2 Fuel Tank Probes From TWA Jet Found

Two long-sought fuel probes that could answer whether a mechanical malfunction destroyed TWA Flight 800 have been found on the ocean floor and sent to Washington for analysis, a National Transportation Safety Board spokeswoman said Thursday.

The probes, which measure the volume of fuel remaining in the plane’s tanks, have provided investigators with their first meaningful pieces of wreckage in weeks. Divers found them late last week, 10 miles off Long Island.

NTSB investigators in Washington are examining both probes to determine whether they might have somehow short-circuited and sparked the explosion inside the nearly empty center fuel tank of the Boeing 747.

Investigators know that the plane’s center fuel tank exploded, but they do not know if the cause of the explosion was a bomb, a missile or mechanical failure. The Paris-bound plane blew up on July 17 after takeoff from John F. Kennedy International Airport, killing all 230 people aboard.

A memorial service was held Thursday at a cemetery in Center Moriches, N.Y., not far from where the plane crashed, to mark the 100 days since the disaster.

Not all families, however, were notified about the memorial service. Eugene and Etta Silverman, and their daughters, Jamie and Candace, of Los Angeles, were the only entire family lost on Flight 800. Their relatives said they learned about Thursday’s ceremony from media accounts.

“I was very hurt to see it on TV,” said Etta’s brother, William Buckler. “We had four members of our family on that plane--not that the ceremony is going to bring them back but we certainly should have been notified.”

Buckler said his 82-year-old father had just returned from a cross-country drive so he could attend memorial services in honor of the Silvermans. Other family members, who live near where Thursday’s memorial services were held, also would have attended, he said.

“At least TWA could have extended the courtesy of a call,” said Eugene’s older brother, Ron Silverman, who had not been contacted by the airline. “You feel somewhat offended not to be kept abreast of things like this.”

A 500-pound, 6-foot-high granite obelisk with an airplane figure etched into the top was unveiled at the ceremony.

The event, featuring representatives from TWA, the FBI, the Coast Guard, American Red Cross and Suffolk County police, among others, was coordinated by Steve Scerri, director of the Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Center Moriches, which was part of the recovery effort July 17.

The NTSB spokeswoman, Shelly Hazle, said one piece of the probes showed signs of what is referred to as petalling, in which the metal is shorn and resembles a fringe, which could be characteristic of a bomb.

But she cautioned that other pieces of the wreckage also have shown petalling and that investigators have determined that aluminum can petal simply by becoming very hot and then hitting water.

The probes carry minuscule amounts of electrical current. Boeing, the plane’s designer, has said the probes are designed to be incapable of providing a spark that would ignite the tank. But some experts disagree.

A third probe was recovered several weeks ago and there was no sign that it contributed to the explosion. Investigators are still eager to recover four other probes from the center fuel tank.

The shattered tank, 80% of which has been recovered, is being reassembled in a hangar.