There were 16 high school French club students from central Pennsylvania who were on TWA 800 to visit France. Their parents took a video of them at JFK airport just before boarding the plane. They were all so excited to go. I think of them every time I see the story of TWA 800.😢
That is the first thing I ever think of too, young people with their whole life ahead of them how horrible for everybody that had loved ones on this plane
I still think of those 16 kids, too. For me it's a minor coincidence that I sat next to a high school exchange student from PA on my way to study at the University of Cape Town in 1984. The adventurous idealism is so strong at moments like that. I also think of a young recent hire among the flight attendants on board TWA 800. A male friend of hers later recounted how excited she was to have been given the Paris route so soon. It's one of those haunting stories of a forbidden paradise.
My neighbor, who I had known since my childhood, was a head steward for TWA and was hopping a free flight to France onboard TWA 800 when it exploded. Just a few days before, maybe a week, I had seen him mowing his lawn and we had waved to each other. You never know when.
@@AlexandreG 20 bucks says you're just an @hole. But I should make a correction - he was not the head steward on that particular flight. He was a head steward for TWA, but on that flight he was catching a freebee to Paris. His body was also one of the first, if not the first, to be recovered and identified. You can look it up. His initials were WD.
@@ScottA2345 oh WD, that one, I know him too! Huge family friend, used to gather around the a fire eating grilled pork and telling beautiful tales. Good times
@@AlexandreG BTW - Just Google the crash to find articles from the evening and following day that it happened, You can easily find who I am talking about. His picture was featured in many of the initial articles. But of course, you're just too lazy of an @hole to actually put that much effort into it. Skid mark.
I’ll always remember TWA flight 800. The day it went down, my father was told he had terminal cancer and he’d be lucky to live another year. Exactly 1 year to the day, he passed away at 57yrs from the cancer that killed him. That afternoon my brother and I were watching the tv, and the family/friends of those lost from flight 800 were throwing roses into the ocean. So the pain of losing my father is associated with those that lost loved ones on that flight. Life is precious. And I pray for those that suddenly lost loved ones in August 1996.
There's something utterly horrifying about this crash, perhaps the fact that most of the passengers were likely aware of what had happened, could _see_ the catastrophic damage, and _knew_ they were going to die. With most fatal crashes, you can imagine passengers and crew believing they might just survive until the very last instant, but not so with TWA800.
It really is chilling comment from the Captain of Stinger B507- an Eastwind Air 737-a lot those people died horrific deaths. The complete opposite of Al Haynes “want to be particular and make it a runway” line.
Imagine experiencing that while in flight and control of your own aircraft. I wonder if the thought ever crossed their minds “Are we next?” Some rogue country shooting down passenger planes? Or an EMP anomaly? Or….. ???
@@martindunstan8043 - Yeah, it’s not like “This plane I just saw disintegrate is just like my plane I’m responsible for. Things like a passenger plane blowing up in the sky happens all the time. No big deal”.
I was in Ireland when TWA 800 happened and was totally freaked out, as we had just taken off from JFK days before and I was assuming a terrorist attack. Even worse, I later met a man whose daughter had been on the plane as part of the class trip from Montoursville PA. His son saw it on the news and asked his Dad what flight his sister had been on. The Dad didn’t remember and went to check her flight info. One can only imagine how his heart dropped when he saw it - TWA 800.
there’s a beautiful memorial for TWA 800 at the TWA museum in kansas city. there’s a glass slab etched with a poem, a model of a 747 suspended in clouds and a recovered piece of debris from one of the plane’s cargo bins. the museum is definitely worth a visit, even just for that alone
@@PostUp_Time The one in Kansas City is just a small memorial within the TWA museum. The actual large dedicated TWA Flight 800 Memorial is located at Smith’s Point Beach at Suffolk County’s Smith Point County Park, Fire Island, Central Long Island in New York.
what kind of morbid ass stupid shit is that? I was at the beach when it went down - we don't carry on like that - have a museum in your bullshit state dedicated to meth heads and stealing gas - k?
