There is no place like Paris for Pierre Salinger, who called in the press to present evidence for his theory that TWA Flight 800 was accidentally shot down by a naval missile. But the more evidence he presented, the more confused were reporters trying to make sense of the 'blips, blobs and streaks' that he claimed showed the catastrophe, reports TIME Paris Bureau Chief Thomas Sancton. "Pierre Salinger is a publicity hound, a self-promoter who is still pushing the same theory about Flight 800 that he floated back in November. He broke the story in Paris because he has lots of fans there, like Jerry Lewis. He speaks French, is very well-known among Parisians and often acts as a commentator on American affairs. The French are always ready to believe cover-up theories when it comes to the United States. The sad thing is that the French families who lost relatives in the crash are so eager for new information that they are willing to believe almost anything at this point." If the location of the event was appropriate for Salinger, the timing of the press conference was equally fortuitous. Salinger is currently embroiled in a fund-raising controversy heíd rather not talk about. Seems that the Battle of Normandy Foundation, which he heads, collected millions of dollars in the early 1990s to build a war memorial in Caen similar to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington. But the wall was never built, the money's disappeared, and recent press reports have carried allegations that the folks in charge of the effort may have misappropriated it. Quelle horreur! -- Janice Castro
What Missiles?
WASHINGTON, D.C.: Three commercial pilots who reported seeing at least one missile in the air while flying over the same New York airspace where TWA Flight 800 exploded have the FAA on rumor control all over again. Pilots of Northwest, Delta, and USAirways flights heading westward over New York City toward Philadelphia on March 21 all reported what they though were possible missile sightings. What the pilots may have seen were two D-5 Trident missiles fired at that time by the submarine USS West Virginia off the coast of Florida, says the FAA. Because the night was very clear, the missiles, fired eastward over the Atlantic toward the Azores, could have been visible from afar, says the Navy. But Navy Captain Michael Doubleday doubted that the test could explain the pilots' sightings. "It stretches the imagination that anybody could see 1,900 to 2,000 miles, no matter what altitude they are flying at," he said. The fact that the planes and the missiles were headed in different directions would make it even more improbable, he added. Missile theorists, collect your notes: a public hearing will be held on the Flight 800 disaster in late summer. --Frank Pellegrini
Now For The Hard Part 
EAST
MORCIHES, New York: Moving into its fourth week, the investigation of TWA Flight
800 is past the days of revelation and into the weeks and months of painstaking
forensics. The Suffolk County medical examiner has closed the temporary morgue
set up at a Coast Guard station immediately after the explosion; it has been two
days since divers have recovered the bodies of any new victims, and searchers are
no longer confident that they will find any more. The recovery of large pieces of
the aircraft continues. Crews pulled a 75-foot section of the right wing from the
ocean Wednesday, and investigators also plan to bring ashore the left wing and
two intact engines which have been spotted on the ocean floor. The prevailing
theory is that a bomb was placed in the forward cargo compartment, located below
the first-class section. The Washington Post reported Thursday that investigators
are also looking into the possibility that a fuel motor in the nearly empty
center fuel tank sparked the explosion.
-- Scot Woods
Copyright Time Inc. 1996. All Rights Reserved.
Unraveling the String 
EAST MORICHES,
N.Y.:TIME Daily- A trail of battered luggage, debris and clothing littering the
sea floor provides new evidence that TWA flight 800 was brought down by a bomb
hidden in the forward cargo hold. The discovery that the luggage and other debris
lie farther back along the 747's flight path than the recently recovered cockpit
is consistent with a theory that a bomb blew the cargo hold open, scattering
suitcases and parts of the plane into the ocean before the rest of the plane
exploded and crashed farther downrange. Since only a small percentage of the
aircraft has been recovered, the FBI and the NTSB do not have enough forensic
evidence to make a clear statement on what caused the crash, and still have not
ruled out mechanical failure as a possibility. Still, says TIME's Elaine Rivera,
this evidence could provide important clues. "Investigators believe that anything
which fell off the 747 first will end up providing more clues about the explosion
and the crash." Workers are beginning to pick through the 1-ton remnants of the
cockpit The team will have to pull the twisted metal and wires apart to make any
sense of the debris, which James Kallstrom of the FBI compared to "a big ball of
string." As the investigation goes on, reconstruction of the incident will have
to continue without any more information from the black box flight recorders,
which haven't provided many answers about the crash. "We're kind of at the end"
with the tapes, confessed NTSB Vice Chairman Robert Francis. --Terence
Nelan
Copyright Time Inc. 1996. All Rights Reserved.
