Workers Call TWA Crash Theory ‘Premature’

Workers reassembling TWA Flight 800 wreckage accused the National Transportation Safety Board on Monday of trying “to shut the lights off” on the probe by suggesting the plane was brought down by static electricity.

“It’s their one-way ticket out of here,” said one accident investigator about the NTSB’s newest position, that the catastrophic explosion in the center fuel tank might have resulted from a static electricity-induced spark.

It is a theory that the safety board acknowledges it has no evidence to support.

Dismayed workers said they suspect the agency may be preparing the public for the possibility it might never determine exactly what’s to blame for the deaths of 230 people but wants to present a probable cause that would be hard to refute.

“The static electricity theory is premature,” said the investigator. “It’s a catchall theory that, when you can’t prove anything else, you can point to that.”

The NTSB’s public statements Friday hit especially hard in the hangar in Calverton, where crews have worked around the clock in search of a cause since the plane exploded about 10 miles off Long Island on July 17.

And James K. Kallstrom, who is heading the FBI investigation into the explosion, told reporters last week that he was surprised at the NTSB’s public speculation that static electricity was to blame for the explosion.