My father was part of the recovery efforts of the Heldeberg off of Maurituis as a medic. It was widely believed in South Africa at the time that the accident was due to an explosive placed on board. He says the search efforts left a permanent scar on his memory owing to the debris that they located containing children's clothes and toys.
As a mechanic that built 747's for 35 years it tore my heart in two for the people and families that suffered. I also suffered for the fact that a 747 went down. They were the majority of my life. Both construction and repair. I pray the families have found peace among this tragedy.
I will never forget this tragedy. My neighbors, the Benjamin's, were on that flight. They were going to see their child. What sorrow our little PA town had. On going prayers to all the families and the Benjamin family.
Among the dead was also Marcel Dadi, an expert guitar player pretty well known back then. He was someone who really mattered to me, one of his records was one of my childhood favourites. He was traveling with the Guitar & Keyboards magazine chief editor. I still remember the competely black front page of the October '96 number. Inside, a small picture of Dadi and the chief editor (can't remember his name) and a few words. R.I.P.
@@ligmasack9038 For most people I am guessing c20K feet, but it was said the JAL Flight 123 pilots were not on oxygen even higher than that, and were still conscious .
Wow! I think in the first crash, what happened with the cockpit separating and the fire with the passengers, death must have happened very quickly. But the second had so much time for all, including the passengers, to be absolutely terrifed. So horrible. RIP to all those souls. Thank you for this excellent presentation.
Yes! Exactly. The people on South African Airlines 295 were alive as the fire took hold and steadily got worse. The plane was a 747-200 Combi, 2/3rds passengers, 1/3 cargo. The plane was nicknamed The Heldeberg. The crew tried to put it out but it was too far advanced. All this time the passengers in the cabin were conscious, but increasingly incapacitated by the toxic smoke that filled the cabin. At one point they altogether rushed to the front of the cabin in an attempt to get as far away from the fire as possible. I can’t imagine the terror they felt, knowing they were not going to get out alive.
I'm not so sure passengers would have had a very violent whip lash at the first explosion that literally decapitated people internally by hitting their heads against the seats in front of them. 2 major fires and 72% of passengers being sucked out also, they found 202 possible remains out of the 230 passengers 183 died instantly due to being pulled out of plane or the violent whiplash 15 passengers they are not sure if immediately fatal 4 we're not immediately fatal (all in same section Remaining 28, not enough remains to determine No matter what still totally horrible
It is the Flight Deck It ceased being a CockPit when WoMen became commercial Pilots Otherwise - it would be a PussyPit So get the point and educate yourself to a higher level
I saw a CNN article from 1997 that stated that according to autopsies majority of passengers were gone before the plane hit the water but as many as 40+ were possibly conscious before the plane hit the ocean.
the jet was hit with 5 surface to air missiles, they have over 80 sworn avadavats from people on the ground including 2x E6's flying in a helicopter if anyone would know what a SAM would look like they would. On your streaming TV search for TWA FLIGHT 800.......FOR THE TRUTH.
That was 27 years ago & you're now training to be an airline pilot! Were you a child then? I worked the night shift that night in Nassau Cty. (law enforcement) & was delayed getting to work, by the emergency vehicles heading to the nearest land to the crash! I also used to load 747's at JFK with food, in the 70's & no one is going to tell me that it wasn't a bomb or missile! R.I.P.
I said it like a jingle. (For all the bored teachers out there, TWA's got you covered. Join us, and start achieving your dreams of flight. TWA, the airline for you.) ADVERTISEMENT LOL
I was meant to be on this flight and last minute changed to the next day. My family thought I was on this and the relief upon finding me alive and mine at my good fortune had us all sobbing. My Guardian Angel or something helped. May they all RIP
I love seeing little stories like this. It is heartbreaking what happened to the ones who got on the flight, but it’s good to see some light in the darkness. You were very lucky indeed.
