More Bodies, Major Piece of Jet Wreckage Recovered

After several days of setbacks, federal officials probing the destruction of Trans World Airlines Flight 800 announced Saturday that they had recovered more bodies from the ocean crash scene as well as wreckage that could provide critical clues as to why the jumbo jet exploded over the Atlantic.

Robert Francis, vice chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said seven bodies were found Friday night and early Saturday morning, bringing the total of victims recovered to 191. The plane was carrying 230 passengers and crew members when it crashed July 17.

In addition, he said, Navy workers retrieved a large piece of the airplane that appeared to be the front top section.

That section could play a crucial role in helping experts determine what caused the plane’s front portion to split apart as the New York-to-Paris airliner climbed past 13,000 feet just south of the beaches at East Moriches, N.Y.

“It’s an enormous piece of wreckage,” Francis said after viewing the top section of the plane once it had been hoisted onto the Navy vessel Grapple.

“It was so big that when they lifted it, it stretched out, and when they put it on the deck, it folded down into two.

“I would guess 40 feet by 60 feet.

”. . . And it’s a pretty graphic piece of evidence as to what happens to an aircraft when it crashes like this. Wire dangling off. Seats attached. Pieces of galley. Coffee pot on the deck. Almost everything that you can imagine.”

He said the wreckage was placed on a barge to be ferried to the Long Island hangar where officials are attempting to piece together the plane.

Structural experts from the NTSB and FBI agents “will be looking at that as soon as it gets in,” Francis said.

James K. Kallstrom, the lead FBI investigator in the case, agreed that the find was a major development in helping determine whether the plane was blown apart by a bomb placed on board, a missile shot from the ground or a mechanical malfunction.

“To see all the wreckage and certainly the bodies that are coming up, we are optimistic that we are that much closer to knowing what the situation is here,” Kallstrom said.

But he added that “we don’t have anything to report conclusively” about the cause of the explosion.

“We need to look at what we’re getting,” he said. “Some time needs to pass. Give us time to figure this out. But it is a great sign that we’re actually getting the wreckage up.”

Saturday’s recovery, however, did not include a side window section of the cockpit that was discovered by a remote-control underwater camera Friday. Francis and Rear Adm. Edward Kristensen said divers were still examining the cockpit wreckage before deciding how best to bring it above the water without causing more damage to the delicate piece of evidence.

They noted that, just like the top section discovered Saturday, the cockpit also could provide critical clues as to what happened. Francis described the cockpit as the “nerve center” of an airplane and added that its instrument panels and electrical components could help determine what brought the plane down.

Officials said that after two days of storms over the wreckage site, calm weather Saturday had given a much-needed boost to the recovery operation.

“The weather has been very kind, and those folks out there are doing a lot of work,” Francis said.

But Kristensen said other problems continue to hamper recovery efforts.

He said, for instance, that a line attached to the underwater camera became snagged on a piece of aluminum and was severed, causing a three-hour delay.

“Hopefully,” he said, “we’ll be back up and running hard with everything back in the water.”