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Attorney: Mechanical failure caused TWA crash
October 21, 996
Web posted at: 9:10 a.m. EDT
(CNN) -- An aviation attorney says he has evidence that the crash of TWA Flight 800 was caused by a mechanical failure and that he could present that proof to investigators as early as Monday.
According to a report in Monday's USA Today, Lee Kreindler plans to show the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) results of computer simulations and tests that indicate a Boeing 747 fuel tank could explode without being set off by an explosive device.
"Evidence is there that a structural, mechanical or electrical failure of some kind led to the explosion," Kreindler, who represents the families of 23 of the crash's victims, told the newspaper.
The NTSB and the FBI are investigating three possible causes of the July 17 crash that killed all 230 people aboard the plane. The jetliner exploded shortly after takeoff from New York's Kennedy Airport and fell into the Atlantic Ocean just off Long Island.
NTSB spokeswoman Shelly Hazle said the board will listen to Kreindler.
"He has a theory and he has experts," she said.
Kreindler's experts, a metallurgist and an explosives expert, tested spare parts of other 747-100 jets of the type that crashed because access to pieces of Flight 800 has been limited to NTSB, FBI and Boeing officials only.
Boeing 747-100s, Kreindler told USA Today, have a history of fuel-tank problems. An jet identical to the one involved in the July crash exploded in mid-air near Madrid, Spain, in 1976, and some evidence points to an explosion in the fuel tank caused by an electrical surge traveling through the plane's systems.
After that crash, the Federal Aviation Administration administered several directives ordering changes in the fuel systems of 747s. TWA spokesman Mark Ables said that Flight 800 "was in full compliance" with those directives.
Boeing's Doug Webb also told the newspaper that there are "vast differences" between the two crashes: The Madrid crash occurred during a severe thunderstorm, while Flight 800 exploded on a clear night, and the two planes used a different fuel mixture.
Kreindler won $500 million for 225 families of people killed in the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 in 1988. He convinced a jury that the airline was negligent by not detecting the bomb that brought the plane out of the sky.
Families of Flight 800's victims stand to recover millions in damages if it can be proven that negligence by TWA or Boeing caused a mechanical failure. If a bomb was responsible for the crash, attorneys must prove airline security was lax in order to recover damage.
Related story:
- Investigators of TWA Flight 800 lean toward theory of mechanical failure - October 18, 1996
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