I remember this so well. I was in Puerto Rico visiting my family during this crash. JFK is one of the airports I always left from as I live in the New York City area. I was just a little girl, ten years old. I think this was the first time I was ever confronted with an actual plane crash and the possibility of a plane crashing. I was flying home the next day, and I was terrified to get on that plane. Planes were second nature to me, I had flown my entire life multiple times a year. I felt so much empathy for those families. I remember hearing the story of the dad who lost his wife and two little girls. It reminded me of my dad staying behind as I usually traveled with my mother and sister. This one definitely changed me and even though I was ten, I was truly understanding the fragility of life.
I flew Lufthansa from JFK to Ukraine in 2016 and I bought a few magazines to read on the flight. The first article I read was about the young Lufthansa pilot that committed mass murder by flying the plane into a mountain. Creepy feeling as I'd never thought of that before
the error in aircraft are so frequent and become habits for pilot to turn off those false alarm, which is cause those kind of incident, should the pilot trust those alarm and send someone to check the cargo bay to put out the fire , they probably still have high chance of survival
What is really stupid about some Engineering designs is that even in a car you could see how much feul you had in 1996, so how did an aircraft of that size did not have a same kind of system like the car has to show the pilot how much petrol he had????
I can, which is why I stopped flying for anything other than family weddings/funerals. I'm not dying for a vacation or business deal. My bud as a intl salesman..his plane dropped suddenly once due to major turbulence one flight injuring many..emergency landing..he got ptsd, quit and never worked in the same capacity again.
my uncle was one of the last people to place an item on that aircraft. He worked for TWA and was responsible for cargo placement for emergencies. He placed a heart on board for a transplant overseas. His hair turned white within 1 week because of this and the interviews from the FBI.
I remember the day TWA 800 went down. I was at a buddy’s house & the crash site/debris images came on the news. This was before 9/11, so it was a pretty big deal…similar to the day Challenger exploded. It’s pretty impressive that the NTSB was able to recover much of the plane & reassemble it to find the actual cause. It was clearly horrible for all those on board, but I can’t help but to think of the group of school kids on their first flight & school trip to Paris. What an absolutely horrible tragedy. Rest in Paradise to all the souls lost that day. 😔🥀
My father who was a United Airlines pilot for 34 years thought the military accidentally shot it down..he was distrustful of our government anyway so was not surprised he thought that when I asked his opinion. Miss you Papa! Miss talking to you about all things aviation!. James Hykes UAL Captain (from 1960-1994)
A local NYC newspaper that was named The Village Voice had a detailed investigative report on the strong possibilities that it was accidentally shot down by a Naval ship due to Naval exercises occurring at the same time in the Atlantic. I remember TWA 800 and I still have those newspaper articles. (I live in NYC).
Im sorry for the loss of ur father. I too have lost my father and miss him dearly. However, the shootdown theory has been long disproven. There simply were no ships, planes or anything else anywhere near enough to shoot a missile. It is believed, that those, who thought, they saw a missile, actually saw the "headless" burning plane ascending, then stalling and dropping to the ocean. And believe me, even if the NTSB and the FAA would cover for the US military like that, we in the rest of the world would not. And there were several other nationalities onboard, whose agencies also investigated.
@@dfuher968 thats ridiculous. who "disproved" it. the government? pff ha ha.. they indeed had a sub with trident missiles onboard and they were running training missions. Do you really think the government wouldn't try to hide that? if you do, then you dont know the thousands of horrific thing our own government has done. They WANT you to think this is a crazy conspiracy theory. they accidentally shot the plane down and dozens of witnesses saw the trident heading toward the plane. They were all interviewed the night it happened but then they were never played again.
As I recall, in the late 1990s and early 2000s fueling procedures changed so that as fuel emptied from a tank, nitrogen gas replaced it, preventing fires from igniting, and fire sensors have been improved in cargo holds, along with regulations concerning the transport of Lithium ion batteries, which have an inherently higher risk of overheating and explosion and burn fiercely.
Other changes included those made to fuel system electrical circuit breaker design, fuel pump design, fuel pump activation logic, flight deck warnings and flight crew/ maintenance procedures.
