U.S. Officials Cast Global Net in Hunt for Jet Crash Clues

Stopping just short of ruling the crash of TWA Flight 800 an act of terrorism, federal agents said Friday they were approaching it as if it were and broadened their hunt for clues to the explosion that blew the plane to pieces and killed all 230 people on board.

Investigators grew more suspicions of sabotage as they reviewed mechanical data that the Boeing 747 had radioed back to TWA about a minute after taking off. “There were no anomalies,” said Robert Francis, vice chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board.

While no one announced any official declaration that the investigation into Flight 800 had become a probe of criminal terrorism, James Kallstrom, assistant director of the FBI in New York, told reporters that nonetheless “we’re looking at this as a criminal investigation.”

The NTSB continued to head the probe as if the crash of the jumbo jet were an accident. But several other federal agencies spread their search for clues, both in the United States and overseas, on the theory that the doomed airliner could have been blown out of the sky deliberately.

* A senior government source said the FBI sent agents to Athens to find out whether a terrorist boarded the jet with a bomb, then flew to New York and left it on board to explode after the plane took off from John F. Kennedy International Airport bound for Paris.

* Other federal agents canvassed the Long Island area near the scene of the crash, seeking people who might know anything significant. The FBI established a toll-free telephone number as well as an e-mail address for anyone with useful information.

* Defense officials pored over information and scores of images from spy satellites and military early-warning systems, searching for any hint that the aircraft might have been hit by a missile. A senior official at the Pentagon called a missile attack “extremely unlikely.”

At a news conference in East Moriches, about 10 miles from where the plane exploded Wednesday night and plunged in pieces into the ocean, Kallstrom told reporters that many parts of the aircraft were being sea-lifted from a wide area and scrutinized by federal experts.

“We’re going to look at the forensics,” he said. “We’re going to look for residue. We’re going to look for certain streaking patterns. We’re going to look for the way the metal is shaped or fragmented, if it is. We’re going to look at all those things.

“This is a difficult investigation here,” he added. “We are concerned with what the people of this area and other citizens around the world know about it.”

He refused say what theories investigators were leaning toward. “We have multiple theories up on the board,” he said. “We’re running all of these theories out. We’re going to continue to look at all these things. That’s the right thing to do, and we’re going to work as fast as we can.”

If investigators develop a case that the crash was deliberately caused, Kallstrom said, the FBI would take over the investigation from the NTSB. But he said such a point had not been reached.

It could be several days, even weeks, he said, before such a determination might be made.

New York Gov. George Pataki, who was being briefed by FBI officials, said the agency seemed to be moving toward a conclusion that the plane was deliberately blown out of the air.

“The FBI is treating this as a crime scene,” he said, “and they are being very cautious in making sure they gather and preserve any possible evidence.” Pataki also noted that “747s are not supposed to behave this way.”

Francis, the NTSB vice chairman, told a later news conference that the information radioed back from the aircraft was limited and reflected mechanical conditions for just a brief time after the plane left the ground.

But it was the only on-board data that the investigators had to work with. They said they had not yet found the plane’s flight-data or cockpit-voice recorders.

A review of maintenance records, Francis said, had turned up “nothing that would be considered out of the ordinary.”

Investigating Abroad

The FBI agents sent to Athens were checking names on the aircraft’s passenger manifests at Hellenikon Airport, according to a senior government source, who added that the probe would be “very thorough.”

Checking such manifests would be a normal step for the FBI to take. The source did not say how many agents had been sent to Athens or whether they were from the United States or from U.S. embassies overseas, where the FBI routinely stations legal attaches.

Kallstrom said there were “agents in Athens.” Otherwise, the FBI declined to say anything about the matter. A government official said the bureau’s unwillingness to discuss sending additional agents to a country where only one agent is normally based reflected the sensitivity of the matter and a desire not to offend the Greek government.

Greek government and airport authorities insisted that their security procedures were sound and protested the speculation about possible links to the TWA crash.

Dionysis Kalofonos, director of administration for Greece’s civil aviation authority, noted that Flight 800 had spent three hours at JFK Airport after arriving from Athens. He said airport security officials at JFK should have noticed anything untoward on the doomed jet.

“The plane was off-loaded [in New York],” he said. “It was cleaned. It should have been searched and safeguarded. We don’t know if these measures were taken in New York.”

Kent Martin, a spokesman for TWA, said Flight 800 was inspected for security purposes at JFK “in cooperation between the airline and the airport authorities. All regular security procedures were followed.”

They included, Martin said, screening cleaning personnel.

Past Problems

A history of security problems at Hellenikon Airport had given rise to speculation that an explosive device might have been put on the plane in Athens before it left for New York.

* In June 1985, two Shiite Muslims hijacked TWA Flight 847 from Athens to Beirut in a standoff that lasted 15 days.

* Five months later, an EgyptAir jet from Athens to Cairo was hijacked. More than 60 people were killed during a botched rescue attempt by Egyptian commandos in Malta.

* In 1986, a TWA flight from Rome to Athens exploded in midair over Greece, killing four Americans.

Washington caused a diplomatic rift in the mid-1980s when it publicly warned travelers about lax security at Hellenikon, costing Greece more than $100 million in tourism revenues.

Last March, the U.S. Department of Transportation issued a public warning about Hellenikon, the second time in only a matter of months that the federal agency had accused the Greeks of failing to meet standards set in a 1985 U.S. law. The Federal Aviation Administration declared that security improvements made after the first warning were insufficient.

