Airline Disasters - and Near Misses by milton

Question 5

This 747 exploded and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean shortly after taking off from New York en route to Rome on July 17, 1996, killing all 230 people on board. Coming as it did two days before the opening of the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta, the fate of flight 800 gave birth to many theories suggesting the aircraft had encountered a terrorist or a military response. In the end, the NTSB concluded that the explosion was likely caused by a static charge or short circuit in an almost-empty fuel tank which had been warmed to a dangerous level as the aircraft sat on the tarmac in New York in the hot summer sun.

Trans World Airlines (TWA)

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