April while conducting training maneuvers off Hawaii . Last September , an F-14A from the squadron exploded in flight off the Philippines , but both crew members ejected safely . The cause of that accident is still under investigation . In October 1994 , one the Navy 's first female fighter pilots , Lt . Kara S. Hultgreen , died in a training accident off Southern California , rekindling tensions within the military over the decision to expand some combat roles for women . The Navy concluded that that accident resulted from a combination of pilot error and mechanical failure . `` You go back 10 or 15 years and they are snake bit , '' said a retired admiral who once commanded the squadron . `` We 've tried to put top-notch pilots and maintenance people there . You ca n't believe in luck or superstition , but they 're behind the eight ball and have stayed there . '' The Navy ordered the squadron to suspend its operations for three days for safety reasons after the second of the squadron 's four crashes . Vice Adm . Brent Bennitt , the commander of naval air forces in the Pacific , immediately ordered the squadron to stand down again after the crash on Monday to review its safety record and procedures . The crash underscores the fact that even in peacetime , operating complex weapons of war is a hazardous business . Twelve F-14 fliers have died in training accidents since 1992 . But the accident also raises questions about the F-14 's safety record . Since 1991 , the fighter has a major crash rate of 5.93 per 100,000 flight hours , compared with 4.82 major crashes per 100,000 hours for all Navy tactical aircraft . Navy officials note that since 1981 , the F-14 's major accident rate is slightly lower than the overall tactical aircraft rate . Many naval aviators have complained that the engines on the older A-model F-14 's are not powerful enough to perform the demanding aerial maneuvers they fly . The Navy is replacing them with a more powerful engine that is now on about 30 percent of the fleet 's F-14 's . Fighter Squadron 213 flies all A-model F-14 's . In the latest accident , the twin-engine , two-seat Tomcat crashed shortly after takeoff from Berry Field , an Air National Guard airfield adjacent to Nashville International Airport . The jet left Miramar Air Station in San Diego for Nashville on Friday on a routine training mission . Bennitt said on Tuesday that Navy officials approved Bates ' request to use a maximum-performance takeoff , in which a pilot turns on the jet 's after-burner and soars straight up moments after the aircraft leaves the ground . After screaming up through the clouds , the F-14 then came straight down , exploding into a huge fireball . The Tomcat was carrying 16,000 pounds of fuel on takeoff . `` We may never know why the crew did n't eject , '' Rear Adm . Skip Dirren told reporters on Tuesday morning . Newer fighter planes do have recorders , Dirren said , but they were not included when the F-14A 's were built in the 1970s . The Grumman Corp. , now the Northrop-Grumman Corp. , manufactured the F-14 's , which cost $ 32 million each . Killed besides Bates , 33 , of Chattanooga , Tenn. , was the jet 's radar operator , Lt . Graham Alden Higgins , 28 , of Dover-Foxcroft , Maine . Three civilians were also killed when the plane hit a house . They were Elmer Newsom , 66 ; his wife , Ada , 63 , and a friend , Ewing T. Wair , 53 . But the U.S. government has done little to require airlines to put battery-powered recorders on American aircraft . For all the public frustration at its seeming lassitude , the TWA 800 case is proceeding at a fairly typical pace . It took investigators only six days to discover that a bomb blew up Pan Am 103 . But Pan Am 's 747 fell to the ground , not into the sea , making the evidence much easier to recover . Even then , it took two months to identify fragments of the bomb and three years to indict a pair of Libyan terrorists who have yet to be tried . The bombing of the Air-India flight has never been fully solved . That plane fell into 6,700 feet of water in the Irish Sea , and rescue workers were able to recover little of it . Gumshoes are also mindful of another 747 crash that was initially thought to be a bombing but turned out to be the result of a mechanical failure . In 1991 a jet owned by an Austrian airline suddenly went down over Thailand . Police were about to arrest a disgruntled employee who had made bomb threats when they discovered that one of the 767 's Pratt Whitney engines had reversed thrust in midair , flingiBut other 747s crippled by catastrophic mechanical failure managed to stay in the air for a time as their pilots struggled for control for six minutes when an El Al cargo plane went down in Amsterdam in 1992 , and for 32 excruciating minutes before a Je. Twice , 747s have survived bomb attacks : one as it approached Honolulu in 1982 and another over Pakistan two years later . The fact that TWA 800 did not is ominous : it suggests that if there was a bomber , he was a pro , no matter what his motives w The efforts to clarify the record just added to the uncertainty and illustrate the difficulty of trying to coordinate a difficult probe conducted by an alphabet soup of state and federal agencies . The conflict between the families of the victiound dozens of bodies possibly as many as 100 trapped in the sunken fuselage , raising hopes of a quick recovery effort . His information was quickly contradicted by officials from the NTSB , who insisted that only a handful of bodies had been fopment on the scene ? Why were n't they prepared to have more divers ? The official was overwrought there were scores of frogmen on the scene but it did take the navy almost a week to bring in a proper dive ship . It was the Grasp , whose 35 `` harding slowly to avoid the bends . The Suffolk County medical examiner , Dr. Charles Wetli , has been bitterly criticized by the families for taking too long to identify their relatives ' remains . But to attach names to the often-mutilated corpses ,eth . For some of the 40-odd French victims , Wetli had to roust French dentists back from their summer holidays . The French have been particularly agitated about delays in recovering the bodies . After carping by French officials , State Department spsaid Bob Francis of the NTSB , who is overseeing the crash probe . Investigations must be slow and plodding to be done right , said Francis , in his deliberate , plodding voice . Fortunately , Francis has managed to bond with his FBI opposite , James Kallents along the way : FBI men stopped NTSB officials from photographing the wreckage because `` they did n't want our people taking pictures and sending them out to Snappy photo , '' as opposed to a secure FBI lab , says Francis . Agencies do compete to beHouse astray last week . Talking to reporters aboard Air Force One , chief of staff Leon Panetta suggested that investigators were looking `` most closely '' at terrorism and that `` chemical leftovers '' had been recovered from the crash site . But hourray . Some White House officials opined that Panetta , who felt pressured and weary , may have just pulled a garbled report off CNN . The presumption that terror brought down Flight 800 was enough to move the Clinton administration to tighten airport seand we will require preflight inspections for any plane flying to or from the United States every plane , every cabin , every cargo hold , every time , '' said Clinton . CAMP LEJEUNE , N.C. Fourteen Marines were killed and two seriously injured Friday in the fiery pre-dawn collision of two helicopters during a huge U.S.-British training exercise , the Pentagon said . The helicopters , a CH-46 Sea Knight troop transport and an AH-1 Cobra attack aircraft , collided in flight about 2 a.m. , said Marine Corps Capt. Rick Long , a spokesman for the exercises . All the personnel on board were Americans , he said . Identities of the victims were not released by early Friday evening . The bodies recovered so far were badly burned , a military official told The Associated Press , and dental records will be needed for positive identification of the dead . It was not immediately clear what caused the crash in nearly impassable terrain near the Courthouse Bay boat basin at Camp Lejeune . The Cobra 's mission was to fly ahead of the larger Sea Knight and secure a landing zone for it . Once the Sea Knight approached the zone on a planned route , the Cobra was to swing back around . `` We had half a moon last night . Visibility was good , '' said Camp Lejeune spokesman Maj. Steve Little . Winds were reported as light . Recovery operations got under way almost immediately but were hampered by darkness and difficult terrain . `` Darkness hampered the effort quite a bit , '' Little said . `` The thickness of the brush and the trees and the swamp compounded the effort . '' Forestry crews were called to the densely wooded area to provide access to the crash site . It was unclear for hours after the crash how many people had died . At one point , the White House put the death toll at 16 , but later an official at Marine Corps headquarters at the Pentagon said the confirmed toll was 14 . The two injured Marines were the pilot and co-pilot of the Sea Knight . They were taken to the Camp Lejeune hospital , and the pilot was later transferred to Pitt County Memorial Hospital in Greenville , which has a critical care unit , for treatment of head and chest injuries . Both aircraft were from Marine Corps Air Station New River in Jacksonville , N.C. , officials said . The aircraft were participating in Operation Purple Star , war games involving more than 53,000 British and American troops massed off the North Carolina coast this week . The operation continued Friday after a temporary suspension of flight activity . Before Friday 's accident , nine Marine aircraft had been involved in crashes this year . Five crew members died in those crashes . In March , the Marine Corps called a two-day halt to all nonessential flight operations both airplanes and helicopters to review safety rules after the rash of unexplained crashes . `` Is that pyrotechnics in the sky ? '' someone on the radio asked Master Sgt. D.M. Richardson . He was in the cockpit of an Air National Guard helicopter on a practice search-and-rescue mission off Long Island when the practice ended and the grim reality began . For the orange flash was not a fireworks display but a Trans World Airlines 747 crashing in flames in the Atlantic Ocean a few miles from Richardson 's home base in Westhampton Beach , N.Y. . A long moment later , Richardson 's chopper was circling over the debris , the smoke and the ocean on fire . `` We saw this ball of fire coming down out of the sky , '' said Richardson , the helicopter 's flight engineer . `` It was a ball of fire with black smoke , and it was descending . '' The chopper had been practicing search patterns and rescue maneuvers with a C-130 Hercules , a military cargo plane . The C-130 's pilot , Col. Bill Stratemeier , banked and turned to where the passenger plane had gone down . `` We 're in the rescue business , '' he said . He and his crew were `` looking for signs of life . '' What they saw , he said , was flaming wreckage `` about the size of a football field '' and 15 to 20 bodies in the water . He also said he saw aircraft rescue slides floating in the water . The explosions rocked the quiet summer evening on eastern Long Island and the orange fireball was confusing it was as if the sunset was happening all over again , in fast-forward . On backyard decks with binoculars , in boats with fishing poles , in crowded bars with cool drinks in their hands , people watched and wondered and worried . Like Victor S. Fehner , rocking on the water in his 17-foot runabout , some thought it was a small plane ditching into the water . But the explosions were too loud , the plumes of smoke too big , to have come from a single-engine plane . And then all there was was a cloud over the ocean , and flaming wreckage . `` It looked like the wing came off , said Fehner , a 47-year-old cable splicer . `` You could see two balls of flame , then everything disappeared . '' Fehner figured it was a small plane with engine trouble , a two-seater , that had landed close to the beach after a frightening 8-to-10-second descent . Not until he had tied up his boat and called his son-in-law , a mechanic with the Coast Guard , did he learn the scope of the disaster he had seen : The plane was a jumbo jet bound for Paris and carrying more than 200 passengers . `` It was round , like a tropical sunset , '' said John Coyne , an area manager for the Peace Corps who saw the explosion through the sliding glass door of a condominium he had rented for the week in Westhampton , N.Y. . `` There was a column of fire all the way to the water , straight down . '' He said two explosions shook the apartment as the fireball hit the water . It was crowded in John Scott 's Raw Bar in Westhampton Beach 90 customers had been seated for dinner , and another 15 or so were at the bar . Jim Ahrens , the bartender , was looking over a customer 's shoulder and out the big bay window . `` It was this comet-like explosion in the sky , '' he said . `` We thought maybe it was fireworks . '' Richardson 's helicopter had circled back to Westhampton Beach and picked up two pararescuers . One , Sgt. Craig Johnson , in a wet suit , strapped himself to the side of the helicopter as it headed back out over the ocean . By then Richardson and the crew had put on night-vision goggles . Johnson had just finished a practice run and was on the tarmac when he saw `` a red glow in the sky . '' As they approached the stretch of ocean that was on fire , dozens of bodies had floated to the surface and away from where the plane had gone down , and were being carried away by the tide . He and Sgt. Shaun Brady began dropping light sticks used to mark bodies so the Coast Guard could collect the remains . NEWPORT NEWS , Va. Illnesses , legalities , disasters and champagne . The setbacks for the USS Harry S. Truman 's christening just kept on coming , like high swells in rough seas . Saturday , literally in the aftermath of a storm , the Navy 's newest aircraft carrier is scheduled to be christened . Only at the end will organizers uncross their cramped fingers and sigh . First , the illness . Margaret Truman Daniel , Truman 's daughter , was chosen the ship 's sponsor normally a task that would grant her the honor of actually christening the ship . But Daniel is recuperating from an infection and wo n't be able to attend . `` It 's not quite healed yet , '' she said in a telephone interview from her home in New York City . Instead , the christening honors belong to Drucie S. Horton , a longtime friend of Daniel whose father , John Snyder , was Truman 's secretary of the Treasury . Then there was the business about the champagne . In a tradition that dates to Viking human sacrifices , ships have been sent to sea with the ceremonial spillage of some type of precious fluid . These days , blood has given way to champagne . And as Truman hailed from Missouri , organizers suggested a nice Missouri bubbly might do the trick . So about a month ago , Ruth Flynn , the marketing director at the Mount Pleasant Winery in Augusta , Mo. , submitted a couple of bottles of their Genesis Champagne for consideration . But like an offended oenophile , Newport News Shipbuilding rejected the offer the bottles would not break on impact . `` Rather than give up , we decided to check our supply , '' Flynn said . `` We picked out a very cheap bottle . We put our champagne in it , labeled it , and asked how many bottles they wanted . '' These bottles , much thinner and lighter , passed muster . So , at the appointed time , Drucie Horton will hurl a bottle of Genesis Champagne against the carrier . The bottle , upon impact , should explode in a spray of glass and lightly rose colored sparkling wine . Those with the appropriate nose for this sort of thing might catch the aroma of yeast , raspberries , oranges and molasses . However , another reversal came on Thursday , when President Clinton canceled plans to attend the christening after White House and campaign lawyers warned it would be considered a political event . `` The assumption was that the commander in chief could christen one of his own boats , '' White House spokesman Mike McCurry told reporters . McCurry said that according to Clinton 's legal advisers , everything a president does between his nomination and Election Day is considered political except events connected to national security or natural disasters . And speaking of disasters : Hurricane Fran struck southeast Virginia Friday morning and by noon Newport News was without power . Bunny Hodges , a spokeswoman at Newport News Shipbuilding , was operating by flashlight , and power company officials were speculating that electricity in some areas would not be restored for days . Initial plans called for about 16,000 people to attend the event . The president 's absence and the storm 's heavy hand might keep the number down . In any event , organizers are breathing a little easier at least the Secret Service , and all the stringent security details it brings along , will be staying away . Among the steps taken was the preparation of a second report , by the Atlanta inspectors ' office , that found an increased number of unfavorable reports on maintenance and `` a significant decrease in experience level of new pilots being hired by Valujet as well as other positions such as mechanics , dispatchers , etc . '' It also found `` continuous changes of key management personnel . '' And there was a third report , a statistical analysis of the rate of accidents of low-cost carriers per 100,000 departures , compared with the rate for major , higher-cost carriers . A draft of that third report , dated May 2 , was obtained by The Chicago Tribune , which published an article based on it on Thursday . Later that day , the FAA released what it said was a final version of that report and asserted that , contrary to the assessment of The Tribune , the figures did not show major differences between the two groups of airlines . But that study did cast Valujet in an unfavorable light . The report said that for each 100,000 departures , Valujet had 2.537 serious accidents ( all accidents , minus those resulting from turbulence , other `` minor accidents in flight '' and mishaps at the gate or on the ramp ) . In comparison , 12 low-cost airlines had zero : AmeriJet , Air South , American Trans Air , Carnival , Frontier , Kiwi , Morris , Reno , Spirit , Vanguard , Western Pacific and Southwest . Only one other low-cost airline studied had had a serious accident , Tower , with a rate of 8.680 . Among nine major carriers , which are far larger and thus less likely to achieve a rate of zero , the average rate was 0.76 . The data went back to 1990 . Also , of any of the 23 airlines studied , Valujet had the second-highest level of pilot deviations cases in which a pilot strayed too far from an assigned altitude or route through the sky and the highest rate of runway incursions , or cases in which a plane was on the wrong spot on the ground . In a statement written as a preface to the report and released on Thursday , the FAA said that `` because of the significantly smaller volumes of departures by low-cost carriers , a single accident could lower an airline from the best record in the survey to the worst . '' The figures for low-cost airlines are also distorted by the relative sizes of the companies . Measured by flights , Southwest Airlines accounts for 80 percent of the group 's business , and it had no serious accidents and a low rate of minor accidents . For all 14 low-cost carriers , including Southwest , the total accident rate was .418 per 100,000 departures , vs. .300 for the `` higher cost '' companies , which were Alaska , America West , American , Continental , Delta , Northwest , TWA , United and USAir . The rate of serious accidents was .12 for the low-cost carriers and .08 for the major airlines . That means that a low-cost airline was 50 percent more likely to have a serious accident than a major airline . The FAA said that the report had found `` little difference '' in relevant statistics . The difference was far larger if Southwest was excluded from the low-cost group ; the other low-cost carriers had an accident rate of 1.204 per 100,000 departures , four times the rate of the major carriers . The report did find that the low-cost carriers did better than the major airlines in one measure of safety , pilot deviations . For the low-cost carriers the rate was 1.86 ; for the majors it was 2.66 . Brussels , March 11 ( Bloomberg ) Germany won the backing of its European Union partners to clamp down on airline companies with poor security records to avoid accidents like last month 's crash off the Dominican Republic which killed 189 people . Transport ministers told the European Commission , the EU executive agency , to form a group of airline experts that