Penalizing Terrorism's Business Associates
WASHINGTON:TIME Daily- President Clinton this morning signed a
bill penalizing foreign companies doing business with Iran and Libya, two nations
accused by the State Department of sponsoring international terrorism. "You can't
do business with people by day who are killing your people by night. The U.S. has
to act", the President said. Democratic Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware said the
Saudi Arabia attack, if state-sponsored, amounts to "an act of war." House
Speaker Newt Gingrich fingered Iran as a sponsor of terror, and suggested that
"decisive action" may be necessary; Defense Secretary William Perry said Friday
that Iran may have been behind the Saudi attack, which killed 19 American
servicemen. "The sanctions will play poorly in Europe," says TIME's William
Rademaekers. "They come at a time when unemployment is reaching 12.5 percent in
France, and any impact on cancelling industrial contracts will prove difficult.
The French government is asking for proof of any allegations that Iran is
responsible for the explosion of TWA 800 or the Saudi bombing. Furthermore,
European governments feel that they need a channel of communication with the
Iranians and Libyans. For both economic and philosophical reasons, they do not
want to isolate any state." -- Scot Woods
Copyright Time Inc. 1996. All
Rights Reserved.
Progress Slows in TWA
Probe
EAST MORICHES: After a day of investigation that NTSB vice chairman
Robert Francis called the most unproductive since Flight 800 crashed into the
Atlantic Ocean, salvage work is continuing on the remains of TWA's flight 800.
Ten bodies were recovered on Thursday, leaving only 46 of 230 victims unaccounted
for. Also pulled from the ocean was a 40-foot long piece of the plane's
fuselage, the largest chunk recovered so far. No explosive residue has been found
yet on any of the recovered pieces. The FBI and NTSB still say they have not
gathered enough forensic evidence to explain why the plane exploded in mid-air.
The remains of the 350,000 ton aircraft are scattered over the ocean floor in
heaps 10 to 12 feet high. Divers have described the hazards of exploring the
wreckage in the dark as equivalent to diving into an underwater junkyard. TIME's
Elaine Rivera reports from East Moriches: "Divers are having serious problems
getting to parts of the plane. Every day that goes by brings us less and less
information, and threatens to destroy evidence through prolonged exposure to
seawater, but the investigators are holding on. They are still determined to find
the answers, but compared to a week ago, they are more somber and tired. The team
is resigned to a long, slow process and they know that there are no easy
answers." The FBI's lead investigator James Kallstrom told Rivera that it may
take a month to recover most of the plane. He hopes to identify the cause of the
bombing sooner. -- Terence Nelan
Copyright Time Inc. 1996. All Rights
Reserved.
 |
| CR: TIM PERSHING -- TOM KELLER & ASSOC. |
EAST MORICHES. N.Y.: Eleven days after Flight 800 plunged into the Atlantic, relatives of the 230 victims have taken the stage to complain of what they see as an intentional shift in the investigation, from retrieving of the bodies to reclaiming much of the 350,000 pounds of wreckage still at the bottom of the ocean. Although the number of relatives remaining at the Ramada Hotel on Long Island has dwindled in recent days, those left have sharp tongues for investigators. John Felice, a relative of one victim, said the families believe that bodies are being left underwater while divers look for evidence for a criminal case. "We feel that we're being spoon-fed bodies, three or four a day ... to satisfy their needs," Felice said. But investigators maintained that the victims are still their first priority. One official from the National Transportation Safety Board said families have been shown videotapes from the ocean floor to help them understand the hostility and danger of the environment in which divers are working. Says TIME's Elaine Rivera: "Eventually the families will get over the initial shock of their loss, and anger will begin to set in. Then, they'll want to know who did this. So investigators are put in a difficult situation of balancing both the retrieval of bodies and the parts of the plane that could end this mystery." Rivera added that the investigators are doing all they can. "It's extremely dangerous, tedious work," she says. "Many of the bodies are probably among the wreckage." Relief may come soon for many relatives: Divers will begin removing large portions of the plane Tuesday to search for the remaining 69 bodies. -- Jenifer Mattos
Copyright Time Inc. 1996. All Rights Reserved.
