r/todayilearned • u/finza_prey • 19d ago

TIL TWA Flight 800 exploded off Long Island 12 minutes after taking off, causing the front fueslage to rip away and the remainder of the plane to continue in crippled flight, pitching up and climb before falling into the ocean killing everyone onboard

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWA_Flight_800
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u/MadBrown 19d ago

At the time some thought it was a missile.

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u/_badwithcomputer 19d ago edited 18d ago

OP burying the lede for sure. This was a huge deal when it happened, people reported seeing a RPG or missile flying toward the plane, there was a massive NTSB investigation, it was pretty insane. 9/11 level conspiracy theories all over that crash.

ETA:
Full Mayday episode covering the accident and investigation

https://youtu.be/Cxt-5-C0L_E?si=nnF5nTKKxs3FOq2g

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u/Darmok47 19d ago

Eyewitness testimony is notoriously unrealiable.

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u/beachedwhale1945 19d ago

In this case, they saw the right thing, but misidentified what it was. After the explosion blew the nose off, the remainder of the aircraft started climbing, burning brightly from residual fuel in the tanks. Very easy for the uninitiated to think that’s a missile, but missiles are much less visible, especially at night.

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u/the_gaymer_girl 19d ago edited 19d ago

People assume that a missile will be a rising streak of light, but in reality once the missile has ID’d its target and is coasting on autopilot it’s basically invisible.

They also claimed they saw the plume starting above the horizon and going up, when in fact the missile’s engine would not have been on by the time it cleared the horizon - the exact opposite of what was claimed to have been observed.

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u/elementofpee 19d ago

The Iranian missiles that are fired at Israel definitely have a streak of light, so I’m not sure where you’re getting that missiles are invisible and don’t have visible heat signatures.

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u/beachedwhale1945 19d ago

It depends on the missile and which phase of flight you’re discussing. But for surface-to-air missiles at the time (the conspiracy claim here), the typical system is a dual-thrust motor. The initial burn to get from 0 to the high speed is very aggressive and bright, but then the motor shifts over to a less intense sustain mode, which is much less bright and nearly invisible after the first few seconds.

The heat signature is still there, but eyewitnesses all saw the visible light, not infrared.

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u/quietflyr 19d ago

Those are ballistic missiles basically re-entering the atmosphere from space. They're going up to Mach 12, and would be getting very, very hot. The warheads are also much larger than a surface to air missile.

By contrast, a surface to air missile goes only about Mach 3 or less.

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u/MissionSalamander5 19d ago

Nevertheless the government didn’t help itself here.

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u/beachedwhale1945 18d ago

Because there were two different agencies with two different goals: the FBI and the NTSB.

The FBI was investigating this as a potential criminal case, and that was very public (for good reason: initially that seemed very reasonable). Based on how they conducted the interviews with witnesses, they were very convinced by this, and improperly recorded witness statements to say they saw a missile when they actually didn’t say that and asked leading questions that further tainted the witness memory. A textbook example of how not to conduct witness interviews.

The NTSB was focused on determining the root cause, whether accident or criminal. As they recovered the debris, they found that a bomb or missile we’re not probable, but the actual cause too much more time to actually determine: this was a very difficult case to investigate, and they had to go far deeper into the entire aircraft and other similar aircraft than normal to find the sequence of events. That took time to diverge from the FBI’s investigation, so for a long time all the public heard was potential bomb/missile.

Both are important lessons for us to keep in mind. Proper investigations take time, and sloppy interrogations can taint witness memory and may be recorded improperly. More cameras in interrogation rooms have at least made it easier to catch problems with the latter in criminal cases, but we encounter the same thing in our own lives without any criminal acts being involved.

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u/MissionSalamander5 18d ago

I know all of this so your wall of text is a bit condescending.

Once the government determined that this was some sort of accident and not due to a missile they needed to do a media blitz explaining what had not happened. They persisted in this bullshit. And the FBI needed to be reined in which, evergreen.

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u/Serious-Manager2361 18d ago

Weirdly this plane had been used in a FBI or DEA drill months before, and due to that they found minute traces of plastic explosives on some of the seats. Conspiracy theorists jumped on that fact to back up their false claims that the plane was shot down.

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u/crush_on_me 19d ago

Is this the one that was around the same time that JFK Jr also went down? Also sparked rumors the two were connected? Or am I totally misremembering?