could make recommendations by June on how to identify and ground unsafe carriers . The German initiative follows last month 's crash of a Turkish registered Boeing 757 operated by Birgenair . Most of the passengers were German . Matthias Wissmann , Germany 's transport minister , said the agreement to weed out countries where air safety standards were `` notoriously '' violated marked an `` important strategic success . '' Last month 's accident could act as a catalyst for air transport safety , in the same way that the death of 900 people in a shipping accident off the coast of Estonia last year prompted tougher EU-wide sea transport rules , the German minister said . The EU aim will be to establish a system of checks similar to the U.S. International Safety Assessment Program , which blacklists airline companies whose standards are judged lower than those in the U.S. The commission said it will examine ways to ground unsafe aircraft and vet licensing procedures for non-EU airlines operating in the 15-nation group . French Transport Minister Anne-Marie Idrac said opening the aviation market to global competition had to be accompanied by worldwide air transport safety rules . The pressure to open the European airline industry to greater competition was underscored by a dispute at today 's meeting between the Commission and member states on how to increase competition on transatlantic air transport routes . The commission said it will take legal action against seven member states , including Germany , for `` illegally '' signing open-skies agreements with the U.S. The commission wants the bilateral agreements replaced with an EU-wide accord , although it failed to win the backing of EU transport ministers to go to the U.S. to start talks . Germany , the Netherlands , Belgium , Luxembourg , Austria , Denmark and Finland , which have agreements with the U.S. removing restrictions on transatlantic air routes , denied they broke any EU rules when they made the agreements . Germany , the last country to sign an agreement with the U.S. , did so to ensure that its national airline Lufthansa could link with United Airlines in an agreement on sharing a common capacity , reservations and pricing policy with the second-biggest U.S. airline . However , Germany and the Netherlands said they supported the idea of replacing their bilateral agreements with the U.S. with a broader EU-U.S. accord , if such an agreement could be reached . The U.K. said it opposed a common EU approach altogether . The Commission said an EU-wide open-skies agreement with the U.S. would allow for common rules on state aid , mergers , investment and safety standards . WASHINGTON Defense Secretary William Perry has ordered that new recording devices and safety equipment be installed on military aircraft that carry passengers , after investigators found no sign so far that major components failed on the plane that crashed in Croatia on April 3 , killing Commerce Secretary Ron Brown and 34 others , a senior Air Force official said Tuesday . The official said the crash , which killed all on board , occurred in weather good enough for a landing at the field and not at all unusual for the area . `` The weather reported at the time was above minimums for this approach , '' said the official , who spoke at a Pentagon briefing on condition of anonymity . The official said that no evidence has emerged of any malfunction in the rudder , the part that is suspected in the crash of two civilian 737 's , a USAir plane in Pittsburgh in 1994 and a United Airlines plane in Colorado Springs in 1991 . The official said Perry ordered the Air Force , the Army and the Navy on April 9 to install airline-type navigation and recording devices , along with some advanced navigation equipment that is not yet in wide use among the airlines , on all military planes that carry passengers . The plane in the Croatian crash , a slightly modified Boeing 737 , did not have a cockpit voice recorder or a flight data recorder , or equipment that would have let it use the Pentagon 's navigation satellites . The Air Force said the reason was cost . It did have a ground proximity warning system , which sounds an alarm if the plane is too low , but the senior Air Force official said that the defense secretary was now ordering far more advanced versions , which include a computer database of terrain all over the world . The advanced device couples the database with knowledge of the plane 's position , speed and direction , to give 60 seconds warning if it is heading into a mountain . The official said that all the services had been told to report back to the defense secretary by next week on which planes did not have cockpit voice recorders and flight data recorders . Though these devices do not prevent plane crashes , they are invaluable for investigating them . On the Croatian hillside where the Air Force plane went down , investigators are removing instruments from the shattered cockpit and shipping them back to the manufacturers , in hope of determining the instruments ' last readings , the Air Force official said . Some members of the 12-member accident review board have already left for Ramstein , Germany , and others are still working at the scene . The Air Force plans to take another T-43a to Dubrovnik at the end of this month to fly the approach repeatedly , the official said . That plane carries a radio-receiver that can be tuned to pick up signals from one of two radio beacons on the ground . The beacons are an old technology that is in wide use in eastern Europe . The FAA has tested the beacons at Dubrovnik and found them working at the time of the test . After 12 American executives perished along with Commerce Secretary Ronald H. Brown when their plane slammed into a Croatian hillside in bad weather Wednesday , their companies faced a common crisis : keeping the businesses on course in an emotional maelstrom . Co-workers of the victims in companies from Connecticut to California struggled Thursday to hold back tears while performing mundane duties such as answering the phone . Others began the difficult task of planning how to replace the dead and notifying fellow employees of the devastating news . The tragedy believed to be the largest collective loss of top corporate executives in the country 's history emphasized the importance of succession policies and the increasingly standard practice even at relatively small companies of not allowing more than one executive aboard the same plane at the same time . Though none of the companies were prepared for the crisis , some were suffering more than others in trying to operate Thursday . `` This is a small company of 30 people . So it 's been hit very , very hard . There are not systems in place for an emergency of this magnitude , '' said Bradley Inman , a friend of former Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor I. Donald Terner , 56 , who died in the crash . Terner founded BRIDGE Housing Corp. , a San Francisco-based nonprofit development concern that builds affordable housing . `` Succession has not been resolved , '' Inman said . `` Business meetings have been canceled . The doors are open and employees are working , but it 's not business as usual by any means . '' As corporate America goes global , the list of those grappling with these issues has grown . A business trip for Conoco resulted in nine deaths five years ago , including half of the oil concern 's senior managers . Michael Eisner , CEO of The Walt Disney Co. , lost an ally who helped build the company when Frank Wells died in a helicopter crash in 1994 . And Donald Trump lost three executives in 1989 , also in a helicopter disaster . On Saturday , Sam and Jim Snyder , owners of a plastics firm in Rockland , died when their single-engine plane crashed on Interstate 495 in Wareham , also killing a mother and her 4-year-old daughter . Across the country Thursday , some businesses shut their doors for the remainder of the work week out of respect for those who perished during the trade mission , part of the $ 5 billion reconstruction effort intended to restore the torn Bosnian landscape into something resembling a normal society , with roads , housing , utilities and employment opportunities . Flags outside corporate headquarters were lowered to half-staff and companies struggled to maintain professionalism while dealing with their loss . Harvey Levy , spokesman for Foster Wheeler Corp. of Clinton , N.J. , said the company was trying to carry on Thursday without vice president Robert Whittaker . The company did announce a temporary successor , Henry E. Bartoli , effective immediately . `` Business is continuing as usual , '' Levy said . `` I 'm afraid it has to . '' Although Whittaker , 48 , was the only Foster Wheeler executive on the plane , Levy said employees were questioning whether the company had any formal policy prohibiting those at the top from traveling on the same aircraft together . `` I do n't know if there 's a formal policy on that , '' Levy said . Jeff Berger , spokesman for the Bechtel Group , a San Francisco-based engineering firm , confirmed that the company had a succession plan following the death of P. Stuart Tholan , president of the company 's overseas divisions . Tholan , 59 and a resident of London , was manager of Boston 's Central Artery/Third Harbor Tunnel project until assuming his latest position in January . `` At this time in particular , we 're just not prepared to talk at length about succession except to say we certainly have succession planning , '' Berger said . `` It 's an important part of our business anyone 's business . '' The Dallas natural gas company Enserch Corp. lowered its flag before it received official confirmation of the death of 50-year-old Frank A. Maier , a subsidiary president . `` Mr. Maier was a very valued employee , but we do have a succession plan . His work will continue on in his memory , '' spokesman Howard Matson said . The company has not named a replacement , nor did Matson know when that would happen . Enserch does have a policy prohibiting more than one top executive from flying on the same plane . A 1994 survey by Runzheimer International showed that two-thirds of the largest US corporations have policies limiting the number of executives who can travel together . However , such policies are less common in smaller companies . Overall , 59 percent of companies do not limit the number of employees who travel together , according to Runzheimer . The National Transportation Safety Board may have found a key clue in recent 737 crashes , but ca n't tell for sure because inadequate flight data recorders on older jets do n't provide crucial details . Board Chairman Jim Hall Tuesday blasted the Federal Aviation Administration for sitting on an NTSB request that all commercial jetliners be refitted with better `` black boxes '' to more accurately record what goes on in aircraft during flight . The FAA responded by saying it is close to a recommendation , 15 months after the safety board first urged the NTSB to make the change . The NTSB said a recent incident involving an Eastwind Airlines 737 appears to be have been caused by a `` misrigged '' rudder-control device . Hall said the circumstances appear to be similar to two still-unexplained crashes involving 737s . The Eastwind jet did not crash . Speculation on the causes of those crashes , which killed 157 people , has ranged from pilot error to design flaws in the 737 . Without better flight data , however , the investigation has been difficult , and nothing has been proven . Hall 's assertion about the rudder-controlling yaw damper drew some skepticism from at least one safety expert , however , who said the device could n't move enough to have caused the crashes . In a polite but pointed letter to FAA Administrator David Hinson , Hall cited four recent incidents involving an Eastwind Airlines 737-200 that unexpectedly rolled right while in flight . In each incident , most recently on June 10 , the pilot was able to correct the roll without further incident . The jet has been grounded for investigation since then . Investigation so far has revealed that the yaw damper an automatic device that prevents side-to-side wiggle in a jetliner was `` misrigged , '' Hall said , swinging 4.5 degrees in one direction instead of 3 degrees as prescribed . `` Ongoing aerodynamic analyses have not confirmed precisely the magnitude of the rudder deflection required to produce the roll event , '' Hall wrote to Hinson . `` Moreover , the pilots ' actions regarding pedal inputs cannot be determined . Unfortunately , the investigation of this incident is severely hampered by the lack of FDR ( flight data recorder ) data on the movement of the rudder pedals and the associated rudder position . '' Hall said the FAA should have moved more quickly to implement the change . `` Although the investigation of the recent Eastwind Airlines incident continues , preliminary data suggest circumstances that are similar to those of the USAir accident near Pittsburgh and the United Airlines accident near Colorado Springs , '' Hall wrote . The USAir crash killed 132 people on Sept. 8 , 1994 . The United crash killed 25 people on March 3 , 1991 . In both incidents , each involving a 737 , the planes plunged unexpectedly and crashed . USAir provides maintenance for Eastwind Airlines . Flight data recordings from each flight were of little help . The United jet had an old-style , stylus-driven recorder that reacted wildly and incorrectly during the crash . The USAir jet , like the Eastwind jet , had a digital recorder which gathered only 11 basic sets of data , including flight speed and some control-surface locations . Newer black boxes , so-called because they frequently emerge blackened from crash-related fires , digitally record hundreds of data points , including the dispositions of all flight control surfaces as well as many pilot actions . Seattle-area pilot and flight-safety expert John Nance applauded Hall 's call for flight data improvements , but said he doubts the yaw damper could have caused the crashes . `` Yaw dampers simply do not have sufficient authority to deflect the rudder far enough to create an upset , '' said Nance . If any trouble occurs , pilots are instructed to shut yaw dampers off , and they are not required equipment on commercial flights . Big jets do n't even use their rudders to turn in flight ; turning is accomplished by raising the ailerons along the trailing edge of the wings , producing the wide , banked turns that jets have to make . Computer simulations of the USAir crash showed its fateful plunge matched a rudder deflection of 17 degrees . Nance said something would have to be broken for a rudder to move that much . As Nance pointed out , however , without better flight data investigators have no way of knowing if that is what happened . Nearly two years of investigation have failed to find a cause for the crashes , either from design flaws in the 737 or from errors farther down the line . Boeing has called for advanced training to help pilots recover from unexpected flight events . Company spokesman Russ Young said the company supports the call for better flight data recorders , which are chosen by airline customers . The company earlier sent out a service bulletin telling airlines what 's needed to upgrade the recorders . `` We continue to be involved in both the USAir and Eastwind investigations providing whatever we can in the way of technical expertise and experience , '' Young said . Nance said better flight data gathering is long overdue . `` I want video cameras and good microphones , not '50s-style microphones , '' he said . `` If we 're going to do it , let 's do it right . '' The FAA said it plans to act on the recommendation soon . While comparative service figures were not readily available , some aviation officials were surprised to learn that the FAA had brought 43 enforcement actions against ValuJet since it started operations with two old DC-9s in October 1993 . The actions , including written warnings , letters of correction and fines , mostly highlighted flaws in the airline 's maintenance , flight operations and record-keeping programs . `` Given how many they have had in such a short period of time and the size of their fleet , that is pretty heavy , '' said Geoff Collins , a spokesman for the 400,000 member International Airlines Passenger Association . `` But they obviously took corrective action , or the FAA would have grounded them . '' `` There is a reason why these low-cost carriers charge what they charge , '' said Collins . `` There is a great deal of difference once you are up in the air who you are up in the air with . '' Some former employees also question the reliability of some fledgling carriers compared with larger carriers . `` Every day there was a mechanical problem , '' said Linda Picardi , a former ValuJet gate agent . `` If it was n't planes coming in late to Logan , it was one of our planes going out late . And the biggest thing they cared about was trying to maintain the 20-minute turnaround time . No one said , ` Send it out anyways , ' but there were always delays . '' A former maintenance manager for a charter airline who now works for a major carrier said the difference can be striking . He said the established airlines have mechanics who track planes , spot problems quickly and send out systemwide alerts , while maintenance that is outsourced , such as with many low-fare carriers , does not have the same ability to quickly lead to potential areas of trouble . Nance , who is also a paid consultant to ABC News , said that if pilot training , for instance , is conducted by someone other than the carrier , `` There is no way you can rise to the level of standardization that the majors have . A $ 39 ticket does not pay for the level of safety that the American public expects . '' Federal , state and industry sources point to an incident that one federal official said was indicative of sloppy operations . A ValuJet DC-9 was taken out of service at Logan International Airport in March and was ferried to Florida for maintenance . Sometime , when planes are empty , ballast usually extra fuel or bags of sand in baggage compartments is needed to maintain the appropriate center of gravity of an empty plane . Five sources said ValuJet employees threw a used automotive transmission in the baggage hold as ballast . It was neither on a pallet , nor tied down , they said . When the plane took off , the transmission started sliding around and by the time the aircraft landed , the transmission had gone through a bulkhead , the sources added . Officials from ValuJet had no immediate comment . It appears the alleged incident was not reported to the FAA , because there is no service-difficulty report on file at its facility in Oklahoma City . Emergency crews responded to ValuJet alerts at Logan Airport 18 times in the last year , but only one apparently was reported to the FAA by the airline on a service-difficulty report , even though 10 of the incidents involved mechanical problems . FAA officials could not explain why they had no record of the incidents . `` All the people who could answer questions about service difficulties and maintenance are all tied up , '' said spokesman Les Dorr . In two of the 10 instances , the ValuJet pilot requested Massport emergency assistance , sources said . In the first one , on June 8 , a plane had to return because of a problem with the nose landing gear . The other occurred April 27 , when the plane had to return to Logan because the landing gear doors would not retract . FAA reports do indicate that in February two flights from Boston had landing gear light problems as they approached their destinations in Florida and North Carolina . In 1980 , backlash over riots by Cuban Marielitos interned at Fort Chaffee , Ark. , under President Jimmy Carter may have cost Clinton re-election as governor . During his presidential run , Clinton raked in $ 275,000 in donations in south Florida when he backed a tough new sanctions bill and accused the Bush administration of missing `` a big opportunity to put the hammer down on Fidel Castro and Cuba . '' But once in office , Clinton found himself in the same cramped corner as eight previous presidents . Latin and world leaders pressured him to agree to a regional approach . Business leaders wanted the freedom to invest in Cuba , as Washington allowed them to do in Beijing . In 1994 , when a new wave of refugees threatened to overwhelm the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay , Clinton took away refugees ' automatic right to enter the United States , in return for Castro 's promise to end the exodus . Even though he offered some small carrots phone links , charter flights , easier passage for academics and artists his response infuriated many Miami Cubans . Ironically , Clinton 's actions may have sealed the Brothers ' determination to press a confrontation . They had won fame and donations in Miami by rescuing thousands of rafters