229 Perish In Jet Crash

Coast Guard says no survivors are found

By Liam Pleven

July 18, 1996

A TWA jetliner bound for Paris with 229 people aboard exploded in midair last night just after taking off from Kennedy Airport and plunged into the Atlantic Ocean south of Moriches Inlet, and the Coast Guard said no survivors had been found.

Trans World Airlines Flight 800 had climbed to approximately 13,800 feet when federal aviation officials lost radar contact with the Boeing 747-100 about 8:45 p.m., just as witnesses on the South Shore reported seeing a bright fireball light up the darkening sky.

I looked at the bay and saw a reflection on the water, then I looked up and I saw a big orange fire ball falling into the ocean, said Robert Siriani, who was outside his parents' home in Mastic Beach. I'd say it was one hundred feet wide and a couple of hundred feet long, the whole thing was flames, the flames were so bright I didn't see anything else.

The flaming wreckage then plummeted into the dark waters about 9 1/2 miles south of the Suffolk shore, triggering a massive search over five square miles of debris in the open ocean.

Bodies are being recovered. There are no signs of survivors at all, said Chief Petty Officer John Chindblom of the Coast Guard office in Moriches. Professional and volunteer rescuers found mostly body parts strewn among the torn seat cushions and mangled metal.

At the Coast Guard base in East Moriches, rescue workers -- armed with latex gloves and body bags -- began bringing in the bodies of the dead. A police official said that a boat with about 20 bodies sat outside the inlet, which was too narrow for it to enter. Workers transferred the bodies -- many of which were burned and not whole -- into smaller boats, which brought the dead to the shore.

At Kennedy Airport, frantic family members were scrambling for information and searching for solace. Jose Fermin of Brooklyn was running around, trying to find out if there was any chance his brother, Alberto, might be alive.My mother wanted to come with me, he said. She's crying and crying.

Alberto Fermin of Manhattan had been working two jobs, saving money for his long-dreamed-of vacation to France as a 28th birthday present to himself.I didn't see him very often because he was working almost seven days a week, said his sister, Maria, while waiting for news at her mother's Brooklyn home. He had been saving money for this vacation.

The cause of the crash was still not known last night, and officials cautioned against jumping to conclusions. Speculation focused on the possibility of a terrorist attack two days before the opening of the Olympic Games in Atlanta.

A top Clinton administration official said late last night that no warnings were received from any group, and there is no evidence at this point that the attack was from a terrorist bomb. But James Kallstrom of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's New York office announced at 1:25 a.m. that the bureau is taking over the investigation under the aegis of its joint terrorism task force with the New York Police Department.

Sources familiar with the investigation said agents are poring over the passenger manifest to see if there were any suspicious people or potential terrorist targets on the plane, and questioning pilots who were flying nearby at the time. In addition, agents were contacting informants -- everybody we know -- around the world to see if they have any information on threats against TWA or U.S. citizens.

In addition, U.S. Transportation Secretary Frederico Pena and FAA Administrator David Hinson are expected to arrive at Long Island-MacArthur Airport in Islip this morning at 7 to help withthe investigation. And the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, which has expertise in explosives, was sending agents to help in the investigation, said John Pitta, the head of the ATF Long Island office.

Officials with the Federal Aviation Administration said the plane had arrived in New York from Athens as Flight 881 about three hours before it left for Paris. The plane was a 747-100, which has been flying since the 1970s and is the oldest series of the model flying, according to officials.

TWA said the plane was bound for Charles de Gaulle Airport outside Paris with 212 passengers, 14 flight attendants and three pilots. The passengers included some who had been scheduled to leave for Rome on an earlier flight that had been canceled.

Avrohom Hakeller of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, came to Kennedy Airport because his friend, Joseph Cohen, was on the flight.

I was driving in the car and then over the radio I heard the news, Hakeller said. My reaction when they said the flight number was that I was just shocked.

Cohen, 29, of Flatbush, was a science student who was traveling to Paris on vacation until September, Hakeller said.

Kennedy officials brought the families of relatives on a bus into the Ambassador Club in Terminal 5 to talk to TWA officials and chaplains.

James Devine, the Kennedy airport chaplain, said the airline was putting the families at a hotel overnight but was not able to tell them whether their friends and relatives were on board. They haven't told them anything as yet, he said shortly after midnight.

Rabbi Alvin Poplack, the Jewish chaplain at the airport, said, Some were in really bad shape, but others were hopeful. You can imagine what kind of questions they're asking.