Mechanical Cause Gains as TWA Crash Theory

With no hard evidence, some federal transportation investigators are leaning toward mechanical failure as the cause of the TWA Flight 800 explosion, a published report says.

Bernard Loeb, the National Transportation Safety Board’s director of aviation safety, says bomb and missile theories have “lower probability,” the New York Times reports in today’s editions.

A senior official at NTSB headquarters in Washington also backed the mechanical theory.

But an unnamed senior FBI official told the paper that it’s “preposterous” to play down the bomb or missile theories, because significant gaps remain in the reconstruction of wreckage.