from the Florida Straits . When the rafters could no longer gain U.S. asylum , the Brothers found a new way to torment Castro and ensure their place as the exile organization with the most moxie . Last July , when they first braved Havana airspace to drop small leaflets from a blue and white Cessna , one witness recalls , `` The usual response was `what cojones these Brothers have . '' The Miami group 's leader , Bay of Pigs veteran Jose Basulto , donated several thousand dollars to the leader of a new pro-democracy coalition in Cuba , Concilio Cubano . And he allegedly made other illegal overflights two , according to Washington ; as many as 20 , according to Havana . The Cubans complained loudly about the violations of their airspace . U.S. officials repeatedly warned the exiles to desist , and the Federal Aviation Administration was investigating whether the Brothers had filed false flight plans . Privately , State and Pentagon officials were seething about the FAA 's lethargy in revoking Basulto 's license . But the aviation officials wanted proof . Newsweek has learned that on the day of the ill-fated flight , the FAA asked the U.S. Customs Service to use its high-tech tracking gear at March Air Force Base in California to monitor all aircraft movements around Cuba . Castro was waiting , too . Just two weeks earlier , a delegation of retired U.S. officials returned from Havana warning that Cuba seemed prepared to blow the Brothers ' Cessnas out of the sky . The day before the fatal flight , one of the Miami Brothers , Juan Pablo Roque , redefected to Havana . He later charged that the Brothers were preparing a sabotage campaign in Cuba , with plans to kill Castro himself . That may have been propaganda , but Havana was primed for a showdown . Clipped wings ? Did Castro get what he wanted ? Many Cuba specialists think so . Havana had been demanding that U.S. authorities clip the Brothers ' wings , and even the Helms-Burton Act will give the Cuban strongman an excuse to fan anti-American sentiment at home . `` Castro has figured out that Helms-Burton creates more problems for us than for him , '' says Wayne Smith , former chief of the U.S. interests section in Havana . It is a classic Castro move . `` Whenever there 's an internal problem , he always looks for a conflict to show that the real problem is the United States , '' says Fernando Sanchez Lopez , a top dissident in Cuba . Whether relations deteriorate further may be up to the Brothers . A new federal order formally barring the group from Cuban airspace is no guarantee that they wo n't try to goad Castro further . And if the showdown escalates , Castro can always send forth new rafters the same present he gave Carter in an election year . `` Guantanamo was a disaster for us , '' groans one U.S. official . `` We ca n't let that happen again . '' But the White House has just bargained away most of its flexibility . In addition to the bungled handling of intelligence reports , Washington officials come under criticism in the Dorn report in other areas . Dorn notes that the get-tough policy of the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration toward Japan designed to persuade Japan to rein in its military expansionism in China and Southeast Asia included an embargo against oil exports to Japan and the freezing of Japanese assets in the summer of 1941 . The report suggests that FDR backed Japan into a corner . Dorn also cites the `` muddied '' warnings that Washington sent 10 days before the attack to Pearl Harbor about the imminence of war and Washington 's failure to follow up its warnings to check to see what the Hawaii commanders were doing to prepare . The Dorn report noted that previous congressional , Navy and Army investigations had also `` properly recognized and criticized '' the failures of senior Washington military leaders . On the other side of the ledger , the Dorn report says Kimmel and Short had a lot of intelligence that `` was sufficient to justify a higher level of vigilance than they chose to maintain . '' For example , Dorn said , Kimmel and Short knew that war with Japan was `` highly likely '' and that Japan would strike the first blow . And they knew that the attack `` could occur within weeks or days '' because tension between the United States and Japan had been building . Both commanders had received a `` war warning '' from Washington in late November to be on the alert against a possible attack . Both commanders also knew the Japanese liked to spring surprise attacks , especially on weekends . Kimmel also knew that his intelligence staff had suddenly lost track of Japan 's aircraft carriers and that Japanese embassies and consulates had been ordered to destroy their secret codes . The report also notes the confused assumptions that governed the relationship between Kimmel and Short . For example , the Navy had responsibility for long-range defensive patrols around Pearl Harbor , but Short apparently never asked Kimmel exactly what the Navy was doing in that respect . This was a key mistake in view of the fact that Short 's fighter planes needed a four-hour warning before they could get in the air and do battle . In reality , the Navy was undertaking only minimal reconnaissance , mainly because of a lack of airplanes . Nonetheless , the Hawaii commanders did n't know when or where the attack would come . Dorn said higher alert by Kimmel and Short `` might not have discovered the ( Japanese ) carrier armada and might not have prevented the attack , but different choices could have reduced the magnitude of the disaster . '' The attack killed 2,403 Americans and sank or damaged 18 warships . The bottom line : There 's no basis to restore their higher rank . Besides , Dorn noted , `` Retirement at the two-star grade is not an insult or a stigma . '' Dorn 's decision was praised by both sides of the historical debate over Kimmel and Short . Edward L. Beach , a retired Navy captain and author of a 1994 book defending Kimmel and Short , praised the Dorn report for restoring their honor without promoting them by acknowledging that others also were guilty . This paper removes the stigma in the court of public opinion . Donald M. Goldstein , a historian at the University of Pittsburgh who helped write the best-selling Pearl Harbor history `` At Dawn We Slept , '' also lauded the report . `` Given all that we 've seen , we know it was on their watch . To exonerate them , you 'd have to go back and exonerate everybody who screwed up at Pearl Harbor . If they had caught the Japanese , they would have been heroes . But they did n't . So when is an airplane too old ? Some of the nation 's biggest airlines fly planes that are more than 25 years old . And the military operates B-52 aircraft that are more than 40 years old , flown by pilots who are younger than the planes . Valujet Airlines , whose DC-9 jet crashed near Miami on Saturday , killing 109 people on board , operates a fleet of DC-9 jets whose average age is about 26 years , making its fleet the oldest for any large airline in the United States . But aviation safety experts said that a plane 's age , in and of itself , does not necessarily make it any less safe than a younger plane . Just as with cars , other important considerations are how well a jet has been maintained and how many times it changed owners . The 27-year-old Valujet plane that crashed had only one previous owner , Delta Air Lines , the nation 's third largest airline . `` If you are going to buy something used , that 's a pretty good pedigree , '' said David Stamey , vice president of Avitas , an aviation consulting firm that appraises and inspects aircraft . The age of Valujet 's DC-9 fleet is not unusual among major airlines that use the planes . Continental , Northwest , Trans World Airlines and USAir all operate dozens of DC-9s with an average age of 24 to 26 years . Many of those aircraft will be much older by the time they are retired . Northwest Airlines , for example , plans to invest $ 6 million per plane to upgrade more than 100 of its DC-9s to comply with federal noise regulations and keep them flying beyond the year 2000 . There are many reasons why airlines like Northwest are deciding to extend the life of many planes in their fleets rather than buy new ones . New aircraft cost tens of millions of dollars , and many airlines have decided it is more economical to refurbish their old planes than buy new ones , even though older aircraft face more rigorous , and therefore more costly , requirements for maintenance and replacing parts . Many fledgling airlines , in fact , have fleets that are much younger , on average , than some of the more established carriers . Many regulations intended to guard specifically against the effects of aging were put into place after an accident involving an Aloha Airlines Boeing 737 , when the passenger cabin ripped open in 1988 because of corrosion and metal fatigue , sweeping a flight attendant to her death . After the industry was deregulated in 1978 , many airlines started expanding rapidly and ordered new aircraft . And in the 1980s , airlines generally believed that growth would lead to financial success . But in the early 1990s , the airlines lost billions of dollars , in part because of traffic declines and rising fuel costs as a result of the war in the Persian Gulf . Since then , airlines have focused more on reducing overhead costs , weighing decisions to buy new aircraft more carefully than ever before . To maintain low costs , many start-up airlines like Valujet have not only bought used aircraft but also paid companies that do heavy aircraft maintenance to work on their jets . William D. Waldock , a professor of aeronautical science and director of the aviation safety resource center at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott , Ariz. , said he was troubled by the trend . `` For the airline , it is cheaper , '' he said . `` But the people that you 've got working on airplanes for maintenance subcontractors do n't have the same level of motivation and feeling of ownership and involvement as an employee of an airline would have toward his company 's aircraft . '' The Federal Aviation Administration said Sunday that it would closely scrutinize in coming weeks the six firms that do maintenance work for Valujet . The Valujet DC-9 that crashed Saturday had been forced to return to airports seven times in the last two years for a variety of safety problems , including a faulty heat exchanger , a loss of oil because of a loose oil cap and a malfunctioning hydraulic pump . It also made an emergency landing in Memphis a year ago when the plane lost cabin pressure . It also received an FAA maintenance inspection last Tuesday , in which inspectors checked , among other things , fluids and tire treads and other major equipment for signs of fatigue or cracks . FAA records show that before the crash Saturday , Valujet had 12 minor problems or more serious accidents since it started flying in 1993 , including an inoperative microphone that rendered the pilots unable to communicate with air traffic controllers and a fire in an engine on a runway in Atlanta last year that injured several people on board . In addition to the bungled handling of intelligence reports , Washington officials come under criticism in the Dorn report in other areas . Dorn notes that the get-tough policy of the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration toward Japan designed to persuade Japan to rein in its military expansionism in China and Southeast Asia included an embargo against oil exports to Japan and the freezing of Japanese assets in the summer of 1941 . The report suggests that FDR backed Japan into a corner . Dorn also cites the `` muddied '' warnings that Washington sent 10 days before the attack to Pearl Harbor about the imminence of war and Washington 's failure to follow up its warnings to check to see what the Hawaii commanders were doing to prepare . The Dorn report noted that previous congressional , Navy and Army investigations had also `` properly recognized and criticized '' the failures of senior Washington military leaders . On the other side of the ledger , the Dorn report says Kimmel and Short had a lot of intelligence that `` was sufficient to justify a higher level of vigilance than they chose to maintain . '' For example , Dorn said , Kimmel and Short knew that war with Japan was `` highly likely '' and that Japan would strike the first blow . And they knew that the attack `` could occur within weeks or days '' because tension between the United States and Japan had been building . Both commanders had received a `` war warning '' from Washington in late November to be on the alert against a possible attack . Both commanders also knew the Japanese liked to spring surprise attacks , especially on weekends . Kimmel also knew that his intelligence staff had suddenly lost track of Japan 's aircraft carriers and that Japanese embassies and consulates had been ordered to destroy their secret codes . The report also notes the confused assumptions that governed the relationship between Kimmel and Short . For example , the Navy had responsibility for long-range defensive patrols around Pearl Harbor , but Short apparently never asked Kimmel exactly what the Navy was doing in that respect . This was a key mistake in view of the fact that Short 's fighter planes needed a four-hour warning before they could get in the air and do battle . In reality , the Navy was undertaking only minimal reconnaissance , mainly because of a lack of airplanes . Nonetheless , the Hawaii commanders did n't know when or where the attack would come . Dorn said higher alert by Kimmel and Short `` might not have discovered the ( Japanese ) carrier armada and might not have prevented the attack , but different choices could have reduced the magnitude of the disaster . '' The attack killed 2,403 Americans and sank or damaged 18 warships . The bottom line : There 's no basis to restore their higher rank . Besides , Dorn noted , `` Retirement at the two-star grade is not an insult or a stigma . '' Dorn 's decision was praised by both sides of the historical debate over Kimmel and Short . Edward L. Beach , a retired Navy captain and author of a 1994 book defending Kimmel and Short , praised the Dorn report for restoring their honor without promoting them by acknowledging that others also were guilty . This paper removes the stigma in the court of public opinion . Donald M. Goldstein , a historian at the University of Pittsburgh who helped write the best-selling Pearl Harbor history `` At Dawn We Slept , '' also lauded the report . `` Given all that we 've seen , we know it was on their watch . To exonerate them , you 'd have to go back and exonerate everybody who screwed up at Pearl Harbor . If they had caught the Japanese , they would have been heroes . But they did n't . New York , July 18 ( Bloomberg ) Shares of Trans World Airlines Inc. fell as much as 16 percent amid concerns that last night 's fatal crash of a Paris-bound jumbo jetliner will gut the airline 's financial rebound . All 228 people on board are believed to have been killed when the Boeing Co. 747 jetliner exploded and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off Long Island , New York , about 8:40 p.m. . Officials said they have n't ruled out terrorism as a cause of the blast , which came after TWA heightened security in advance of the Olympic Games in Atlanta . `` This is very serious for TWA , '' said David Stempler , an aviation consultant in Washington , D.C. . `` It might finish them off . '' TWA emerged from its second bankruptcy in August . Stempler likened TWA 's position to that of Pan American World Airways in 1988 , after terrorists blew up a jumbo jet over Lockerbie , Scotland , killing 259 people . Passengers were afraid to fly Pan Am after the crash , which contributed to the airline 's demise . Lewins said the possibility of sabotage and the fact that Pan AM Flight 103 also was a Boeing 747 inevitably will draw comparisons . That could be detrimental if those comparisons stick in the minds of travellers . `` TWA can weather it so long as it does n't get a Pan Am 103 image in the eyes of the public , '' he said . In late trading , TWA shares fell 1 3/8 to 9 7/8 after trading as low as 9 1/2 earlier in the session . It was one of the most-active issues on U.S. markets , with about 6.97 million shares traded . Other airline stocks also fell amid speculation that the crash and mounting concerns about airline safety could lead to a decline in passenger traffic for all carriers . Shares of AMR Corp. , the parent of American Airlines , fell 3/4 to 81 1/8 and Delta Air Lines Inc. dropped 7/8 to 74 1/2 . Northwest Airlines Corp. delayed the release of its second-quarter earnings , set for this morning , until Monday because of the crash . The TWA crash , one of the worst in U.S. history , follows other aviation disasters including a May 11 crash of a ValuJet Inc. DC-9 in Florida that killed 110 people , a crash in the Balkans of a military version of the Boeing 737 that killed Commerce Secretary Ron Brown and the explosion of an engine on a Delta plane earlier this month that killed two people . At the same time , Harris said that comparisons to the ValuJet crash are unwarranted . While ValuJet 's safety record has been called into question , TWA 's was excellent . Also , the airline is one of the nation 's oldest , having flown for 75 years . ValuJet started service two years ago . Last night 's crash came just hours after St . Louis-based TWA reported a fivefold increase in second-quarter profit . TWA earned $ 25.3 million , or 46 cents a share , compared with $ 5.2 million a year earlier . Revenue rose 12 percent to $ 965.8 million from $ 860.5 million . On Tuesday , TWA announced an order for five MD-83 jets from McDonnell Douglas Corp. , with a commitment to buy as many as 10 more by the end of the year . The cost of the crash itself -- both the loss of the aircraft and the potential liability for the deaths -- likely will be covered by insurance carriers , said Steve Lewins , an analyst with Gruntal Co. Most airlines are insured for $ 2 million to $ 3 million per passenger in the event of a crash . `` From a financial standpoint , ( the crash ) is irrelevant , '' Lewins said . Analysts said the multimillion-dollar jet order , combined with the strong earnings , indicated the airline was on the mend . TWA struggled through two bankruptcy filing in recent years and even resorted to using light bulbs and spare parts as collateral for loans . It emerged from its last Chapter 11 reorganization in August . Despite its long history , TWA never has been an industry pace-setter . The carrier has had several top managers , from millionaire Howard Hughes to corporate raider Carl Icahn , who knew little about the airline business . Icahn , who took control of TWA through a hostile takeover in 1985 , feuded with labor and implemented brutal cost-cutting . His tenure ended with the carrier 's first bankruptcy . TWA Flight 800 , bound for Paris , disappeared from radar screens around 8:40 p.m. local time shortly after taking off from New York 's John F. Kennedy Airport . Eyewitnesses described seeing a series of explosions before the plane fell . New York , July 17 ( Bloomberg ) A Trans World Airlines Inc. airplane bound for Paris crashed into the Atlantic Ocean about 20 miles off New York 's Long Island with 229 people aboard , a spokesman for TWA said . No survivors had been reported shortly after midnight , Steve Sapp of the U.S. Coast Guard told CNN . The flight fell off the Federal Aviation Administration radar screens around 8:45 p.m. , shortly after take off . TWA flight 800 was bound from New York 's John F. Kennedy International Airport to Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris , Mike Kelly , TWA vice president for airport operations , said in a press conference . The plane was a Boeing Co. 747-100 and had last flown from Athens , Greece , to New York . Eyewitnesses described seeing a series of explosions before the plane went down , according to news reports . `` Anything is possible , '' Kelly said in response to questions about the possibility of terrorist action . `` Security was at one of the highest level you can have , '' and had been increased because of the Olympic Games in Atlanta , he said . Coast Guard units were `` finding bodies and bringing them on to shore , '' Sapp said . He did n't know the number of bodies recovered and said the search would continue as long as possible . The 747 is the world 's largest airliner . The plane that went down was a 747-100 , which Boeing produced from 1970 through 1986 . It holds about 360 passengers in three classes . `` It 's too soon to get any hard data on what happened , '' said Boeing spokesman Doug Webb . `` We will cooperate fully with any investigation . Our thoughts are with the victims ' families . '' The crash comes less than a year after St . Louis-based TWA emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection , the airline 's second bankruptcy filing in two years . The carrier has become competitive again by paring costs and pulling out of money-losing routes . The 72-year-old carrier earlier on Wednesday reported an almost fivefold increase in second-quarter net income to $ 25.3 million , or 46 cents a share . Brian Jenkins , vice-chairman of the international security firm Kroll Associates , cautioned against jumping to a quick conclusion that the explosion was caused by a terrorist bomb . `` We can crank our society up to a state of paranoia which is unnecessary , '' said the Los Angles-based terrorism expert . `` Let 's get some more information before we go too far speculating . '' Jenkins said that airport security measures have improved significantly in recent years , in the wake of terrorist tragedies like the downing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie , Scotland . `` As the result of extraordinary security measures , commercial aviation , which was once one of the most popular targets of international terrorism , was made a more difficult target . '' He said attempts to hijack or plant bombs aboard aircraft have decreased . A toll-free number has been set up for family members of people on the flight . The number is ( 800 ) 438-9892 . The crash comes two months after the crash of ValuJet Inc. flight crash in the Florida Everglades that killed all 110 people aboard . That plane was a McDonnell Douglas Corp. DC-9-32 . Atlanta-based Valujet was grounded by the FAA one month after the crash . The Boeing 747 has been involved in other accidents in its almost 30-year history . Two of the jets collided in the Canary Islands in 1977 , killing 582 people in the world 's worst aircraft disaster . In 1985 , a Japan Air Lines 747 crashed into a mountain in Japan , killing 520 people . It was a Pan Am 747 that went down in Lockerbie , Scotland , in December 1988 after terrorists planted a bomb on the jet . That crash killed 270 people . In addition to the bungled handling of intelligence reports , Washington officials come under criticism in the Dorn report in other areas . Dorn notes that the get-tough policy of the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration toward Japan designed to persuade Japan to rein in its military expansionism in China and Southeast Asia included an embargo against oil exports to Japan and the freezing of Japanese assets in the summer of 1941 . The report suggests that FDR backed Japan into a corner . Dorn also cites the `` muddied '' warnings that Washington sent 10 days before the attack to Pearl Harbor about the imminence of war and Washington 's failure to follow up its warnings to check to see what the Hawaii commanders were doing to prepare . The Dorn report noted that previous congressional , Navy and Army investigations had also `` properly recognized and criticized '' the failures of senior Washington military leaders . On the other side of the ledger , the Dorn report says Kimmel and Short had a lot of intelligence that `` was sufficient to justify a higher level of vigilance than they chose to maintain . '' For example , Dorn said , Kimmel and Short knew that war with Japan was `` highly likely '' and that Japan would strike the first blow . And they knew that the attack `` could occur within weeks or days '' because tension between the United States and Japan had been building . Both commanders had received a `` war warning '' from Washington in late November to be on the alert against a possible attack . Both commanders also knew the Japanese liked to spring surprise attacks , especially on weekends . Kimmel also knew that his intelligence staff had suddenly lost track of Japan 's aircraft carriers and that Japanese embassies and consulates had been ordered to destroy their secret codes . The report also notes the confused assumptions that governed the relationship between Kimmel and Short . For example , the Navy had responsibility for long-range defensive patrols around Pearl Harbor , but Short apparently never asked Kimmel exactly what the Navy was doing in that respect . This was a key mistake in view of the fact that Short 's fighter planes needed a four-hour warning before they could get in the air and do battle . In reality , the Navy was undertaking only minimal reconnaissance , mainly because of a lack of airplanes . Nonetheless , the Hawaii commanders did n't know when or where the attack would come . Dorn said higher alert by Kimmel and Short `` might not have discovered the ( Japanese ) carrier armada and might not have prevented the attack , but different choices could have reduced the magnitude of the disaster . '' The attack killed 2,403 Americans and sank or damaged 18 warships . The bottom line : There 's no basis to restore their higher rank . Besides , Dorn noted , `` Retirement at the two-star grade is not an insult or a stigma . '' Dorn 's decision was praised by both sides of the historical debate over Kimmel and Short . Edward L. Beach , a retired Navy captain and author of a 1994 book defending Kimmel and Short , praised the Dorn report for restoring their honor without promoting them by acknowledging that others also were guilty . This paper removes the stigma in the court of public opinion . Donald M. Goldstein , a historian at the University of Pittsburgh who helped write the best-selling Pearl Harbor history `` At Dawn We Slept , '' also lauded the report . `` Given all that we 've seen , we know it was on their watch . To exonerate them , you 'd have to go back and exonerate everybody who screwed up at Pearl Harbor . If they had caught the Japanese , they would have been heroes . But they did n't . WASHINGTON Commerce Secretary Ron Brown and 32 others on a Balkan trade mission were presumed killed when their plane slammed into a Croatian hillside during heavy storms Wednesday . Authorities in Washington and Croatia blamed the crash on bad weather , not hostile fire or sabotage . The plane a military version of the twin-engine Boeing 737 disappeared from radar screens just minutes before it was to have landed at Dubrovnik 's airport . There was no indication of problems before the crash . A State Department spokesman said Wednesday night that Brown was assumed dead , although officially the passengers were still listed as missing . And an official of Riggs National Bank , one of whose vice presidents was on board , told The Associated Press : `` We have been told that the crash left no survivors . '' Journalists who reached the crash site reported that one woman had been found alive but died while being rushed to a hospital by helicopter . The plane was resting on its belly , the middle portion burned out . Rescue workers with flashlights searched the area in pouring rain Wednesday night , and Croatian commanders at the scene told The New York Times they had found nine bodies . There were 33 people on board the Air Force T-43 , including Brown , 54 , other Commerce officials , American business executives and a crew of six . New York Times reporter Nathaniel Nash was also on board , the paper said . The plane crashed in extremely windy weather as it prepared to land after a 45-minute flight from the Bosnian town of Tuzla at 2:52 p.m. Croatian time ( 4 :52 a.m. PST ) . For reasons yet unknown , the plane came in north of the runway and struck the hillside . Brown , accompanied by top business executives , was in the Balkans to encourage American investment in a region torn by war and badly in need of business to rebuild its economy . As of late Wednesday night , the administration had not released a full list of people on the flight . President Clinton , expressing shock and dismay , canceled his regular schedule . He and first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton visited Brown 's wife , Alma , and son , Michael , at the Brown home . Afterward , the president paid tribute to his friend and ally in a speech to Commerce Department employees . `` He was one of the best advisers and ablest people I ever knew . And he was very , very good at everything he ever did , '' Clinton said of the Harlem-raised former civil rights activist , lawyer-lobbyist and chairman of the Democratic National Committee , who became one of the highest-ranking blacks ever to serve in government . `` Ron Brown walked and ran and flew through life , and he was a magnificent life force . And those of us who loved him will always be grateful for his friendship and his warmth , '' said Clinton , speaking in somber tones to about 700 employees in the Commerce auditorium . NEW YORK Federal officials investigating the crash of Trans World Airlines Flight 800 are making a detailed study of several airline crashes caused by bombs , searching for clues that could help them determine whether the TWA 747 was also brought down by a bomb . Although the officials said they were not ready to declare the crash a result of a criminal act , they are comparing the evidence gathered in the TWA crash to the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie , Scotland , the 1989 downing of a French airliner over Chad and a 1985 crash of an Air India airliner that was attributed to a bomb . The federal officials said they were consulting foreign investigators and examining material from those earlier crashes as a way of testing the theory that the Paris-bound Boeing 747 was bombed . `` We 've acknowledged from the beginning that there 's a possibility that this could have been an act that would be comparable to those , '' said Robert Francis , the vice chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board , who is heading the investigation . `` And we 're doing what we would do in any accident investigation and that is comparing the things that have similarities . '' Officials also said on Monday that the catastrophic event that apparently broke the airplane in two whether it was caused by an explosion or by mechanical malfunction occurred near the front of the airplane . Joseph Cantamessa Jr. , the special agent in charge of the FBI 's New York office , said the bodies of victims sitting near the front of the plane showed more severe injuries , indicating they `` experienced the bulk of the significant event . '' Officials have said that the front part of the plane apparently separated from the rest of the plane and plunged into the Atlantic Ocean before the rest of the aircraft . Investigators have said in recent days that they were just one piece of evidence away from declaring the crash a criminal act , but that evidence continued to elude them on Monday . Some airplane parts pulled from the water off Long Island have initially tested positive for traces of explosives . But officials said on Monday that more sophisticated tests at the FBI laboratory in Washington failed to confirm any of the early positive tests . Metal from the airplane that investigators first thought bore the pockmarked pattern consistent with an explosion turned out to have been marred by the ocean 's salt water . And officials also said that the final loud noise picked up by the airplane 's cockpit voice recorder just before it stopped working on the night of the crash would not alone provide enough evidence for investigators to determine the nature of the cataclysmic event . `` We 're all a little frustrated by not being able to find the cause of this occurrence , '' Cantamessa said . The investigators hope to find some clues in the records of the foreign crashes , which on the surface at least , bear some similarities to Flight 800 . Both the Pan Am and the Air India crashes involved 747 's . In both cases , the cockpit voice recorder tapes ended with a fraction-of-a-second noise , which also happened on the TWA flight . And the TWA airplane seemed to break in a somewhat similar pattern to the Pan Am flight . The finding that the on-board recorders from the TWA flight showed no mechanical problems before the crash echoed the report of the French Transport Ministry on the 1989 crash over the Sahara Desert . The French ministry reported that DC-10 's data recorders `` showed that the flight proceeded in a normal manner until a total interruption , which translates as an explosion in flight . '' It said `` the work of the crew was proceeding normally when the recording of words and electronic data abruptly stopped . '' That crash , of a Union de Transports Aeriens airliner over Chad , killed all 170 people on board . The Air-India crash off the coast of Ireland killed 329 people , and the Pan Am explosion killed 270 . Authorities have linked both the Pan Am and the Chad bombings to Libyan terrorists . The Air-India bombing was blamed on Sikh separatists . Seven-year-old Jessica Dubroff , who died Thursday when the Cessna she was flying crashed as she attempted to become the youngest pilot to fly across the country , was still nine years shy of being a legal student pilot . Under federal aviation regulations , a person must be 16 before getting a student license . But the Federal Aviation Administration historically has looked the other way whenever children climb into the cockpit in search of a record . Thursday , FAA Administrator David R. Hinson said the agency will reevaluate the regulations governing youngsters in the cockpit . Under current regulations , all flights with children at the controls also must have a certified flight instructor in the cockpit . The FAA considers the certified instructor on board to be the pilot `` responsible for the control and safe flight of the aircraft , '' Hinson said . But with the death of Jessica , her father Lloyd Dubroff and her flight instructor Joseph Reid , a review will be conducted by Anthony Broderick , associate FAA administrator for regulation and certification , to see if the regulations are adequate . The issue has been debated within the FAA for some time , officials said . `` For some people , mostly pilots , this was a macho sort of thing that teaches kids how to fly and generates interest in aviation , '' said a former career FAA official who did not want to be named . `` But this is so patently stupid . You 've got to be 16 to drive a car and 16 to fly a plane . All this does is make people try it again and again at a younger and younger age . '' But Warren Morningstar of the Aircraft Owner and Pilot 's Association , said , `` There is no great need to change regulations with regard to children , the middle-aged or the elderly flying with a certified flight instructor because they want to learn about flying safely , '' he said . However , Morningstar , a spokesman for the 340,000-member general aviation lobbying group , added , `` We have a problem with children being put in a position to try and set a pseudo-record . We have never endorsed these stunt flights and unfortunately , we saw the results today of what happens when you put a person , for whatever reason for fame or attention , under extraordinary pressure and they do things they would not otherwise have done . '' Some FAA officials said the pursuit of records is nothing more than a con , because licensed pilots were doing most of the flying . `` You could put someone like her in the right-hand seat and say she is flying , but it is the person in the left seat who is flying , '' said FAA spokesman Ron Herwig . When the Cessna took off in rain and snow from the 6,900-foot runway at Cheyenne Municipal Airport in Wyoming , Reid was seated at one control panel , Jessica was seated at another and her father was in a passenger seat in a four-seat Cessna 177B , a 21-year-old single-engine plane owned by Reid . `` A flight instructor is required to be in a position to take complete control of an aircraft in an instant when flying with an unlicensed student , '' said FAA spokesman Tim Pile . The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the accident and will try to determine who was controlling the plane as it plummeted 400 feet to the ground , less than a mile from the airport . One high-ranking safety investigator said he did not question whether children should be flying planes , but rather the decision to take off in such poor weather conditions . `` She was flying with a certified flight instructor and I guarantee he took it away from her at the first sign of trouble , '' he said . The concern that passengers may forsake ValuJet prompted investors to sell shares . `` My belief is this will hurt their traffic for a little while , '' said James Oberweis , head of Oberweis Asset Management . `` We 're feeling a little uncomfortable . '' Oberweis said his firm is selling as much as half of the 198,000 shares of ValuJet it owns . Others said the crash is n't likely to deter to customers . `` People faced with the choice of paying $ 89 on ValuJet or $ 350 on another carrier are going to take their chances and get on that plane , '' said Arnold Barnett , a professor of statistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston . Typically , crashes do little to long-term results . In September 1994 , a USAir Group Inc. jet crashed near Pittsburgh , killing all 132 on board and capping a series of fatal air disasters . At the time , USAir traded at about 6 . In following weeks , the shares dropped to about 4 . Friday , the stock closed at 17 and last year the company posted its first profit since 1988 . ValuJet President and Co-founder Lewis Jordan defended the airline 's safety standards and use of older aircraft . `` We cannot put too much emphasis on safety , '' Jordan said on CNN today . From a statistical standpoint , ValuJet 's crash is surprising , said Barnett , the MIT professor . A typical airline has a fatal crash every 6 million or 7 million miles , Barnett said . ValuJet 's aircraft have only flown a few hundred thousand miles in its three-year existence . `` This crash is surprising because it came so early in ValuJet 's lifetime , '' Barnett said . Southwest Airlines Co. , a Dallas-based low-frills carrier to which ValuJet is often compared , has flown more than 5 million miles in two decades without a fatal accident , indicating that low-cost carriers are n't necessarily riskier than their full-service competitors . Analysts point out that safety is sometimes compromised when management is preoccupied with growth , a hallmark of ValuJet 's meteoric rise . From its start in October 1993 , when ValuJet bought 18 old DC-9s from Delta Air Lines Inc. , ValuJet has expanded to 51 planes and 320 daily flights to 31 cities . The company expanded outside the Southeast and flies to Boston , Kansas City , and Detroit . Last year , ValuJet canceled service to Montreal because it was losing money . As the company expanded , its stock took flight : ValuJet sold shares to the public in June 1994 at $ 3.13 each , adjusting for splits , and peaked at 34 3/4 in November . The wisdom of all that rapid growth is getting a second look from investors and regulators . `` The further you grow the more stress and strain on your airline , '' Boyd said . WASHINGTON Two passengers on a Delta Air Lines flight from Pensacola , Fla. , to Atlanta were killed on Saturday afternoon when an engine on the plane broke up as the jet was beginning to take off , sending debris into the cabin . After the takeoff was aborted , five other people were injured while being evacuated from the jet . The plane , a McDonnell Douglas MD-88 with its full capacity of 142 passengers and a crew of 5 , was about 1,500 feet down the runway when passengers reported seeing smoke from the left engine . Brenda Menard , a passenger on the plane traveling with her husband , Jean Paul , and 11-month-old child , told The Associated Press that a piece of the engine had burst through the fuselage . `` There was part of it that went through to the other side , '' she said . Other passengers described what they said sounded like an explosion or `` pop '' and an odor like burning plastic . Bruce Yelverton , director of Escambia County Emergency Medical Services , said that a woman and a young boy were killed . Five people were taken to Pensacola hospitals , including a 15-year-old boy and his 9-year-old sister and three women , one of whom is pregnant . All were listed in good condition . An injured man was evacuated by helicopter and was in serious condition , Yelverton said . The engine , a Pratt Whitney JT8D , was similar to one that broke up on a Valujet DC-9 as it was taking off from Atlanta in June 1995 , badly injuring a flight attendant . After that accident , the National Transportation Safety Board called for more frequent inspections of that type of engine , a JT8D-9a . Preliminary reports on Saturday evening were that the engines on the Delta plane were JT8D-219s , which are slightly different . Mark Sullivan , a spokesman for Pratt Whitney , said that the company believes a fan blade in the front of the left engine failed . Broken pieces of the blade probably penetrated the fan case and debris went flying , Sullivan said . `` We believe that is what happened , '' he said . `` But we have not confirmed it because we have n't examined the engine . '' Delta could not say on Saturday