There was a long fight about that. The military used nitrogen to put inert atmosphere in their fuel tanks, but of course their need was greater. They get shot at. The airline industry resisted the fill mandate, claiming it would cost too much. The winner ended up being a system that captured spent gases from the engine. Its like your car exhaust, it can't burn twice. This saved having to carry tanks of nitrogen. Cargo holds are a different thing. They figured out that fires will put themselves out if you seal the compartment from air, it basically consumes the oxygen and dies. The counter proof for this was the airline that went down because it was carrying oxygen generators, since it made its own oxygen and burned though the cargo hold. It was a very stupid move to carry that cargo, and it was misidentified.
@@scottfranco1962 I'm trying to remember what they did with the excess oxygen after they extracted the nitrogen from the bleed air. I recall that was a hazard in itself
I vividly remember this. I had flown on TWA, approximately 2 weeks prior, to Germany for a high school trip. We flew back about a week after Flight 800 blew up. It was pretty nerve-wracking for many of the students on the trip. Me? I had a couple of rum & Cokes that a nice flight attendant served 17-year-old me and a classmate.
Ahhhh, all those people, and the person waiting for their transplant… that is awful. Out of all the videos on this channel I have seen, the way this plane broke apart and how everyone died had to have been the most frightening thing ever. Imagine being a passenger and seeing the cockpit blown away and there is NOTHING you can do to save yourself, same with the guys free falling in the cockpit. Horrific.
@@israelgynosanya3129 No I really mean it. Watched to much suffering at this point in life. I do feel bad for the affected, but when it's my time I want it over quick. This all happened very quickly.
I've seen many NTSB animations and have read up on many air accidents during my flight training. TWA 800 is one of the most horrific. It's easy to be disconnected and not really understand the gravity of what's happening in this video, but the recreation at 5:00 grounds you immediately. I don't know if it's the poor quality or the realization that what appears to be a small little rc plane on the screen is a real jumbo jet with hundreds on board. I hope I never have to see anything like that in my career.
Its a very extensively covered accident, and Ive seen the animation several times b4. Every single time, all I can think is, plz, plz, plz, let them have lost consciousness quickly.
@@dfuher968”God bless them” from the Virgin Air pilot, I hope they lost consciousness quick but many were alive to know they were staring at death with the front of the plane gone from their sight.
As a frequent domestic flyer, and sometimes overseas traveler, I’m always aware in the back of my mind of what could happen at any moment while flying. It’s the terror of watching your own death happening in real time that freaks me out and sometimes makes me wonder why I continue to climb on board of these “flying machines” when any small mistake made by well-intentioned humans could be the end of us. Still, I know that flying is safer than driving. It’s just that the type of death is so much more terrifying (imo) in an air crash vs a car accident. Peace be upon all those who have died this way.
@adriennekliger3005 - Yes indeed, but there's no need to freak out about flying if you were to live, work, and play at a nice place where you don't have to fly away from.
I was a flight attendant for TWA when this happened. One of the worst nights of my life, and many of my brothers and sisters in the industry. When something like this happens, we're all family even if you're with another airline. It hurts just as much. We all have our own ideas of what really happened, and I'm going to keep my version to myself. Speculate all you want, I'm not going to divulge. Safe to say July 17 still stings even after 27 years. R.I.P. to my brothers and sisters aboard Flight 800.
Papa, papa, PLEASE tel us what you think happened! (I must add that if I was as close to retirement in my profession as I am but worked in your field instead, THAT would've sent me into retirement a wee bit early).
@stiram5 my very first flight was TWA 800. My parents where from France and we went there to visit. I was about 7 years old. The Flight Attendants where so good to me it was the best memory. I later became a Flight Attendant myself. I remember exactly where I was when flight 800 went down.. RIP to all the crew and passengers.
A student at the school of mine many years ago was one of the best athletes in school. He was in the school's cross-country, and headed on this flight to France. He was 20. There is a memorial at my school.