The finding required U.S. and foreign air carriers to warn passengers buying tickets to or from Athens of the problem. The warning sparked a rift in U.S.-Greek relations.

“All Greek airports have specific security measures which have been recently intensified and are in line with international standards,” Greek Transport Minister Haris Kastanidis asserted at the time.

Authorities nonetheless proceeded to make the necessary improvements, and in May, U.S. Transportation Secretary Federico Pena announced that the FAA was satisfied that Hellenikon was again meeting international security standards.

Spy Satellites

In Washington, defense officials were sifting through images taken at the time of the TWA explosion by infrared satellites maintained by the Air Force Space Command. There was no immediate indication whether the search had proven productive.

At the same time, Navy intelligence analysts in Dahlgren, Va., were using computers to enhance data taken from radar aboard the Aegis cruiser Normandy, which was stationed at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay when the plane blew up.

However, officials cautioned that the infrared surveillance equipment aboard the Space Command satellites had been designed to pick up long-duration, intense flames from ballistic missiles and that it was unlikely to register the brief flash that would be made by a shoulder-fired missile.

Navy authorities also said the Normandy’s radar, which was at low power at the time of the crash and 180 miles away from the point at which the airliner exploded, probably would not be capable of picking up the explosion.

Sources familiar with the investigation said that at least 20 eyewitnesses to the crash offered descriptions that fit the signature of a missile. But these sources said a missile attack was not the prevailing theory.

“But it hasn’t been ruled out and can’t be until they have bigger pieces of the plane,” one source said. Large pieces of the jet’s fuselage and engines, the source said, would reveal whether the aircraft had been struck by a missile.

Pentagon officials expressed skepticism that the blast might have been caused by a missile, saying the plane was out of range of known shoulder-fired missiles.

Francis corrected an NTSB statement Thursday that the aircraft had climbed to 8,000 feet when it blew up. In fact, he said, the plane reached a maximum altitude of 13,700 feet.

The best of shoulder-fired missiles, military officers said, have a range of only 10,000 feet if they are fired straight up and 18,000 feet if they are fired parallel to the ground.

“There still is no evidence to suggest that TWA Flight 800 was hit by a missile,” a senior defense official said. “[And] we consider that to be extremely unlikely.”

The Sea Search

Francis said recovery efforts were being hampered because of rough seas and sporadically heavy rains. At times, he said, rescue workers grew seasick.

He said airplane parts that have been located were being ferried to New York hangars for further examination.

Sonar detectors registered a “spike” on the sea floor near the crash site that suggested a large portion of the aircraft--perhaps wreckage containing the flight-data and cockpit-voice recorders.

“It could be wreckage,” Francis said. “And the most important thing is to get those recorders.

Jeff Erickson, president and chief executive officer of TWA, said the airline has not received a claim of responsibility for the crash.

Times staff writers John J. Goldman in New York, Robin Wright, Ronald J. Ostrow and Art Pine in Washington, Mary Williams Walsh in Munich, Germany, and Richard E. Meyer in Los Angeles contributed to this story.

More Inside

* TRAVEL: Some seasoned fliers are reporting more jitters than usual over air travel. A20

* VICTIMS: Among those who perished were two high school friends, who were separated by a scheduling error. B1

* BUSINESS: Experts point to lessons to be learned for corporations involved in a crisis. D1

* MORE COVERAGE, PHOTOS, GRAPHICS: A16-A21, B1, D1

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Clues From Chaos

While the wreckage is still burning, teams of experts are mobilized and dispatched to the scene of an airplane diasaster to begin gathering clues. The painstaking process of reconstructing what brought the plane down is based on certain telltale remains, signatures of equipment failure or a criminal act. Investigations like this usually take at least a year and sometimes longer.

Structure: The nature of the disaster may be apparent in analysis of metal parts that show patterns of pitting, scorching, thinning and deformation. Fractures differ if caused by stress, impact or explosion.

Residue: Bombs can leave deposits of nitrates and other chemicals on surfaces near the origin of the blast. Explosions caused by the jet’s own fuel would have a different signature.

“Black Boxes”: Readings from the aircraft’s instruments provide clues about the performance of the plane in its final moments, and cockpit recordings can capture the voices of crew members and possibly the sounds of an explosion.

Maintenance Records: If the plane or its engines has a history of maintenance problems, it may appear in service records.

Air Traffic Control: Radar and voice communications recordings provide evidence of the aircraft’s route, navigation changes and other air traffic in the area.

Personnel: Agencies taking part in the search include the National Traffic Safety Board, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Coast Guard, the Federal Aviation Administration, TWA, Pratt & Whitney (manufacturer of the engines), Boeing Co., International Assn. of Machinists (representing maintenance personnel), the National Air Traffic Controllers Assn., and the Airline Pilots Assn.

Origin: The first object of investigators is to determine “the seat of the blast,” the point of origin. That will narrow down possible causes and help investigators interpret other clues found at or near the source of explosion.

The reconstruction site: The largest pieces of wreckage are being loaded onto barges and transported to the U.S. Navy yard in Brooklyn, which has the nearest docking facilities large enough to accommodate the barges. From there, the debris will be trucked to Calverton, Long Island, where a former Grumman Corp. hangar will house the wreckage through the reconstruction process.

Researched by: WILLIAM C. REMPEL / Los Angeles Times

Sources: National Traffic Safety Board, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms; U.S. Coast Guard, Times staff and wire reports; Newsday.