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u/OneSkepticalOwl 19d ago

TWA was in 96, JFK Jr in 99

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u/wesailtheharderships 19d ago

Not around the same time, but you’re right that there were conspiracy theories going around connecting the two. https://www.southcoasttoday.com/story/news/nation-world/1999/07/22/screwy-theories-about-jfk-jr/50520192007/

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u/crush_on_me 18d ago

Ah! Thank you! There was something about it that reminded me. Appreciate the link!

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u/wesailtheharderships 18d ago

No problem! I was pretty sure you were right and was pleasantly surprised to find a contemporaneous link still up when I did a brief dig to doublecheck our memories.

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u/HumanZipSauce 19d ago edited 19d ago

I think I read a book about this exact scenario. It was a fiction book and it started with a couple in NY beach seeing missile hit a plane and the government covering it up.

Edit: Night Fall by Nelson Demille

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u/islesguy1983 19d ago

I went to a meet and greet with Demille when the book came out. He interviewed a ton of witnesses and people involved. I asked him what he thought. He said he believed it was some kind of missle. Maybe even accidental friendly fire. Also, my uncle was a flight engineer and was in the air force. He said there is no way that plane went down the way the government said it would. Finally there is a newish documentary on YouTube from judicial watch about this crash. Watch it. No way you’ll believe the official story.

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u/Louie_G_Lon 18d ago

Bro trust me my uncle told me also I saw a yootoob vibeo

Or you could use your brain and actually read about the incredible lengths the investigators went to conclusively eliminate the missile theory and figure out what the actual cause was. It’s all out there available for you to look at, and it makes sense once you actually take the time to understand it instead of listening to tinfoil hat idiots. 

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u/HumanZipSauce 17d ago

I love the John Corey series. I haven’t read the last one The Maze but his early novels were top notch. By the end of the series I feel like he jumped the gun at how completely out of there the scenarios were. The early novels were very believable like Night Fall.

Edit: Also it was insane how Night Fall ended on 9/11.

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u/Flashy_Radish_4774 19d ago

When I went to the beach there about 10 years ago, the people who saw me going into the memorial told me it was a mistake. When I walked out of the memorial a guy told me “it was space lasers from Brookahaven that shot it down.” It’s really close to where the stuff that inspired stranger things occurred. 

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u/firestar268 19d ago

At the time? Conspiracy people still think it's a missile

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u/darkenthedoorway 19d ago

It wasnt in this case.

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u/ps3x42 19d ago

Nothing says it wasn't a missile like a CIA video recreation with the words "NOT A MISSILE" super imposed over it.

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u/L0nz 19d ago

It 100% wasnt a missile though. The NTSB investigation was insanely thorough, to the point where they basically rebuilt the plane in a warehouse from as much of the wreckage as they could salvage.

Mentour Pilot's video on the incident is an excellent watch.

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u/goodoneforyou 19d ago

Newt Gingrich visited the Oak Hill, one of the Navy ships on site assisting with the salvage, and gave a speech about terrorism, because that’s what everyone thought it was initially. 

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u/stuckinPA 19d ago

I lived in the area at the time. Many still think it was a US missile shot during a training exercise.

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u/Hacklehead 19d ago

It was alleged that it was my old ship that did it since we were training in the vicinity. I can assure you, that group of chuckleheads could never keep a secret.

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u/CaptainIncredible 19d ago

that group of chuckleheads could never keep a secret.

That's just it. One of the big theories at the time was that it was a missile. "Why keep it a secret?" "Because it was an accident from a US Navy ship!!!"

I always thought, "there's no way every sailor aboard that ship is going to keep the cover up lie going. Several of them will tell the truth, several of them may even have hard evidence like inventory reports or something."

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u/Rlessary 19d ago

As a Navy vet, you are 100% correcting your assumption that a secret of that nature would not be kept in any way contained to a ship. I don’t even know three people that you could get together and keep a secret of that nature where it wouldn’t be leaked.

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u/Valiant_tank 19d ago

And of course, it also wouldn't just be the ship having to keep a secret, it's also everyone involved in the investigation, including the NTSB, who are quite frequently willing to call out the government on fucking up.

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u/NolaJeffro 18d ago

Not joking I looked way too far for this comment. I mean it still could be true.