Trawling for TWA Flight 800 Debris Ends
Trawling for wreckage from TWA Flight 800 was stopped indefinitely Tuesday, nearly six months after scallop boats began combing the floor of the Atlantic for clues to the disaster.
Investigators are now concentrating on their analysis of the thousands of pieces that have been retrieved and that are being used to reconstruct the center portion of the plane.
If the analysis does not provide an explanation for the crash, authorities may bring back the trawlers, scuba divers, the Navy’s underwater remote vehicle or its electronic sonar devices, said James Kallstrom, who is heading the criminal probe for the FBI.
“The resumption of trawling is dependent on what is learned by the analysis of the mock-up of the plane and other scientific testing being conducted,” he said.
The Paris-bound jet burst into a fireball in the sky shortly after taking off from Kennedy International Airport on July 17. The jet plunged into the Atlantic Ocean off Long Island, killing all 230 people aboard and scattering pieces over a five-mile stretch of ocean floor.
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