Both of these stories were so very painful to watch.😪 I'm already squeamish about flying. So I can't imagine being on either of those flights & realizing how scared those people had to have been.😢R.I.P. to all the lives lost on both flights.
It seems horrible but statistically it's way safer than driving. If you collide at 70+mph on a busy highway or lose traction due to ice or water the result probably would still be quite lethal
Amazing what truly UNBELIEVABLE stories dishonest folks push, when all the available eyewitness testimony says opposite. Might as well say it, here we are 27 years later, many reading this were kids when this happened. I was 32 and remember minute details, and thought "wow, now that corrupt Bi!! C!inton is in, look how the FB! are now a pack of L I A R S. Boy how prophetic in retrospect, which shows how one large coverup leads to more coverups. But, I digress. Back to TWA FLIGHT ✈️: That clear as crystal summer eve over Long Island Sound, dozens or even hundreds of witnesses saw + later TOLD FB! they "saw an umistakable flight exhaust trail & heard the noise of a fast streaking airborne object (many said, pointedly, 'missle') suddenly fireball as it impacted and exploded the large passenger jet directly overhead" as it tried & failed to continue on its flight ✈️. Instead it's flaming wreckage with hundreds of bodies rained down in full public view. You'd have thought this would have been headlines, but NO ! Instead the FB! agent phalanx fanned out to "cancel the story" by THREATENING every single citizen who dared say the verboten word "Miss!e". I'll let others speculate as to "why" suppress that damning narrative for one farfetched and uncorroborated, of a gas tank explosion. All I can say is, that day in 1996, I realized that certain parts of what claims to be our Government (if NOT Constitutional, they're "FAKE NEWS" Agencies run by Dark powers) had become actual enemies of the Average American Citizen, by whose "consent they govern". Not so much ! Things have gotten better OR worse since then, my fellow Americans ?
Imagine being the passengers and staff on the first flight. Wete they fortunate enough to promptly loose consciousness or were they conscious long enough to understand that the cockpit had fallen from cabin? 😥
@@kylieharrison3782 The aircraft broke in two behind the first few rows of seats so the people immediately behind that would definitely have knows that the cockpit had gone. How long they remained conscious thereafter is uncertain. I wonder whether the flight crew realised the extent of the damage or whether they thought the aircraft was still in one piece as it went down.
Somewhere there's a guy who, on that day, while working at the Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson airport, misplaced the luggage of Italian international football star Christian Panucci, eventually leading to him missing TWA800. Someone below commented that this terrible scenario (fuel-air combo, delays etc) does not seem too unthinkable, I wonder if someone can fill in what was done to prevent this from happening again. RIP all.
It's bad that the results of the investigation and recommendations were not mentioned after each of these 2 video sections indeed. That gives the whole video and the channel a real bad vibe, as if they are interested only in showing the accidents, not the lessons learned from them.
From memory, I think they have a system which purges any oxygen out of the center tank. That way the fuel air explosion can't happen. Possibly they checked wiring in that area of all 747's then flying and found many were in poor condition, that was changed too. This crash/incident is on several shows of this type (Air Crash Investigation etc). I can't remember the specifics though.
I just want to say how fascinating these videos are and the reaearch you have to do to make these videos must be immense .i for one love watching them ,its my new pass time .
I have seen an interview with a man who claims he was in the navy on a ship in 1996 doing some type of field test training exercises when someone on his ship accidentally hit TWA 800 with a missile, causing the explosion. He said that everyone on the ship was ordered to keep quiet about it.
I recall news networks at the time reporting claims of seeing surface to air weapon type things from folks on the ground at the time. watched this vid cause beyond that I didn't ever recall hearing the NTSB post mortem describing an actual cause.
@@derekhamel2991 There is a person named William Teele who claims that he was in the US navy on a navy ship in 1996 which accidentally shot down TWA 800. You can find videos and more info about it if you search around on the Internet. I have watched an interview he gave and it looked to me like he was telling the truth, although nobody can really be 100% certain.
