Workers Recover Large Section of TWA Cockpit

Federal officials investigating the crash of TWA Flight 800 recovered a large section of the plane’s cockpit Sunday, but they cautioned that it could be days or longer before experts can extract any information from the “huge mass of wreckage.”

“It’s as tall as I am and just a mass of spaghetti-like wires and dials and parts of seats, instruments, fuse boxes and switches,” said Robert Francis, vice chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board.

“It’s just this huge mass of wreckage. It’s going to be a major chore for the systems people to figure out what it all means and to take it apart. So I would say this is going to take us some time.”

James K. Kallstrom, the assistant FBI director heading the criminal side of the investigation, said that while agents were encouraged by the recovery of the cockpit section, immediate answers were not expected on whether the July 17 midair explosion that destroyed the jetliner was caused by a bomb, a missile or a mechanical failure.

“Looking at the cockpit, to see that mass of jumble and wires, certainly brought home to me how difficult it’s going to be if the rest of the front of the plane looks like that,” Kallstrom said. “It’s basically just a solid pile of debris all mixed together.”

Workers also recovered the bodies of two of the four cockpit crew members: Capt. Ralph Kevorkian, 58, of Garden Grove, a co-pilot who was found in his seat; and Richard Campbell, 63, of Ridgefield, Conn., a flight engineer. It was not immediately revealed where Campbell’s body was discovered in relation to the cockpit.

Officials said 194 of the 230 people killed in the crash have now been found and that 192 of those have been positively identified.

The discovery of the cockpit section, described as being 6 feet high and 10 feet wide, represents a major find for the recovery operation working a dozen miles off the Long Island coast near East Moriches, N.Y.

The largest portions of the Boeing 747 settled along the sea bottom under 120 feet of water, and Navy salvage workers and deep-sea divers have battled rough seas, murky waters and other hazards for 19 days to find bodies and wreckage.

Another part of the cockpit, a side window section, was discovered Saturday, but it still had not been brought to land.

The larger portion found and retrieved Sunday, however, is the second major section of the jumbo jet pulled from the water in as many days. On Saturday, the Navy hoisted up a large piece of the top of the first-class cabin.

All the debris is being ferried to a large hangar on Long Island, where NTSB and FBI officials are meticulously trying to reassemble the airplane to learn what caused the front section to break apart at about 13,000 feet soon after leaving New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport for Paris.

“We are sort of getting into what would be the sort of drudgery, if you will, phase of this accident investigation,” Francis said.

“We’re going to be picking up wreckage. We’re going to be obviously continuing to focus on victims. But given the way the wreckage has come up and is coming up, untangling that cockpit’s mass of wire and everything else is going to take some time,” Francis said.

A large beam was found in the wreckage of the cockpit, he said, but investigators did not know where it came from or how it got there. “Exactly what it’s going to tell us, who knows?”

Kallstrom would not discuss reports from some Long Island residents who claimed to have seen military exercises in the area the night of the crash, nor would he address a second report that someone may have videotaped a missile-like flare in the sky the week before the explosion.

“We’ve looked into every possible thing that could have happened to the airplane,” he said. “. . . But I’m not going to comment on what we think of them, or how we rate them or how we prioritize them.”

Kallstrom also said FBI agents had not begun interviewing the families of victims, choosing to wait until more conclusive evidence is found in the wreckage.

Officials said House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) inspected the recovery operation Sunday and was interested in learning how the various investigative agencies had been working together.