fact that nearly one-third of people who had wit-
nessed the crash claimed to have seen a bright light
headed toward the plane seconds before it ex-
ploded. Amateur video footage of the explosion,
aired repeatedly on the cable news networks cover-
ing the story around-the-clock, seemed to corrobo-
rate and further this viewpoint. Another theory was
that an onboard bomb had caused the catastrophic
explosion. Only hours after the crash, James
Kallstrom, the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s
(FBI) assistant director in New York, claimed that
only a bomb could have caused such a disastrous ex-
plosion. In addition, sound evidence from the cock-
pit voice recorder seconds before the explosion was
also consistent with that of a bomb.
Following the crash, search and recovery efforts
by federal, state, and local officials began immedi-
ately. Underwater robots called remotely operated
underwater vehicles were used to locate wreckage,
which was then recovered by scuba divers. The re-
mains of all 230 passengers were eventually found
and nearly 95 percent of the plane’s wreckage recov-
ered. During the recovery efforts, the remains of the
passengers were sent initially to the U.S. Coast
Guard station in East Moriches, New York, before be-
ing sent to the Suffolk County medical examiner’s
office in Hauppauge, New York. In the meantime,
the plane’s wreckage was sent to an aircraft hangar
in Calverton, New York, where they were stored and
eventually reconstructed. This hangar, the Grum-
man Aircraft facility, would become the headquar-
ters for the crash investigation.
After ten months of recovery efforts, investigators
were able to piece together a ninety-foot section of
the plane’s fuselage. Sixteen months after the crash,
despite initial fears of terrorism, the FBI concluded
its portion of the investigation after it found no cred-
ible evidence of any criminal activity. This left the
rest of the investigation to the National Transporta-
tion Safety Board (NTSB) to find evidence of me-
chanical failure, the only other possible explanation
for the crash. For the next two years, the NTSB con-
tinued investigating and, on August 23, 2000, re-
leased a report detailing its findings. The agency
concluded that the probable cause of the crash was
an explosion in the center wing fuel tank and also ac-
knowledged that the source of ignition for the ex-
plosion was most likely the result of the mixture of
flammable fuel and air in the fuel tank, although this
could not be determined with absolute certainty.
Impact Despite the findings by the FBI and NTSB
that the disaster was not caused by criminal activity,
rumors continued to persist throughout the late
1990’s that the crash of Flight 800 had to be the re-
sult of terrorism. Many people continued to believe
that a bomb or missile caused the explosion. These
rumors persisted because many people viewed the
NTSB’s investigation as either insufficient or as a
cover-up to hide the fact that the plane was brought
down by a missile fired by the U.S. military. Never-
theless, the publication of the report effectively con-
cluded the investigation into the mysterious crash.Further Reading
Hosenball, Mark. “Piecing It All Together.”News-
week, May 19, 1997, 56-57. Describes the investiga-
tion by the NTSB that concluded that TWA Flight
800 crashed as a result of a fuel tank explosion
and not a criminal act.
Milton, Pat.In the Blink of an Eye: The FBI Investigation
of TWA Flight 800. New York: Random House,- Details the FBI’s investigation into the
cause of the crash. Milton was an Associated Press
reporter who covered the crash from the day it oc-
curred.
Negroni, Christine.Deadly Departure: Why the Experts
Failed to Prevent the TWA Flight 800 Disaster and How
It Could Happen Again. New York: Cliff Street
Books, 2000. Chronicles the investigation into
the crash and provides personal stories of the pas-
sengers, crew, and their families.
Lindsay Schmitz
See also Airline industry; EgyptAir Flight 990
crash; ValuJet Flight 592 crash. Twenty-seventh Amendment
Identification A constitutional amendment
limiting when members of Congress can receive
pay raises
Date Ratification completed on May 7, 1992One of the original constitutional amendments passed by
the first Congress in 1789, the Twenty-seventh Amendment
required two centuries before it was ratified.On May 7, 1992, the Michigan legislature became
the thirty-eighth legislature to ratify the Twenty-
seventh Amendment, giving the amendment the874 Twenty-seventh Amendment The Nineties in America