evening when the engine that broke up was last inspected , or even how old it was . But a spokesman , Dean Breest , said it was probably of about the same vintage as the aircraft , which was delivered to the airline in 1988 . Both the MD-88 that was involved in the accident on Saturday and Valujet 's DC-9 have engines mounted close to the fuselage at the rear of the plane . Their centers are about level with the middle of the passenger window . The National Transportation Safety Board said on Saturday evening that it was sending a team of six investigators to the scene . Michael Benson , a spokesman , said that `` uncontained engine failures , '' in which the spinning internal parts not only break up , but break out of the engine , are rare but are `` one of the worst things that can happen . '' In the Valujet case , the shrapnel severed fuel lines , which started a fire that destroyed the airplane on the runway . In May 1991 , a JT8D engine failure destroyed a Boeing 727 freighter . But the accidents are rare relative to the number of hours of service , and the engine is one of the most popular in civilian aviation , in part because of its high reliability . The safety board 's inspection recommendation arose from an incident at La Guardia Airport , in New York , on Jan. 30 . An engine on a Delta Boeing 727 failed , throwing parts through the engine cowling . The crew halted the takeoff and passengers were evacuated without injury . New York , July 18 ( Bloomberg ) Shares of Trans World Airlines Inc. fell as much as 16 percent amid concerns that last night 's fatal crash of a Paris-bound jumbo jetliner will gut the airline 's financial rebound . All 228 people on board are believed to have been killed when the Boeing Co. 747 jetliner exploded and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off Long Island , New York , about 8:40 p.m. . Officials said they have n't ruled out terrorism as a cause of the blast , which came after TWA heightened security in advance of the Olympic Games in Atlanta . `` This is very serious for TWA , '' said David Stempler , an aviation consultant in Washington , D.C. . `` It might finish them off . '' TWA emerged from its second bankruptcy in August . Stempler likened TWA 's position to that of Pan American World Airways in 1988 , after terrorists blew up a jumbo jet over Lockerbie , Scotland , killing 259 people . Passengers were afraid to fly Pan Am after the crash , which contributed to the airline 's demise . Lewins said the possibility of sabotage and the fact that Pan AM Flight 103 also was a Boeing 747 inevitably will draw comparisons . That could be detrimental if those comparisons stick in the minds of travellers . `` TWA can weather it so long as it does n't get a Pan Am 103 image in the eyes of the public , '' he said . In late trading , TWA shares fell 1 3/8 to 9 7/8 after trading as low as 9 1/2 earlier in the session . It was one of the most-active issues on U.S. markets , with about 6.97 million shares traded . Other airline stocks also fell amid speculation that the crash and mounting concerns about airline safety could lead to a decline in passenger traffic for all carriers . Shares of AMR Corp. , the parent of American Airlines , fell 3/4 to 81 1/8 and Delta Air Lines Inc. dropped 7/8 to 74 1/2 . Northwest Airlines Corp. delayed the release of its second-quarter earnings , set for this morning , until Monday because of the crash . The TWA crash , one of the worst in U.S. history , follows other aviation disasters including a May 11 crash of a ValuJet Inc. DC-9 in Florida that killed 110 people , a crash in the Balkans of a military version of the Boeing 737 that killed Commerce Secretary Ron Brown and the explosion of an engine on a Delta plane earlier this month that killed two people . At the same time , Harris said that comparisons to the ValuJet crash are unwarranted . While ValuJet 's safety record has been called into question , TWA 's was excellent . Also , the airline is one of the nation 's oldest , having flown for 75 years . ValuJet started service two years ago . Last night 's crash came just hours after St . Louis-based TWA reported a fivefold increase in second-quarter profit . TWA earned $ 25.3 million , or 46 cents a share , compared with $ 5.2 million a year earlier . Revenue rose 12 percent to $ 965.8 million from $ 860.5 million . On Tuesday , TWA announced an order for five MD-83 jets from McDonnell Douglas Corp. , with a commitment to buy as many as 10 more by the end of the year . The cost of the crash itself -- both the loss of the aircraft and the potential liability for the deaths -- likely will be covered by insurance carriers , said Steve Lewins , an analyst with Gruntal Co. Most airlines are insured for $ 2 million to $ 3 million per passenger in the event of a crash . `` From a financial standpoint , ( the crash ) is irrelevant , '' Lewins said . Analysts said the multimillion-dollar jet order , combined with the strong earnings , indicated the airline was on the mend . TWA struggled through two bankruptcy filing in recent years and even resorted to using light bulbs and spare parts as collateral for loans . It emerged from its last Chapter 11 reorganization in August . Despite its long history , TWA never has been an industry pace-setter . The carrier has had several top managers , from millionaire Howard Hughes to corporate raider Carl Icahn , who knew little about the airline business . Icahn , who took control of TWA through a hostile takeover in 1985 , feuded with labor and implemented brutal cost-cutting . His tenure ended with the carrier 's first bankruptcy . TWA Flight 800 , bound for Paris , disappeared from radar screens around 8:40 p.m. local time shortly after taking off from New York 's John F. Kennedy Airport . Eyewitnesses described seeing a series of explosions before the plane fell . WASHINGTON A mission of hope and renewal for the tortured Balkans exploded into an American tragedy Wednesday when the plane carrying Commerce Secretary Ronald H. Brown crashed in stormy weather near the Croatian coast . The Air Force plane carrying Brown and 32 other passengers and crew crashed into a cloud-shrouded mountain two miles shy of the Dubrovnik airport . The State Department said Brown is presumed dead . Spokesman Glyn Davies said late Wednesday that U.S. government officials had contacted the families of all passengers on the planes , but he did not release the names of those on board . `` We 've decided that we want to give the families one night to deal with this , '' Davies told reporters . Brown 's plane , the military equivalent of a Boeing 737 jetliner , left the town of Tuzla , site of U.S. military headquarters in Bosnia , Wednesday morning . It was following a radio beacon toward a runway pelted by wind-driven rain when it crashed a half-hour after takeoff . U.S. military search and rescue teams struggled into the night to reach the crash site , amid unconfirmed reports that Croatian officials had found at least four bodies and one survivor . `` We have no confirmed reports of either fatalities or survivors , '' Lt . Gen . Howell Estes stressed during a Pentagon briefing . `` We can only hope that the reports of survivors are true and that more are found . '' President Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton visited Brown 's wife , Alma , before the president spoke to about 700 Commerce Department employees , many of whom were in tears . `` We do not know for sure what happened , '' Clinton said , apparently not wanting to rule out a possible miracle on the craggy Adriatic coastline . Clinton used the past tense and spoke in solemn tones , however , about Brown and his staff , praising them for taking a chance to `` help the peace take hold in the Balkans . '' `` I am very grateful for their lives and their service , '' Clinton said . `` I hope all Americans today will be grateful for what all the people who were on that plane did ...out of a sense of what they could do to help America bring peace . '' Brown , 54 , was in the Balkans leading a delegation of about a dozen American corporate executives investigating potential business opportunities in the war-torn region . The plane he was on also carried 26 other passengers and 6 crew members , Estes said . By late Wednesday , there were more questions than answers about what caused the crash . The Pentagon ruled out hostile fire as a possible cause there 's been no fighting in the area in months and Estes said investigators would leave Washington Wednesday night en route to the accident site . `` There is no evidence of any hostile fire in the area , there is no evidence of any kind of an explosion of any type on the aircraft , '' Estes said . Asked why the aircraft was approaching the airport over a half-mile-high mountain instead of along a path running alongside the coast , Estes said , `` I have n't a clue why they ended up here . '' Weather , however , might have been a factor , an official at the airport meteorological service in the Croatian capital of Zagreb told the Reuters news agency . New York , March 25 ( Bloomberg ) Coltec Industries Inc. said loss of sales to the Dutch jet-maker Fokker NV , which filed for bankruptcy earlier this month , will reduce its 1996 net income by $ 2.6 million , or 4 cents per share . New York-based Coltec said in January it expected 1996 earnings to be the same as the $ 70.9 million reported in 1995 because of stagnant demand for its car parts and airplane landing gear business . `` I think the earnings acceleration will be a 1998 event , when the company starts taking more business in from Boeing , '' said Jackson Blackstock , an analyst at Donaldson Lufkin Jenrette . The company also said it will take a first-quarter-charge of $ 9.2 million , or 13 cents a share , to cover the write-off of development costs , losses on foreign exchange contracts , supplier claims and other expenses related to the provision of landing gear and flight control systems for the Fokker 70 and 100 aircraft . `` This is not a surprise , '' said Michael Bunyaner . `` Fokker was a major customer , so this is just a reaction to what has happened . '' On March 15 , Fokker 's main units filed for bankruptcy after failing to win bids for all or part of the company from Samsung Aerospace Industries Corp. of South Korea or Aviation Industries of China . Coltec 's shares fell 1/8 to 12 1/2 in trading of 133,900 shares on the New York Stock Exchange . Although the company 's shares have rebounded somewhat since January , when they were trading at 11 after the company 's profit warning , analysts do not expect the stock to pick up strongly in the short term . `` The biggest reason the stock has been a disaster is because the company has done so well for so long , its current problems seem bigger against that background '' said Blackstock . `` Now that the stock has been crushed , do you buy ? Frank Shrontz , visionary : In 1989 , Shrontz had been CEO for three years and chairman for two . The economy was booming and the company was selling jetliners faster than its 165,000 employees could crank them out . The soon-to-fly 747-400 figured to solidify Boeing 's monopoly on the lucrative jumbo-jet market . The company won accolades all around ; it was in the top tier of the Fortune 500 . Inside , however , as the 747-400 suffered more teething problems than an elephant with gum disease , Shrontz was on a new mission : reinventing Boeing and the way it did business . `` We started this change when things were going well , '' Shrontz pointed out , `` and it was hard to convince some people that we needed to do it . '' First top executives , then managers , then front-line workers had to attend factory tours and special classes and make hard-won commitments to do business differently . Boeing was already more efficient than any other aerospace firm , especially among commercial producers . But those firms , weaned on cost-plus defense contracts and Cold War largesse , were not an efficient group . Executives under Shrontz preached the gospel , but the word came from him . The 777 , designed and built in the new , participatory , customer- and employee-focused style , became Boeing 's most trouble-free launch ever . Airlines responded by giving it more than 70 percent of its market segment . To Shrontz , this is his achievement : `` the start of what I think is an important cultural change , to emphasize process as well as product . '' In the end , he hopes , Boeing will turn out better jets in less time and at less cost . But at the crowning moment , the successful first flight of the new 777 in 1994 , there was Frank Shrontz , small-town guy , whipping out a small camera to snap a picture of the huge twin-engine jet lifting off the runway . The project was corporate America ; the grin was a kid from Idaho . There are some regrets . Boeing 's brief ownership of Canadian regional aircraft maker de Havilland was a small disaster . Shrontz also says he wishes he had started reinventing Boeing a little sooner . `` I would like to have done some of these cultural changes earlier . I am delighted that it 's moving forward . '' He also regrets the lost jobs , the lives changed . `` It is hard . Those are tough decisions and the results tear at you . But if we do n't do it , none of us in the company would have jobs , '' he said . `` When your military business is down by half and your commercial business is off by 30 percent , I felt we had little choice but to do what we did . '' `` We tried to modulate the impact '' of the layoffs , through an early retirement offer , retraining , spreading out the layoffs over time , instituting a hiring freeze , Shrontz said . `` It 's a lot more fun to manage when things are on the way up . '' But he does n't begrudge the pickets who 've taken his name in vain , the people who have mistaken his quiet demeanor for coldness . Shrontz said he feels `` frustration , but not bitterness . I can understand that they are looking at this thing from a different perspective . I 'm disappointed sometimes that our communication is n't better . `` We used some unfortunate terms early on , like ` shared destiny . ' People took that to mean that they would n't be leaving here unless I was leaving here , too . '' WASHINGTON The squadron commander of the F-14 pilot in the Nashville crash that killed five people last week has been relieved of his command , the Navy announced Sunday . Citing three accidents over the last year , the Navy decided to reassign the commander , Fred Kilian , because of `` a loss of trust and confidence '' in his ability to lead the squadron , said a spokesman , Comdr . Gregg Hartung . Fighter Squadron 213 , a 14-plane unit based in Miramar Naval Base near San Diego , had developed by far the worst safety record among the Navy 's 13 F-14 squadrons , with four crashes over the last 16 months , three after Kilian became its leader . A Navy officer said that Kilian had an `` excellent reputation . '' `` But in the Navy , '' the officer said , speaking on the condition of anonymity , `` we hold people accountable for things that happen during the time of their command . In this particular case , this particular squadron has an exceptionally high accident rate higher than any other . '' The officer said the decision to reassign Kilian to the Pacific headquarters of the Navy 's Fighter Wing was made Saturday by the commander of Carrier Air Wing 11 , Capt . Dennis Gillespie . Kilian could not be reached for comment . In the latest crash , an F-14 from Squadron 213 plunged to the ground immediately after takeoff on Jan . 29 , killing the pilot , Lt . Comdr . John Stacy Bates , the jet 's radar operator Lt . Graham Alden Higgins , and three civilians in a house the plane crashed into . Bates had crashed an F-14 into the Pacific during a routine training flight in April . Navy officials blamed him for causing the accident , in which no one was hurt , by losing control , but forgave him because they felt he was displaying the sort of aggressive flying style the Navy encourages . The Navy officer said there had still been no determination of a cause of the Nashville crash . Bates had requested and been given permission for `` an unrestricted climb to 15,000 feet '' a style of takeoff in which the pilot soars straight up moments after leaving the ground . The Navy officer declined to comment on whether the unrestricted climb could be linked to the crash . The Navy officer confirmed that the pilot 's parents had been at Berry Field , an Air National Guard airfield adjacent to Nashville International Airport watching the takeoff . Flying fighter planes is a dangerous business , even in peacetime : since 1992 , 12 F-14 pilots have died in training accidents . But over the years , many Navy pilots have complained that the engines on A-model F-14s , like all the planes in Squadron 213 , are not powerful enough for the maneuvers they are asked to perform . Navy officials have begun to replace them with more powerful models . Squadron 213 's string of crashes began in October 1994 , before Kilian took over , when one of the Navy 's first female fighter pilots , Lt . Kara S. Hultgreen , died in a training accident off Southern California . In addition to the Nashville crash and Bates 's April accident , an F-14 from Squadron 213 also exploded last September without fatalities just after taking off from an aircraft carrier . After last week 's accident , the squadron was ordered to stop flying while its safety procedures were reviewed . The Navy spokesman , Hartung , said that order remained in effect . U.S. Air Force AWACS surveillance plane circled high over the Straits of Florida . Two navy cruisers , a frigate and 11 coast guard cutters cut through the heavy swells . Over the horizon in Key West , a squadron of F-16 fighters waited on standby . Nine planes and a helicopter circled the spot in the Caribbean off Havana where Cuban MiGs shot down two Cessnas flown by anti-Castro activists a week earlier . Almost lost amid the escort was the main body of the flotilla itself two dozen fishing boats carrying friends and supporters of the dead pilots to a memorial service . What was the armada protecting ? Ostensibly , the right of Cuban-Americans to tug at Fidel Castro 's beard so long as they do n't break U.S. law by doing it in his territory . But the other mission was to prevent another hijacking of U.S. foreign policy by the tiny band of exiles , or by anyone else . `` There is no government or regime that can stop what we 're going to do , '' one of the mourners said ominously last weekend . And that was not a boast to be taken lightly . Last week the Clinton administration 's carefully calibrated Cuba policy was in shreds , the victim of the new protest strategy by a group called Brothers to the Rescue and election-year politics . President Clinton had been pursuing a delicate policy of encouraging democratic change inside Cuba , while maintaining the embargo . But the shoot-down forced him to scale back the small steps toward rapprochement and re-escalate the war of words . He called the attack `` an appalling reminder of the nature of the Cuban regime repressive , violent , scornful of international law . '' At the United Nations , Ambassador Madeleine Albright released the text of intercepted radio chatter between the Cuban MiG pilots and their base on Feb. 24 , intended for pure shock value . `` We took out their cojones ( balls ) , '' a pilot exclaimed after his missile hit the first Cessna . Albright declared , `` This is n't cojones , this is cowardice . '' Havana 's Foreign Minister Roberto Robaina retorted : `` We 've always had plenty of the first and have never suffered from the latter . '' Albright 's comments were `` nasty for a lady , '' he said . `` Chauvinistic , '' countered Albright . Clinton also executed a sharp right turn on Capitol Hill , agreeing to support the so-called Cuban Liberty Bill sponsored by Sen. Jesse Helms and Rep. Robert Burton . The most provocative section authorizes Americans to sue foreign firms that do business in Cuba over property confiscated by the Castro government . It also would deny U.S. visas to anyone dealing in confiscated property . Until the shoot-down , Clinton 's foreign-policy team had argued that the bill was a radical departure from the norms of international trade , and that by giving the economic embargo the force of law , it would prevent any president from engaging Havana . Clinton gave in after winning a GOP compromise that permits him to delay implementation for up to six months if he deems it necessary for the national interest . Washington 's closest allies oppose Helms-Burton . But in recent years , domestic politics have driven U.S. policy toward Cuba more than foreign-policy concerns . In voting terms , the anti-Castro lobby is not formidable . Cuban-Americans account for just 7 percent of the electorate in Florida , and even smaller numbers in New Jersey , another swing state . But their symbolic clout is considerable , particularly with Republican