The Search For Sabotage
NEW YORK CITY: Investigators are now fairly convinced that the explosion that downed TWA Flight 800 occurred near the front of the plane, blowing off the cockpit and first-class cabin as the rest of the aircraft continued on for more than a mile before becoming a fireball. The Associated Press reports that goverment investigators seek recovery of a specific piece of aluminum outer skin from the plane, which could betray the presence of either a bomb hidden in the forward cargo area -- the favored theory -- or an incoming missile. When investigators know how, they must begin asking, "Who?" Sources tell TIME that the CIA has begun investigating the other stops that the TWA plane made up to two days before it left the Athens airport for New York City. Terrorists can now build timers to explode a bomb as much as 48 hours later, when the perpetrator may be back in safe cover. An hour after the flight went down, the CIA's operations center at the agency's Langley, Virginia headquarters summoned senior officials back to their offices. Within hours, secret cables went out to every CIA station in the world. Despite the speed with which this investigation sometimes seems to move, officials warn that the whole mystery make take months or years to unravel. -- Scot Woods
Copyright Time Inc. 1996. All Rights Reserved.
Was A Bomb Planted Days Earlier?
WASHINGTON, D.C.: TIME has learned that federal agents are investigating flights and stops that the TWA Flight 800 jet took before it left the Athens airport for New York on July 17. CIA sources tell Washington correspondent Doug Waller that terrorists are capable of building highly sophisticated bombs that can down planes as long as four days after they are planted. The sources say that the components of timing devices can be bought from commercial electronics stores; a combination of timers and barometric pressure mechanisms activates them. "It's possible that terrorists could have hidden a device in the TWA plane several days before it landed in Athens," Waller says.
Lesson from the Gulf War
Waller also reports that the CIA's decade-old Counter-Intelligence Center in Langley has been working almost nonstop since the crash. Agents within the 200-plus force are relying on what they call "all-source intelligence," in which they mobilize a vast array of covert spies, police investigators, foreign intelligence agents, sophisticated computers and satellites. The computer programs correlate thousands of overseas passport numbers, travel itineraries of foreign nationals, secret cables from spies on the ground, reports from friendly foreign intelligence services and phone intercepts worldwide. CIA sources tell Waller that this method has worked before: in 1991, as the center was tracking Saddam Hussein's military buildup before the Persian Gulf War, the CIA computers were able to identify a group of potential Iraqi terrorists before they even attempted an attack on American targets. By tracking one of the terrorists, an Iraqi military intelligence officer, the agents discovered intimate details of many of the terror cells that Saddam had deployed. By using the numbers on the Iraqi's passport as a guide, the computers determined passport numbers of other Iraqis working undercover as terrorists. Within a month, the agency had rolled up practically all of Saddam's terror network overseas. -- Jenifer Mattos
Copyright Time Inc. 1996. All Rights Reserved.
Sifting The Evidence
EAST MORICHES, N.Y.: One day after divers recovered the voice and data recorders from the wreckage of flight 800, NTSB Vice Chairman Robert Francis said that the investigation into the crash is closing in on an explanation for the crash: "There is evidence down there that is going to tell us what happened to this aircraft." Analysis of the voice recorder shows that two minutes before TWA flight 800 exploded and crashed, the cockpit crew was casually discussing an erratic fuel flow gauge on the number four engine. Other than that, Francis said, the 747 was operating without any "anomalies." Experts are still analyzing the unidentified noise which abruptly ends the recording. While divers located two of the plane's engines on the ocean floor today, they have yet to salvage huge chunks of the airplane. "Although the Navy is sending divers to check out the wreckage, their priority is still finding the victims," says TIME's Elaine Rivera, reporting from East Moriches. "No manpower will be expended on a major salvage operation until all of the bodies have been recovered." Two more bodies were recovered today, bringing the total to 140 of the 230 people on the aircraft. "The NTSB and FBI have not yet ruled out any of three possible causes of the crash," says Rivera. "It could have been a bomb, a missile, or a catastrophic mechanical failure. They are not leaning toward any one particular theory." -- Terence Nelan
Copyright Time Inc. 1996. All Rights Reserved.