Ironic when it initially comes out that the an explosion onboard and evidence points to a missile, only to later be changed by the CIA, FBI, and NTSB. Many people on Long Island were interviewed after the incident and most claim seeing two to three missiles rise near the surface of the ocean and strike the plane. There’s a documentary that was put out in the early 2000’s about the whole incident and how the U.S. government covered it up and made up the whole cover story that faulty wires near the gas tanks were responsible. Even though interviewed NTSB employees go on record to state that there were explosives residues on the aircraft fuselage pieces! It’s a terrible tragedy that occurred, but even more so that the government changes the narrative and threatens its own citizens over the truth!
Yes, I believe that’s what happened. The break up is very typical of a missile strike. Based on the ground conditions and the resiliency of the plane, there’s no way there could be a center fuel tank explosion. But that’s just my opinion.
My wife and I and some friends flew from Johannesburg to Swaziland in our plane for the weekend when the Helderberg went down. We were stunned at the news and it cast a gloomy pall on the weekend. Many people staying at the hotel got together in groups and we discussed the horrific incident. It was such a tragedy. RIP to all. The black boxes were recovered from the ocean floor at a depth of about 12000 feet or so.
@newton As a kid I flew a number of times on Helderberg between Mauritius & Durban during 1983 & 1985 (4 x per yer during school holidays). I recall boarding Helderberg many times flying out South Africa. I would usually be seated in the upper deck. It's chilling to think I could have been on that flight. Not for a solitary moment do I believe the cause of fire was computers. The govt was importing all manner of weapons and explosives by any means possible during the arms embargo against the then SA govt. The airline was govt owned & the CAA (investigative ppl) were also govt controlled.
In my opinion you have some of the best content on You tube...everything you want portrayed in absolutely realistic audio and video..by far my favourite ..and rip to all those that died so horribly ..absolutely tragic and sad
i well remember that tragedy. A group of American French language students were on their way to Paris on TWA flight 800. My wife made that trip years earlier as a student.
I remember that Some of the kids had a premonition and got off the flight, avoiding the crash. But Death hunted them down and killed them in horrific ways annyway
Listen to the voice of experience. When the FBI tells witnesses what they saw… my bullshit detector starts going off. I don’t know if it was a missile… obviously can’t prove or disprove it and you’ll never know the truth. In the long run, it doesn’t really matter.. these people are dead.
TWA Flight 800 was the 9/11 of the 90s. I still remember it, even though I was only in the first grade. Further, as time as gone on, I'm pretty sure it was actually a terror attack; numerous boats in the bay describe a smoke trail arcing up towards the aircraft, which then fell apart in the water.
Terrible tragedies. I remember hearing of TWA800's disintegration within hours of its happening and suddenly recalling then it was a flight I regularly took in those days.
@@JamesFaye-lt4dvno they didn’t. no one shot the plane down. it was a result of the ac packs heating up, the fuel in the tanks was vaporised due to oxygen in them which then ignited due to the heat and i think there was also a broken circuit or something like that which caused the breakup
Never realized 800 was transporting an organ for transplant. I hope the recipient is okay today and that there's at least one survivor from this tragedy.
@@calummacleod2107 230 people dying in terror through no fault of their own isn't a tragedy? But the potential death of a hypothetical organ recipient who likely didn't take proper care of their body is? Um, okay
There was another crash similar to the second, but they found there was something in cargo that should not been. More passengers died on that flight even though they were able to land relatively early because the pilot made a turn before stopping the plane. I think the wind from the turn intensified the flames.
@@harishms6643 No, that was the flight in Saudi Arabia by the 3 Stooges pilots. The captain landed safely but not right away. He thought the fire wasn't serious so he landed the plane far down the runway, then waited 3 minutes to stop the engines. When an attendant asked him if they should evacuate, he said yes, but then said no. When they opened the doors 23 minutes after landing, everyone was dead. The flight I was referring to, I remember it was in the US.
@@Sakja I think it was the one that happened in the Florida Everglades. I think it was a Jet Blue that had supposed empty oxygen canisters that exploded and caused the plane to go down. Might have been in the late 1990's.