challengers championing their cause . `` After months of moving the wrong way toward coddling Castro President Clinton has yet to understand that the only way to deal with tyranny is with real firmness and pressure , '' GOP presidential hopeful Bob Dole declared last week . Clinton ca n't hope to outbash the GOP hard-liners on Cuba , but there is no immediate political downside to playing it tough . Clinton knows all about the perils and rewards of beating the anti-Castro drum . NEW YORK Federal officials investigating the crash of Trans World Airlines Flight 800 are making a detailed study of several airline crashes caused by bombs , searching for clues that could help them determine whether the TWA 747 was also brought down by a bomb . Although the officials said they were not ready to declare the crash a result of a criminal act , they are comparing the evidence gathered in the TWA crash to the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie , Scotland , the 1989 downing of a French airliner over Chad and a 1985 crash of an Air India airliner that was attributed to a bomb . The federal officials said they were consulting foreign investigators and examining material from those earlier crashes as a way of testing the theory that the Paris-bound Boeing 747 was bombed . `` We 've acknowledged from the beginning that there 's a possibility that this could have been an act that would be comparable to those , '' said Robert Francis , the vice chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board , who is heading the investigation . `` And we 're doing what we would do in any accident investigation and that is comparing the things that have similarities . '' Officials also said on Monday that the catastrophic event that apparently broke the airplane in two whether it was caused by an explosion or by mechanical malfunction occurred near the front of the airplane . Joseph Cantamessa Jr. , the special agent in charge of the FBI 's New York office , said the bodies of victims sitting near the front of the plane showed more severe injuries , indicating they `` experienced the bulk of the significant event . '' Officials have said that the front part of the plane apparently separated from the rest of the plane and plunged into the Atlantic Ocean before the rest of the aircraft . Investigators have said in recent days that they were just one piece of evidence away from declaring the crash a criminal act , but that evidence continued to elude them on Monday . Some airplane parts pulled from the water off Long Island have initially tested positive for traces of explosives . But officials said on Monday that more sophisticated tests at the FBI laboratory in Washington failed to confirm any of the early positive tests . Metal from the airplane that investigators first thought bore the pockmarked pattern consistent with an explosion turned out to have been marred by the ocean 's salt water . And officials also said that the final loud noise picked up by the airplane 's cockpit voice recorder just before it stopped working on the night of the crash would not alone provide enough evidence for investigators to determine the nature of the cataclysmic event . `` We 're all a little frustrated by not being able to find the cause of this occurrence , '' Cantamessa said . The investigators hope to find some clues in the records of the foreign crashes , which on the surface at least , bear some similarities to Flight 800 . Both the Pan Am and the Air India crashes involved 747 's . In both cases , the cockpit voice recorder tapes ended with a fraction-of-a-second noise , which also happened on the TWA flight . And the TWA airplane seemed to break in a somewhat similar pattern to the Pan Am flight . The finding that the on-board recorders from the TWA flight showed no mechanical problems before the crash echoed the report of the French Transport Ministry on the 1989 crash over the Sahara Desert . The French ministry reported that DC-10 's data recorders `` showed that the flight proceeded in a normal manner until a total interruption , which translates as an explosion in flight . '' It said `` the work of the crew was proceeding normally when the recording of words and electronic data abruptly stopped . '' That crash , of a Union de Transports Aeriens airliner over Chad , killed all 170 people on board . The Air-India crash off the coast of Ireland killed 329 people , and the Pan Am explosion killed 270 . Authorities have linked both the Pan Am and the Chad bombings to Libyan terrorists . The Air-India bombing was blamed on Sikh separatists . After years of fretting and poring over self-help manuals marked down to half-price , I 've decided the only sane response to modern times is panic disorder . It 's the perfect catchall remedy for life 's traumas and random insults , such as turning on the tube expecting a juicy sitcom and instead being treated to a documentary on the Freon crisis . Not to make light of other people 's troubles , we all have to come to terms with chance events that ca n't possibly be explained , except by a 10-second sound bite . What can be more upsetting than seeing the Publisher 's Clearinghouse van slowly crusing down the street , then pulling into the driveway two houses away ? How can fate be so cruel ? There are so many ways in which we are put to the test and found wanting : Opening the utility bill and seeing a number that closely resembles the area code for San Diego . Consulting the Weather Channel , laboriously sweeping the pool and getting to enjoy your handiwork for a few seconds before a dust storm blows in straight off the set of Lawrence of Arabia . Daring to make a solo visit to the department store perfume counter , getting spritzed , purchasing an ounce of a chic fragrance without asking the price , and then watching the wife spill half the contents down the sink . The socially accepted way to cope is panic disorder . It may not be covered under everyone 's deductible , and it may be void where prohibited by law , but it 's definitely a trendy way of handling life 's curveballs and knockdown pitches . Once you experience panic disorder and learn to roll with it , you never have to fear intruders of the pesky dinner-hour variety , pitching you a new home security system . As you will learn as a veteran of panic disorder , the most sophisticated home security system is no good if it does n't make you feel secure . My thinking goes like this : yesterday , carpet cleaning . Today , in-home security . Tomorrow , dual-pane windows . Who needs it ? Let me just eat dinner in peace , without the phone ringing . Besides , we already have a pretty sophisticated security system , the TROY . Requires no knowledge of electronics . Does n't come with a 300-page technical manual . Never needs to be programmed . And it 's about as reliable as some other systems , which is to say , it works when it works . Actually , Troy is a not-so-vicious attack dog , a 15-pound Lhasa apso , a little fur ball that barks when the doorbell rings , but lets the yardman enter the gate without a whimper . The descendant of canines that once protected Tibetan temples , Troy fetches his squeaker toy when the pest control person enters the front door . Some warning system . All this is a way of working up to a serious point , which is , how to deal with the awful , horrific , nightmare-inducing events like the midair explosion of Trans World Airlines Flight 800 . There is a familiar ritual for coming to terms with these frightful disasters , beginning with eyewitness accounts , searchers recovering the flight recorder , investigators piecing together remnants of the aircraft , and finally , months later , some transportation expert offering an incomprehensible jumble of words to explain away the unexplainable . The whole bit is comforting , if only in being so familiar . An uneasy faith is restored that lasts until the next time . Panic disorder is another line of defense , and it requires no formal training . Being around a while is about all it takes . There is so much uncertainty in our everyday lives , panic disorder is almost second-nature . Think of all the calamities over the last 20 years : Three Mile Island , Chernobyl , AIDS , the Challenger explosion , the stock market crash , train derailments , assassinations , famines , droughts , floods , fires . No wonder one of the most quoted sayings of this or any decade is , `` If you want to make God laugh , tell him your plans . '' Despite the urge to panic , we tend to resent any disruptions that might provide a little protection . In the wake of terrorist bombings , security is stepped up at airports and public facilities . In a few days , however , complaints outweigh fears . Elaborate security precautions are in force at the Olympics in Atlanta . I remember how it was in Los Angeles in 1984 : each time you entered an arena , or venue , your bag or satchel was searched . Nobody got blown up or shot , but I thought somebody would get stomped by impatient people waiting in line . Much the same thing happened at the Super Bowl in Tampa five years ago , the experience heightened by the sight of SWAT teams positioned atop the press box . The logical conclusion would be that there is no such thing as a sure thing . Except that Charles Barkley will come up with something to say in the next few days that will leave everybody thinking , `` He ca n't get away with that , can he ? '' Chris Cobbs , a former sports writer and columnist , is now an editorial writer for The Phoenix Gazette . WASHINGTON Defense Secretary William Perry suggested on Thursday that malfunctioning instruments may have caused the crash of an Air Force jet that took the life of Commerce Secretary Ron Brown and at least 32 others in Croatia on Wednesday . Returning from a trip to Egypt , Perry told reporters on his plane : `` It was a classic sort of accident that good instrumentation should be able to prevent . '' He did not specify whether he was referring to instruments on the ground or in the plane . Brown 's plane , a military version of the Boeing 737 , smashed into a mountain near Dubrovnik , the storied port on the Adriatic Sea . More than 36 hours after the crash , it was still not clear how many passengers were aboard , though it was evident there were no survivors . After rescue teams searched all Wednesday night and all day on Thursday , hampered by fog and rain , Miomir Zuzul , the Croatian ambassador to the United States , said they had discovered 33 bodies . The Pentagon used the same figure . But the plane 's manifest , issued by the State Department , listed 35 people : Brown and 11 Commerce Department aides , including Charles F. Meissner , assistant secretary for international trade , whose wife , Doris , heads the Immigration and Naturalization Service , and William Morton , deputy assistant secretary for international economic development ; Lee F. Jackson , an American working at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development ; James M. Lewek , a Central Intelligence Agency analyst ; a photographer and an interpreter from the American Embassy in Zagreb ; 12 business executives ; 6 crewmen ; and Nathaniel C. Nash , Frankfurt bureau chief of The New York Times . Unable to fully explain the discrepancy , Glyn Davies , a State Department spokesman said at an afternoon briefing : `` We 've made every effort with regards to this list to confirm its accuracy , and there are no indications that anyone listed on this manifest was not on the plane that crashed . '' Davies added on Thursday night : `` The condition of the remains is such that it 's difficult to say with certainty that there are 33 or 35 bodies there . '' The cause of the crash was no clearer on Thursday than on Wednesday , but a few more details emerged . It was established , for example , that Cilipi Airport , southeast of Dubrovnik , had no instrument landing system the sophisticated aid to bad-weather navigation that major airports use . It was a casualty of the 1991 war . But the airport has a less advanced system , a VHF Omnidirectional Radio beacon , or VOR , that should have sufficed . `` People in Dubrovnik say that it was the worst storm they have seen in a decade , '' said Peter Galbraith , the U.S. ambassador to Croatia . `` The plane was obviously not where it should have been . It seems to have flown up , not along the coast but along a valley one ridge over . '' Lt . Gen . Howell Estes , director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff , said that many aircraft had landed at Cilipi without difficulty , including several during the foul weather on Wednesday , both before and after the accident . No one disputed that the plane was almost two miles off course . The storm around the outspoken Schiavo was spawned by her harsh and public criticism of the FAA and her frank admission that she avoids flying on ValuJet . Sen. Ron Wyden , D- Ore. , called it `` troubling '' when the DOT inspector general does n't `` feel comfortable flying an airline that is out flying planes and offering its services to the American public . '' Inspectors general are appointed for indefinite terms and report to Congress and the president . They usually stay out of the public eye as they investigate incompetence , waste and other abuses within federal agencies . A former assistant U.S. attorney , Ms. Schiavo was appointed to her present post in 1990 . Born in Pioneer , Ohio , in 1955 , she took her first flight at the age of 10 in a six-seat plane . She received her private pilot 's license at the age of 18 while as a student at Ohio State University . Although she had been critical of the FAA at congressional hearings and in Transportation Department reports , it was only in the aftermath of the fatal crash of ValuJet Flight 592 that the nation began to pay heed . She wrote an essay in the May 20th issue of Newsweek charging the FAA has `` serious deficiencies in airline inspections '' and revealing her own fears about flying on ValuJet . She has since expressed her concerns during television appearances . Her remarks have been criticized by FAA Director David Hinson and others in the aviation community . They point out that the cause of the ValuJet crash has not even been determined . `` I personally found her behavior quite irresponsible , '' said John Strong , author of `` Why Airplanes Crash , '' and a business professor at the College of William and Mary in Virginia . `` That 's a very serious thing to go public with , '' said Stevens . Before taking her charges to the news media , he said , Schiavo should have reported them to Congress and the Clinton administration . The B-29 has also appeared in six documentaries and feature films , including `` Fat Man and Little Boy '' and `` The Right Stuff , '' but often the CAF collects little more than the maintenance cost . `` In theory , we can always make the part . But in practice , I have my doubts , '' Agather replied when asked how much longer Fifi might be able to fly . `` In terms of people , there is that generation that has no connection with World War II . Will they have enough interest to come out and do what 's needed ? '' Despite its crucial role in the Pacific theater , the B-29 has always been damned as a mechanic 's nightmare . `` The hog , that 's what we call it , '' said Thad Dulin , 40 , a Midland oilfield drilling specialist and a recognized expert on the B-29 . `` Everything you do , it `hogs ' your time . You just do n't walk up and do one simple thing , '' he said of the plane , which broke technological ground during World War II as the first pressurized bomber with electronic , remote-controlled guns . Dulin 's love for B-29s took him to Greenland to help rescue the `` Keebird , '' which had crash-landed on an arctic lake shore in 1947 . The mission ended in disaster last year when the partially restored craft caught fire on takeoff . Human tragedy was averted only when Dulin managed to free the trapped pilot and push him from the blazing plane , Agather said . At the Blue Max cafe just beyond the CAF headquarters at Midland 's airport , Dulin tries to explain the allure of the last of the type of plane that dropped atomic bombs on Japan . `` Do n't you ever think you are the only one in the world doing something ? When you sit down at the controls of Fifi , you are the only one in the world doing this , '' Dulin said . His wife , Arlene , lets him indulge his `` loving obsession , '' which ties together his ragtag group . `` It 's a type of bonding a really neat situation , '' she said . There 's sometimes misunderstanding , even in Midland , where she teaches ninth grade . Arlene Dulin said she assumes that some colleagues view the Confederate Air Force members as an anachronistic bunch of hawks , perpetrating hatred for a former enemy . But they 're wrong , she said . `` In the 1940s , there was a need in our country for ideas , manpower and ingenuity , '' she said . `` And this is what the plane represents . It 's not a war machine , a killing machine . It 's a project , more of an idea , to uphold . It sounds grandiose , but that 's what they 're carrying on . WASHINGTON A sustained breakdown in the Air Force 's chain of command was a leading factor in the plane crash that killed Commerce Secretary Ron Brown and all 34 other people aboard in Dubrovnik , Croatia , two months ago , the service said Friday in its official report on the accident . It was as a result of this breakdown , the report said , that Air Force commanders in Europe had failed to make a safety inspection at the Dubrovnik airport whose outcome might have prevented the crash . The report concluded , as previously published news accounts had suggested it would , that pilot error , insufficient on-board navigational equipment and poor airport design had also contributed to the accident . But it said that the stormy weather in Dubrovnik at the time had not been a significant contributor and that all systems on the aircraft had been working well . Also working , the report said , were both radio-beacon systems on the ground at Dubrovnik , contrary to suspicions raised by Defense Secretary William Perry in an interview Thursday . The report further concluded that contrary to an earlier account by a longtime friend and business associate of Brown , it was unlikely that he had pressured the flight crew to fly into Dubrovnik in bad weather and make a dangerous landing there . The same officers , the report said , had resisted such pressure on an earlier flight carrying high government officials . The report , more than 7,000 pages long , did not rank the causes of the crash by significance . But General Ronald R. Fogleman , the Air Force chief of staff , said at a Pentagon briefing for reporters that the most troubling problem was the breakdown in the chain of command , or what the report called `` management complacency and inadequate oversight . '' The report said Brig. Gen. William E. Stevens , commander of the German-based 86th Airlift Wing , to which the jet belonged , had directly contradicted an order issued months earlier by superiors in Washington to check the safety design of previousy unchecked European airports , like Dubrovnik 's , into which his planes were flying . Stevens and two deputies were relieved of their duties soon after the crash and , officials said Friday , may face court-martial . `` The biggest question that I have from my level is how could we have an Air Force instruction in the field that was not being complied with at the major air-command level , '' Fogelman said . `` I need to find the answer to that . In my view , that 's the start of this chain of events . '' Much of the investigation 's most damning material is contained not in the 73-page central report but in more than 7,000 pages of documentary evidence and deposition transcripts . The most explosive commentary collected by the investigators came from Lt . Col . James A. Albright , former commander of the squadron to which the doomed plane belonged . In his testimony , Albright described an atmosphere in which safety concerns may sometimes have been secondary to on-time performance , and in which pilots were required to fly jets with outdated equipment into airports that offered only the most primitive navigational aids . Powerful government officials and their staffs often demanded that Air Force planes on which they traveled go to dangerous destinations or fly through dangerous weather , Albright said . `` I think there is an atmosphere of fear , '' said Albright , who was removed from his command five days before the crash because of differences with Stevens , his superior . `` In the matrix of safety versus mission , Stevens is mission first . '' Albright also said Maj. Gen. Charles R. Heflebower , the commander of the 17th Air Force , the parent command of Stevens ' 86th Airlift Wing , had a `` reputation for intimidation and pushing pilots to do things that are blatantly illegal '' and had made illegal and potentially dangerous manuevers in Air Force planes . In their own depositions , both Stevens and Heflebower denied Albright 's accusations . Asked whether pilots under his command had ever voiced concern about his policies , Heflebower replied , `` I not only do n't recall it , it did n't happen . '' Stevens , questioned closely by investigators , said safety had been his first priority . But he also said that to do its work , his unit had badly needed a waiver to use the commercially available approaches , published by a company called Jeppesen Standard , or to have them checked and approved for Air Force use . He assigned a subordinate to the issue , he said , and `` however we were flying Jeppesen approaches , I expected us to do it legally . '' The details of the ill-fated flight 's last few minutes can never be known , because the plane , a military version of the Boeing 737 that the Air Force used for carrying `` distinguished visitors , '' did not carry a cockpit voice recorder or a flight data recorder , as commercial planes must . NEWPORT NEWS , Va. Illnesses , legalities , disasters and champagne . The setbacks for the USS Harry S. Truman 's christening just kept on coming , like high swells in rough seas . Saturday , literally in the aftermath of a storm , the Navy 's newest aircraft carrier is scheduled to be christened . Only at the end will organizers uncross their cramped fingers and sigh . First , the illness . Margaret Truman Daniel , Truman 's daughter , was chosen the ship 's sponsor normally a task that would grant her the honor of actually christening the ship . But Daniel is recuperating from an infection and wo n't be able to attend . `` It 's not quite healed yet , '' she said in a telephone interview from her home in New York City . Instead , the christening honors belong to Drucie S. Horton , a longtime friend of Daniel whose father , John Snyder , was Truman 's secretary of the Treasury . Then there was the business about the champagne . In a tradition that dates to Viking human sacrifices , ships have been sent to sea with the ceremonial spillage of some type of precious fluid . These days , blood has given way to champagne . And as Truman hailed from Missouri , organizers suggested a nice Missouri bubbly might do the trick . So about a month ago , Ruth Flynn , the marketing director at the Mount Pleasant Winery in Augusta , Mo. , submitted a couple of bottles of their Genesis Champagne for consideration . But like an offended oenophile , Newport News Shipbuilding rejected the offer the bottles would not break on impact . `` Rather than give up , we decided to check our supply , '' Flynn said . `` We picked out a very cheap bottle . We put our champagne in it , labeled it , and asked how many bottles they wanted . '' These bottles , much thinner and lighter , passed muster . So , at the appointed time , Drucie Horton will hurl a bottle of Genesis Champagne against the carrier . The bottle , upon impact , should explode in a spray of glass and lightly rose colored sparkling wine . Those with the appropriate nose for this sort of thing might catch the aroma of yeast , raspberries , oranges and molasses . However , another reversal came on Thursday , when President Clinton canceled plans to attend the christening after White House and campaign lawyers warned it would be considered a political event . `` The assumption was that the commander in chief could christen one of his own boats , '' White House spokesman Mike McCurry told reporters . McCurry said that according to Clinton 's legal advisers , everything a president does between his nomination and Election Day is considered political except events connected to national security or natural disasters . And speaking of disasters : Hurricane Fran struck southeast Virginia Friday morning and by noon Newport News was without power . Bunny Hodges , a spokeswoman at Newport News Shipbuilding , was operating by flashlight , and power company officials were speculating that electricity in some areas would not be restored for days . Initial plans called for about 16,000 people to attend the event . The president 's absence and the storm 's heavy hand might keep the number down . In any event , organizers are breathing a little easier at least the Secret Service , and all the stringent security details it brings along , will be staying away . On Sept. 26 , 1994 , Valujet Airlines discovered a leaking hydraulic line on one of its DC-9 jets . Federal rules required immediate repair of the leak , but the airline waited . The line , part of a system that retracts the front landing gear , was replaced 23 days later , after 148 flights . The violation was one of many found by a team of Federal Aviation Administration inspectors in October 1994 , according to internal FAA documents . The agency also found that the airline had failed to fully report an incident of smoke in the cockpit from a blown switch and that Valujet had not kept records when pilots performed poorly . For these and other problems , the aviation agency fined the airline $ 8,500 . The agency would continue to find safety lapses at Valujet during several closer looks over the next year and a half , according to internal FAA documents . The documents , in addition to records of the Department of Defense and the Transportation Department , draw a portrait of a rapidly growing airline that was found again and again to have shortcomings in safety matters in such areas as record keeping , maintenance , training and cockpit discipline . The documents also support the contention by the aviation agency that it noticed the problems at Valujet and stepped up its scrutiny of the airline . However , none of the agency 's measures were effective in halting the lapses , suggesting that the FAA was often two steps behind . Yet there is no evidence that the safety problems described in the records had anything to do with the crash of Valujet Flight 592 on May 11 near Miami . Investigators said on Sunday that a partly burned aircraft tire carried as cargo was a likely source of smoke , possibly ignited by an activated oxygen generator , that the co-pilot reported just before the crash . The crash has given rise to persistent questions and accusations about the safety record of Valujet and the agency 's oversight of the airline . Those questions continued Sunday on several morning news programs . Sen. Trent Lott , R-Miss. , said on the NBC News program `` Meet the Press '' that he had serious concerns about Valujet 's safety and that Transportation Secretary Federico Pena had `` gone too far '' by repeatedly saying that Valujet was safe to fly . Although the cause of the crash is still unknown , Valujet and the FAA took steps last week to restore public confidence in the airline , which had grown to 320 daily flights and 51 aircraft in two and a half years . Lewis Jordan , president of Valujet , said in an interview that he was not interested in discussing the shortcomings described in the FAA documents , problems that he said had been fixed . `` It is clear we have not had a perfect safety record , '' Jordan said . `` But we are taking extraordinary steps to insure the highest level of safety . '' FAA officials said that their actions were appropriate and that Valujet 's problems never demonstrated `` systemic safety violations . '' `` The system is doing what it should , '' said Anthony Broderick , the associate administrator of regulation and certification . `` We were pushing them in the right direction . '' After the FAA team inspection in 1994 that found that the airline had delayed repairing the hydraulic line , Valujet was found on several occasions to need more pushing . An engine fire in a Valujet DC-9 that was about to take off from Atlanta last June provides another example . The accident sent shrapnel into the plane 's cabin and started a fire , badly burning a flight attendant . The National Transportation Safety Board traced the failure to a crack in the engine caused by corrosion that had been overlooked during maintenance work four years earlier . The engine was on one of nine planes that Valujet acquired from a Turkish airline . The safety board said Valujet did not have records for each engine component . After the accident , the FAA wrote to Valujet , telling it to develop safeguards to insure that it does not again acquire `` questionable assets . '' Last August , the Defense Department evaluated Valujet as a possible contractor . A department report said Valujet was turned down for many reasons . It had no adequate review of maintenance documents , had no internal audit program , and had incomplete and disorganized training records of maintenance workers , the report said . A month later , the aviation agency stepped up its oversight of Valujet for 11 days . The agency found that the airline did not have an internal auditing program for safety matters like maintenance . The FAA also found that on the main passenger doors on two planes , the switch that automatically turns on the doors ' caution lights was taped over to keep them extinguished . WASHINGTON With investigators still searching for evidence that would show conclusively that the crash of TWA Flight 800 was not an accident , federal authorities have been barraged with tips , leads and theories about who or what may have downed the plane . While law-enforcement officials acknowledge that some theories seem far-fetched , they are reluctant to rule out anything until they learn more about the crash . Here are some of the most provocative hypotheses : Seven hours before the explosion , an Arabic daily newspaper in London received a fax from the radical Muslim group the Islamic Movement for Change , which in November 1995 took responsibility for the bombing of an American military site in Saudi Arabia . The fax referred elliptically to an imminent act of vengeance against the United States . One sentence said , `` The Mujahedeen will deliver the harshest reply to the threats of the foolish American president . Everyone will be surprised by the volume , choice of place and timing of the Mujahedeen answer , and invaders must prepare to depart alive or dead for their time is morning and morning is near . '' But officials who translated the Arabic said the references to `` morning '' were drawn from religious texts that probably referred to an indefinite time in the future rather than the next day , Wednesday . A MISSILE STRIKE : Several witnesses at the scene said they had seen a bright point of light streaking across the sky seconds before the plane disintegrated in two distinct bursts . Those observations , along with an air traffic radar that picked up a mysterious blip near the aircraft , led investigators to speculate that a missile might have downed the aircraft . But experts have dismissed the blip as an electronic phantom image . They said the jetliner , flying at 13,700 feet , was higher than the maximum altitude of even the most sophisticated shoulder-launched missiles . And they said no one had reported seeing or hearing a missile launching . Even so , the FBI on Friday made a special appeal to Long Island residents to report anything unusual they might have seen in the sky the night of the crash . CLAIMS OF RESPONSIBILITY : Attorney General Janet Reno said after the crash that two groups took responsibility for it , including one calling itself a fundamentalist Islamic group that notified a television station in Tampa , Fla. . Officials gave little credence to most such calls , saying that they included no specific information about the crash and resembled false declarations of responsibility that often follow a disaster . They pointed out that some terrorists never publicly take responsibility , probably fearing that it may lead to their arrest . The Libyans accused of the bombing of Pan Am 103 in December 1988 never took responsibility . Other declarations of responsibility have aroused greater interest . For example , officials said they had received one from professed followers of Ramzi Ahmed Yousef , who the authorities suspect was the mastermind of the World Trade Center bombing in 1993 . He is now on trial in New York City for the bombing of a Philippine Airlines 747 in December 1994 that killed a Japanese passenger and for a broad plot to blow up American airliners . The officials discounted the specific declaration of responsibility , but did not rule out the possibility that someone in Yousef 's loosely connected terrorist circle of Islamic , anti-American veterans of the Afghan war against Soviet forces might have played a part given their past record of terrorist acts and known efforts to attack airliners . A LEBANESE TRAVELER : The TWA flight that left New York had originated in Athens , Greece . Officials there reported that an unidentified Lebanese man tried to board the flight but was refused entry when his name turned up on a State Department watch list because he raised funds for Hezbollah , a Middle East group associated with past terrorist acts . The man presented airline representatives with a visa for travel to the United States that was obtained in Sofia , Bulgaria . The presence of the man has not been fully explained . But law-enforcement officials said it was unlikely that the man might have been part of a terrorist operation because he did not arrive at the Athens airport until after the TWA flight departed . Officials said they also believe that his intended destination was Beirut . A BOMB : Investigators have weighed a multitude of competing theories , from a catastrophic mechanical failure to the most frequently mentioned possibility that someone concealed a powerful bomb aboard the doomed jetliner . Reports suggest that a bomb may have been planted in luggage in the plane 's cargo bay , or in a cooler carrying transplantable organs that was loaded on the flight in the last minutes before Flight 800 took off . Investigators said that if a bomb caused the crash , they cannot know how it was placed aboard until they recover much more of the aircraft , like the cargo bay area and the cockpit where biomedical items are usually carried . MIDLAND , Texas An unforgiving West Texas sun beat down as Don Davis strained to lift 103,000 pounds off the ground . After nearly six hours of tinkering on a 1945 electrical relay switch the size of a soap bar , the B-29 crew chief finally managed to get the No. 1 engine cowl flaps to open and shut so the silver behemoth could once again take to the skies . `` The B-29 parts store has been closed a long time , '' said Davis , 65 , a tireless , heavyset man in oil-splotched Dickies overalls and black gimme cap worn backward , explaining why he and a half-dozen volunteers collectively spend tens of thousands of hours repairing , scavenging and cannibalizing bits and pieces to keep the world 's only flying Superfortress airworthy . It 's an endless challenge maintaining `` Fifi , '' the B-29 's nickname , given to honor the wife of Victor Agather , the man who rescued it from being a target at a bombing practice site in the Mojave Desert 25 years ago . The four-engine plane is alternately cursed and adored by people who would rather spend their free time working on it than just about anything . In the past year , Burleson-reared Mike Looney , 42 , volunteered 1,500 hours on the Confederate Air Force 's aging bomber . `` It gets in your blood , '' said Frank Bass , 72 , a retired Midland oil land man who grew up in Fort Worth . `` It 's sort of like the Elks Club with an airplane . '' The core group of volunteers lives in the Midland-Odessa area . Others fly in at their own expense for the privilege of turning a wrench on the rare bird . Benny Acock , 68 , a former B-29 pilot , comes in regularly from Corsicana despite occasional derision from friends back home . `` Some of them said , You're just an old man trying to relive the past . '' `` I tell them : That 's wrong . I am an old man who is reliving the past . '' Chris Warne , a 30-year-old computer technician from Hertfordshire , England , spent his vacation this year helping the B-29 ground crew . `` My girlfriend was none too happy , but I promised to take her to the Bahamas next time , '' he said . `` Some people even work Thanksgiving and Christmas . I know because I was here , '' said Neal Harrison , 37 , a Midland gas plant operator . `` I spend every spare moment here . My dad flew B-29s and 50 years later I 'm doing this . I would n't trade anything for the last five years of my life . '' But there 's a downside . `` I sacrificed my family for this , '' said Harrison , who said his wife moved out for four months over the time and attention he afforded Fifi . `` She had all of the B-29 that she could take . But we 're putting it back together and she 's getting involved herself . '' Fort Worth businessman V. Neils Agather , 39 , the CAF 's B-29 squadron leader and son of the man who rescued the aircraft , said Harrison 's situation is not an isolated case . `` I hate to admit but we have had a lot of divorces in our midst since I 've been involved 20 years , '' Agather said . `` You see a lot of marriages come and go . '' Not counting labor , which is volunteer except for that of Davis and his assistant , Ken Sass , it costs roughly $ 500,000 a year to keep Fifi running , Agather said . Much of that is raised from air shows , the sale of souvenirs and CAF membership dues . NEWPORT NEWS , Va. Illnesses , legalities , disasters and champagne . The setbacks for the USS Harry S. Truman 's christening just kept on coming , like high swells in rough seas . Saturday , literally in the aftermath of a storm , the Navy 's newest aircraft carrier is scheduled to be christened . Only at the end will organizers uncross their cramped fingers and sigh . First , the illness . Margaret Truman Daniel , Truman 's daughter , was chosen the ship 's sponsor normally a task that would grant her the honor of actually christening the ship . But Daniel is recuperating from an infection and wo n't be able to attend . `` It 's not quite healed yet , '' she said in a telephone interview from her home in New York City . Instead , the christening honors belong to Drucie S. Horton , a longtime friend of Daniel whose father , John Snyder , was Truman 's secretary of the Treasury . Then there was the business about the champagne . In a tradition that dates to Viking human sacrifices , ships have been sent to sea with the ceremonial spillage of some type of precious fluid . These days , blood has given way to champagne . And as Truman hailed from Missouri , organizers suggested a nice Missouri bubbly might do the trick . So about a month ago , Ruth Flynn , the marketing director at the Mount Pleasant Winery in Augusta , Mo. , submitted a couple of bottles of their Genesis Champagne for consideration . But like an offended oenophile , Newport News Shipbuilding rejected the offer the bottles would not break on impact . `` Rather than give up , we decided to check our supply , '' Flynn said . `` We picked out a very cheap bottle . We put our champagne in it , labeled it , and asked how many bottles they wanted . '' These bottles , much thinner and lighter , passed muster . So , at the appointed time , Drucie Horton will hurl a bottle of Genesis Champagne against the carrier . The bottle , upon impact , should explode in a spray of glass and lightly rose colored sparkling wine . Those with the appropriate nose for this sort of thing might catch the aroma of yeast , raspberries , oranges and molasses . However , another reversal came on Thursday , when President Clinton canceled plans to attend the christening after White House and campaign lawyers warned it would be considered a political event . `` The assumption was that the commander in chief could christen one of his own boats , '' White House spokesman Mike McCurry told reporters . McCurry said that according to Clinton 's legal advisers , everything a president does between his nomination and Election Day is considered political except events connected to national security or natural disasters . And speaking of disasters : Hurricane Fran struck southeast Virginia Friday morning and by noon Newport News was without power . Bunny Hodges , a spokeswoman at Newport News Shipbuilding , was operating by flashlight , and power company officials were speculating that electricity in some areas would not be restored for days . Initial plans called for about 16,000 people to attend the event . The president 's absence and the storm 's heavy hand might keep the number down . In any event , organizers are breathing a little easier at least the Secret Service , and all the stringent security details it brings along , will be staying away . LONDON As the chief executive of Trans World Airlines ( TWA ) , Jeffrey Erickson , raced back from London to New York Thursday to take charge of the airline 's investigation into the crash of TWA Flight 800 , uncomfortable memories loomed large of the fate that befell another American pioneer of the skies . The bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie in 1987 marked the beginning of the end for America 's most famous