@@marciadiehl5733 That was Valujet 592 on May 11, 1996. It was the oxygen generators that began to activate, causing extreme heat in the cargo hold. A tire then exploded, causing flames to burn through control cables, causing the airplane to go into an uncontrolled descent, and crash. There's a SaberTech guy who has an FBI warrant in connection to that crash, but they haven't found him yet.
I remember watching a very long, very detailed analysis of this done by one of the investigators on C-SPAN some time after the crash. The sheer amount of detail and the almost agonizing amount of thought and science that the NTSB and FAA put into the investigation was above and beyond what you might think such projects have to do.
From what the investigation I had seen the wire that was fractured or exposed was some sort of power wire that caused the two breaks in in the pilots last transmission. If you listen while he’s speaking you hear one and then the second half a second or so later that ( permanently) ended his transmission and caused the spark that caused the ignition in the center tank.
I don't care what anyone else thinks, it's a good video & TWA 800 always moves me emotionally. Normally these don't get that 😢 out of me, but TWA 800 does. Generally it's all about whether I can figure out what went wrong before it is explained. Thank you.
This would be a tough one to figure out. Not like when the pilots were flying out of DFW, flirting with the flight attendant and forgetting to put the flaps down on takeoff!
@@tomsurrey2252 Yeah, that comment got to me too. One doesn’t need to be religious to understand when somebody makes that comment, they just want to say the most they can come up with to express their grief and concern for those, their families or friends who have, or will soon be suffering.
I've been wanting you to do this one for a long time! Marcel Dadi was on this flight. Great guitar player. He was returning home to France from receiving an award in Nashville.
Marcel attended the annual Chet Atkins Appreciation Society gathering in Nashville (which occurs every July). I started attending the year after. It was a somber event, being the first gathering after the accident. I met a few of his family members who flew to Nashville from France. They wanted to meet everyone who he was hanging out with just before that tragic flight. Everyone celebrated his life with music that weekend.
Speaking of great musicians, the legendary sax player Wayne Shorter lost his wife _and_ his niece, who were both on TWA 800 travelling to visit him in Italy (where he was obviously gigging).
Every case like this hurts my heart - so incredibly sad. The passengers and crew are hostages to circumstances beyond their control - if they're conscious, they know their fate.
For the TWA, the coroner stated the vast majority died instantly due to broken neck. I've never trusted these kinds of statements since one wonders if they are sugar coated for the sake of the families.
@@cchris874Coroners don’t sugar coat anything. They have a legal obligation to tell the truth and if the necks are broken the necks are broken. Especially in mass casualty events and investigations where the FBI are involved. If people have similar injuries then you can come to that conclusion that it probably happened at the same time suddenly when the nose of the plane blew off. The plane would have experienced massive depressurization in a split second as well as traveling at high speeds, altitude, fire and debris traveling through the air. It is absolutely believable that the vast majority of people died very quickly but they still lived to know the plane exploded and something was seriously wrong. No doubts their last moments were terrifying. The families are aware the plane literally broke in half in the air. They don’t need the coroner to sugar coat anything. I’m pretty sure they are aware of how awful the situation was.
Two very tragic and horrible incidents. RIP to all involved. The initial one - you know people were aware of what was going on after the explosion, but I never took into consideration the fire that was engulfing them as the fuselage flew way up in the air before defending. I hope and prey they were unconscious at least. The second one, also, the poor people KNEW they were doomed before their deaths. Just horrible all around.
@@O.J._is_Guilty In theory it's possible. But in order for the "zoom climb" scenario to happen, forward speed needs to be given up for vertical speed. But the radar returns cited in the final report don't show that. That's one point the missile proponents got correct, I believe. I don't know about the rest of their theorizing though.
So many layers of tragedy. The organ being transported for transplant. The pilots of the other planes that witnessed the explosion. And of course, the people on board TWA 800.
My old Commanding Officer onboard USS Waddell(DDG-24), Rear Adm. Edward Kristensen, was in charge of the US Navy salvage efforts for TWA 800. He is a very good man.