flag-carrier . Lockerbie sapped what little consumer confidence Pan Am still commanded . Within five years the airline which invented the transatlantic clipper service was gone , its international routes and hubs auctioned off to rival airlines and the rump of the business left to wither and die in bankruptcy protection . TWA is not Pan Am . The skids were already under Pan Am long before the Lockerbie disaster as a result of its failure to react quickly enough to the deregulation of the U.S. airline market . It was also the U.S. flag-carrier without a home base . By contrast TWA has big hub operations at St . Louis and New York and ranks as the world 's thirteenth largest airline , carrying 21 million passengers last year . But there are also some startling similarities . TWA , like Pan Am , has had a torrid time since the world airline industry went into recession at the end of the 1980s . In 1991 TWA , then under the control of the U.S. corporate raider Carl Icahn , and Pan Am were both forced to sell off their routes from the U.S. to Heathrow , London to survive . TWA 's were sold to American Airlines , Pan Am 's to United Airlines . But it did neither struggling carrier much good . Within a year TWA was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection , as rising oil prices , the Gulf War and intense competition took their toll . It survived and emerged from Chapter 11 a year later only to return to bankruptcy protection in 1995 . It re-emerged following an employee buyout backed by a handful of Wall Street institutions but it remains saddled with debts of $ 1.5 billion . Since its founding in the late 1920s , TWA has been associated with some famous initiatives and famous names . It was the first to launch an innovative rail and air trip from New York to Los Angeles that slashed coast-to-coast travel time to 48 hours . In 1939 it was bought by the billionaire Howard Hughes who finally sold out in 1965 , by which time TWA was among the world 's top three carriers . Under Erickson , TWA has big plans for the airline . At present it operates only one flight to Britain from St . Louis to Gatwick but wants permission to re-introduce daily services from New York to Heathrow . By coincidence Erickson was in Britain on Wednesday night as Flight 800 took off from JFK airport , lobbying MPs on the subject . Erickson also wants to replace many of the aircraft in TWA 's 189-strong fleet , the oldest in the U.S. Wednesday 's disaster off the coast of Long Island may have put paid to that and much more besides . SEATTLE The Boeing 747 that exploded in flight Wednesday was 25 years old , but age is usually irrelevant in airliner accidents , experts say . Properly maintained commercial aircraft will provide decades of safe service . More than 50 Boeing 707s ( last built for commercial passenger use in 1977 ) still are flying ; Douglas DC-3s built in the 1930s fly every day . The expected lifespan of B-52 bombers is 80 years . `` If the airplane was n't any good it would n't get to be that old , '' said Jim Beyer of Avmark International , a Virginia-based consulting firm . `` A well-maintained old airplane is probably much safer than a poorly maintained new one , '' said Bob Vandel , director of technical projects for the Flight Safety Foundation , a non-profit international research group . The May crash of a 27-year-old ValuJet DC-9 in Florida , despite considerable speculation , did not turn out to be age-related . In fact only one accident in the jet era has been conclusively traced to an aircraft 's age , a 1987 incident in which part of the top ripped off an Aloha Airlines 737 in mid-flight . The jet had flown thousands of cycles in Hawaii 's corrosive climate and paid for it with the death of a flight attendant . The accident led to serious changes in maintenance of aging aircraft . The Federal Aviation Administration now requires a schedule of repairs and inspections that increases as an aircraft gets older . Between 1970 and 1986 , Boeing built 250 747-100s , 211 of which are still in service . Boeing 's `` maximum design service objective '' for the 747-100 is 20,000 flights , 60,000 hours and 20 years . `` FAA standards prescribe extensive maintenance for an aircraft that reaches its objectives , '' said spokesman Doug Webb . You can keep flying an older plane ; you just have to take more care of it . Experts say the 747 is not noted for problems or unexplained crashes . The 747-100/200/300/SP series has an accident rate of 1.64 per million departures , better than the rate of 1.83 for all commercial jets . In its 26-year-history , the jet has suffered 16 `` hull losses , '' or irreparable accidents not related to sabotage or military activity . `` Aging aircraft are only a problem if you do n't maintain them , '' said Michael Culver , managing director of First Equity , a Connecticut-based aerospace investment banking firm . `` TWA is pretty well-respected for their maintenance capabilities . '' Unlike ValuJet , TWA does its own maintenance and gets good marks for it . Even the engines , properly cared for , can run for decades . `` We still have JT3s on the original 707s that fly every day , '' said Mark Sullivan , spokesman for Pratt Whitney in Connecticut . `` Engine life is virtually unlimited from a mechanical standpoint if you keep doing the overhauls . It 's not like a car engine with a big block that can go bad . '' Sullivan said available records on the doomed jet 's JT9D engines did n't show any serious problems , nor were they particularly old . Experts say economics usually dictates when aircraft get replaced . Passengers like the amenities of newer aircraft , and airlines save money on operating and maintenance costs . In the first half of this decade , U.S. airlines lost $ 10 billion more money than they had made in the entire history of commercial aviation . Lack of capital has kept U.S. carriers from buying new jets , pushing the average age of the U.S. fleet to 11.8 years . `` That 's true in general and specifically with TWA , '' said Culver . `` Carl Icahn ( former TWA chairman ) had no interest in buying new planes . '' That left TWA with the oldest fleet among major U.S. carriers at an average of 18.8 years . Passengers , on the whole , have n't been dissuaded from flying older aircraft , said Seattle travel consultant Steve Danishek . `` People do n't like 777s because they 're new ; they like them because they 've got lots of bells and whistles , '' he said . In addition to the bungled handling of intelligence reports , Washington officials come under criticism in the Dorn report in other areas . Dorn notes that the get-tough policy of the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration toward Japan designed to persuade Japan to rein in its military expansionism in China and Southeast Asia included an embargo against oil exports to Japan and the freezing of Japanese assets in the summer of 1941 . The report suggests that FDR backed Japan into a corner . Dorn also cites the `` muddied '' warnings that Washington sent 10 days before the attack to Pearl Harbor about the imminence of war and Washington 's failure to follow up its warnings to check to see what the Hawaii commanders were doing to prepare . The Dorn report noted that previous congressional , Navy and Army investigations had also `` properly recognized and criticized '' the failures of senior Washington military leaders . On the other side of the ledger , the Dorn report says Kimmel and Short had a lot of intelligence that `` was sufficient to justify a higher level of vigilance than they chose to maintain . '' For example , Dorn said , Kimmel and Short knew that war with Japan was `` highly likely '' and that Japan would strike the first blow . And they knew that the attack `` could occur within weeks or days '' because tension between the United States and Japan had been building . Both commanders had received a `` war warning '' from Washington in late November to be on the alert against a possible attack . Both commanders also knew the Japanese liked to spring surprise attacks , especially on weekends . Kimmel also knew that his intelligence staff had suddenly lost track of Japan 's aircraft carriers and that Japanese embassies and consulates had been ordered to destroy their secret codes . The report also notes the confused assumptions that governed the relationship between Kimmel and Short . For example , the Navy had responsibility for long-range defensive patrols around Pearl Harbor , but Short apparently never asked Kimmel exactly what the Navy was doing in that respect . This was a key mistake in view of the fact that Short 's fighter planes needed a four-hour warning before they could get in the air and do battle . In reality , the Navy was undertaking only minimal reconnaissance , mainly because of a lack of airplanes . Nonetheless , the Hawaii commanders did n't know when or where the attack would come . Dorn said higher alert by Kimmel and Short `` might not have discovered the ( Japanese ) carrier armada and might not have prevented the attack , but different choices could have reduced the magnitude of the disaster . '' The attack killed 2,403 Americans and sank or damaged 18 warships . The bottom line : There 's no basis to restore their higher rank . Besides , Dorn noted , `` Retirement at the two-star grade is not an insult or a stigma . '' Dorn 's decision was praised by both sides of the historical debate over Kimmel and Short . Edward L. Beach , a retired Navy captain and author of a 1994 book defending Kimmel and Short , praised the Dorn report for restoring their honor without promoting them by acknowledging that others also were guilty . This paper removes the stigma in the court of public opinion . Donald M. Goldstein , a historian at the University of Pittsburgh who helped write the best-selling Pearl Harbor history `` At Dawn We Slept , '' also lauded the report . `` Given all that we 've seen , we know it was on their watch . To exonerate them , you 'd have to go back and exonerate everybody who screwed up at Pearl Harbor . If they had caught the Japanese , they would have been heroes . But they did n't . The recent Israeli shelling of a United Nations refugee camp in Lebanon had striking similarities to an Israeli attack on a non-combatant American ship sailing in international waters 29 years ago . On June 8 , 1967 , Israeli air and naval forces attacked the USS Liberty , a technical research ship , that was peacefully sailing off the Sinai Peninsula in the Mediterranean Sea . The Israelis used torpedoes , napalm and machine-gun fire to kill 34 Americans and wound 171 others . Just as the Israelis claimed the shelling of the refugee camp was an accident , so too , did they claim that the attack on the USS Liberty was an accident . There were other similarities : 1 . The use of extraordinary brutality . The April 18 shelling struck a U.N. peacekeepers ' compound in south Lebanon killing more than 100 men , women and children . Knight-Ridder Newspapers reported that survivors were overcome by the magnitude of the killing . `` Grown men staggered around the blood-soaked compound , weeping uncontrollably . Wailing women threw themselves onto the burned and mangled corpses of relatives . As they weaved among rows of bodies shrouded with blankets , stepping over scattered body parts , even some battle-hardened U.N. soldiers were in tears . '' During the attack on the USS Liberty , the Israelis used unmarked aircraft , jammed the ship 's radios on both U.S. Navy tactical and International Maritime Distress frequencies , destroyed by machine-gun fire life rafts that had been dropped over the side by crewmen preparing to abandon the ship , and refused to offer immediate aid upon cessation of hostilities . 2. The claim Israelis do not target innocent non-combatants . Reported Associated Press writer Greg Myre , `` Israel says it does not intentionally target civilians . But the gray gunboats off the port city of Sidon , 25 miles south of Beirut , fire day and night at civilian cars heading south on what is normally the country 's busiest highway . Since Friday , three cars have been destroyed after being hit by shrapnel , and three more have skidded off the road and crashed in high-speed attempts to evade the Israeli fire . '' According to Human Rights Watch , an organization that tracks human-rights abuses worldwide , Israel has displayed `` indiscriminate and disproportionate '' shelling of villages in southern Lebanon . While the human-rights report appropriately condemns Hezbollah guerrillas for indiscriminately firing Katyusha rockets into Israel , it also documented Israel 's manifest violations of international law including , `` Targeting whole villages without specific military objectives and without regard for civilian casualties ; specifically targeting the civilian infrastructure , including power stations and water reservoirs ; deliberately creating a refugee crisis to put pressure on the Lebanese government ; and deliberately targeting ambulances and civilian vehicles . '' A USS Liberty survivor , Lt. Cmdr. David Edwin Lewis , says , `` The Israelis obviously had sufficient time to plan their armament load . There were apparently heat-seeking missiles used to take out the tuning coil of every antenna , there were fragmentation bombs used to take out the parabolic dish fore and aft . On the first strafing run virtually all communications and all means of survival were destroyed . If it was an accident , it was the best prepared accident on Earth . '' 3 . The Israelis deny the attack was deliberate . An investigation by Maj. Gen. Franklin van Kappen , a Dutch military adviser to the United Nations , concluded , `` While the possibility cannot be ruled out completely , it is unlikely that the shelling of the United Nations compound was the result of gross technical and/or procedural errors . '' The Los Angeles Times reported , `` The most damaging point of the report and to Israel 's case has been proof that Israel flew surveillance aircraft over the camp while the firing was going on . Contrary to repeated denials , two Israeli helicopters and a remotely piloted vehicle were present in the Qana area at the time of the shelling . Israel denied this to the United Nations and publicly until the British newspaper The Independent reported the existence of an amateur videotape showing an Israeli pilotless reconnaissance aircraft the kind used by artillery spotters to perfect their aim over Qana during the shelling . '' Once aware of the videotape , Israel changed its story . Finally , the most recent unbiased research into the assault on the USS Liberty was conducted by Dr. John Edgar Borne at New York University . His detailed analysis concludes that `` the account of the attack given by the Liberty men is the correct and truthful one '' and that the attack `` was deliberate and that all available evidence points to this conclusion . Mark Genrich is deputy editorial page editor of The Phoenix Gazette . A low-cost airline started in 1993 , ValuJet flies the oldest fleet in the industry and has been under FAA scrutiny over its maintenance practices . `` I 've gone over that report , and I have to tell you the safety record of ValuJet does bring into mind several key questions , '' said Senate Majority Whip Trent Lott , Republican of Mississippi , who is a leading candidate to replace Bob Dole in the Senate 's top leadership position . Lott , who is on the Senate 's aviation subcommittee , said on NBC 's `` Meet The Press '' that he worries the FAA erred in not putting ValuJet under more stringent review after learning of its comparatively high accident rate . FAA administrator David Hinson , however , defended the agency and said he believes ValuJet is a safe choice for passengers . He said the FAA moved quickly to investigate ValuJet after the earlier incidents , and extracted promises from the company to upgrade maintenance procedures and slow its rate of growth . `` We do n't know what caused this accident , '' Hinson said . `` I 'm satisfied the airline is safe and our people are doing a good job . '' Last week , Jordan emphasized that no previous accident involving ValuJet had caused a fatality , and many of them were comparatively minor . He has called ValuJet 's safety record good and promised to cooperate with the federal government fully in determining the cause of the crash of Flight 592 . The government is continuing its plane-by-plane safety review of the airline . In the Everglades , where recovery workers are still trying to locate the cockpit voice recorder , crews prepared to use ground-penetrating radar to map out the crash site and pinpoint wreckage buried under the muck . The search will focus on the canisters and the voice recorder that may contain the pilots ' final minutes of conversation , Feith said . NTSB vice chairman Robert Francis said on CNN that `` there are lots of other things that can cause fires on airplanes , '' but that oxygen generators are `` high on the list in terms of what we are interested in finding and looking '' at . Search crews also hope to find a circuit-breaker panel located behind the captain 's seat . Problems with that panel delayed the plane 's Miami-bound flight out of Atlanta earlier on the day of the crash . The experimental low-level radar , which has been used to locate buried dinosaur bones and Egyptian tombs , has already located several objects buried in the muck , including part of a wing . Feith said an independent contractor would be hired by week 's end to bring up the larger parts . During the weekend more of the crew 's possessions , parts of the tail section , insulation , ceiling material and a metal chair track that showed evidence of soot damage were recovered . Workers have so far recovered less than 10 percent of the craft . PHOENIX No question , it was an awesome sight : a helicopter appearing seemingly out of nowhere above Arizona State University 's Sun Devil Stadium during Super Bowl XXX and landing lightly on stage to swoop away halftime headliner Diana Ross . But it was also a potentially deadly stunt , opposed by fire and safety officials , that required a $ 400 million insurance policy . For weeks , National Football League officials and Super Bowl planners debated the risk of bringing the helicopter into the packed stadium . They even checked with Gov. Fife Symington , who gave his OK . But no one was sure until it happened that it could be pulled off . `` We did n't think it was worth it , '' said Tempe Fire Marshal Marc Scott , one of a number of fire and safety officials who said they repeatedly urged the NFL not to use the helicopter , fearing for the safety of the fans . Even Ross was a little apprehensive about it and considered using a body double , said Mark Munhall , who headed operations for the Super Bowl Host Committee . A public-address announcer assured the crowd several times , `` This stunt has been tested for your safety . Please remain in your seats . You will be a part of Super Bowl history with the takeoff and landing of an aircraft in the stadium . '' But out of sight in the tunnel at the north end zone sat a fire engine and a `` brush truck , '' which is used to douse flames quickly . All the firefighters were ready , dressed in full gear in case they were needed . About 45 firefighters were at the game , along with about a dozen doctors on call . At a nearby command post , nurses waited in flight suits . If anything had gone wrong , triage would have been set up in ASU 's Packard Stadium and victims taken there by ambulance . The helicopter pilot was Rich Lee , a highly decorated flier who made impressive pickups and drop-offs in Vietnam . At his side was a second pilot in case something went wrong in midflight . The risk was considered such that the Host Committee took out a $ 400 million insurance policy for the helicopter stunt . Originally , the committee thought $ 100 million would have been enough . `` Here comes my ride ! '' Ross shouted as the McDonnell Douglas MD Explorer came into sight . It swept over the edge of the stadium and landed on a dime on the stage . `` I can tell you , I let out a big sigh of relief when it was over , '' said Steve Patterson , president of the Host Committee . Jim Steeg , who directs all Super Bowl preparations for the NFL , said Symington was consulted because of the state 's potential liability if a disaster had occurred at the ASU stadium . The decision to go ahead was made Thursday night after Symington , ASU officials , Host Committee members and Neil Austrian , president of the NFL , watched eight landings by the helicopter . `` Each time , he landed in the same six-inch space , '' said Bill Shover , chairman of the Host Committee . But there were concerns about mechanical failures , whether someone throwing something from the stands could lodge in the rotor , and that a strong wind could toss the chopper into the stands . `` We measured the potential risk against the reward , and all the odds seemed to favor the reward , '' Steeg said .