It's a scary thought that this can cause an explosion. There's always gonna be some residue in an empty tank. Then, there's plenty of scenario's where a plane has to wait for a couple of hours. With the AC on of course if there's hundreds of passengers on board. Now, i know planes have crashed and disintegrated for the wildest, most unthinkable reasons. Sometimes a very minute little detail. But this? Seems like a scenario common enough to thoroughly test during development.
This video oversimplified that to the point of getting it wrong. The gas mixture in the empty tank became rich enough to be ignitable after it was warmed by the a/c packs, because increasing the temperature of a volatile liquid raises its vapor pressure. But the source of ignition, which was never definitively proven, is thought to have been a spark from faulty wiring in the fuel quantity indication system. At the time, it was thought it was acceptable to allow gaseous mixes in tanks to reach ignitable concentrations as long as no ignition sources were present. This doctrine changed as a result of this accident. Still, there was never a time when 747s were blowing up left and right just because it was hot outside.
Please note that Helderberg disaster was the main reason, why Boeing stopped the production of the B747 Combi version. It just so happen that at the time of this disaster, I was busy with my training as a ATC at the old Jan Smuts Airport. The true cause of the fire on the main deck was never established, and South Africa was also deep in the grips of a world wide trade boycott and a arms embargo. Many high tech materials for missiles, etc had to be sourced from third parties and it was rumored that the cargo pallets on the main deck, was filled with new weapons technology, missiles parts, unknown chemicals (presumably weapons grade), etc.
Not just a trade boycott, but airspace boycott as well, so the Helderberg could not take the most direct route since that would take it over nations that put the at the time aparteid South Africa under boycotts and embargso and those nations wouldn't let SAA fly through their airspace, which explains the long route
Your video's are so professional and always respectful, my only criticism (I don't even like calling it that lol) is the length of time the narration is up for. Maybe it's just me, but i find myself having to either speed read, and thereby missing other info shown, or as I do many times, pausing the video, which isn't ideal. That said, I do enjoy your content (despite the tragic circumstances covered) and I'm glad to see your channel doing so well👍👍
How horrifying to be toward the front of TWA 800 and seeing the front of the airplane disappear. I can only hope the passengers lost consciousness quickly, before they had a chance to understand their fate.
@@MisterRawgers I'm not sure they were yet at sufficient altitude to cause loss of consciousness upon cabin pressure disintegration. I think the video said the incident occurred at around FL138, which isn't that high.
I have been saying for the longest time that all cargo areas need to be completely airtight and outfitted with a Halon fire suppression system. Once the fire is confirmed out that area can be vented.
If you make a certain area airtight, rapid decompression in that area will make the surrounding floors or walls collapse. This has happened several times (damaging flight control systems and has led to major crashes). This effect is reduced by spring loaded flaps in walls and floors for pressure equalisation. Halon is not used in the cabin/fuselage because you have the possibility of killing the passengers and crew especially if the cabin/cockpit is not completely air tight. You're damned if you do, damned if you don't. If you make the aircraft like a submarine, it would be too heavy to take off (or too uneconomical for people to fly on them) Fire suppression systems in lower cargo areas ("luggage compartments") have always been available.
@@grmpEqweer I'm not aware of container internal extinguishing systems, but I've been out of the industry for a while. I'm not sure if the regulations would allow an independent fire suppression system. The usual fire extinguishant is fed into the cargo via small tubes. The extinguishant is fed in in stages; a rapid blast, followed by a long slow release up to several hours depending on the system. Some 747 freighters do have an extinguishing system for the main deck, but most just depressurise the cabin to 25,000' to reduce the oxygen content (when the crew push the main deck cargo fire switch).
Yeah, the only comfort I get from the Helderberg crash, if u can call it comfort, is that autopsies of the few bodies found showed, that the passengers died of smoke inhalation fairly early in the timeline.
Swiss Air 111 as well... Those people all would have been completely conscious all the way down and would have known there was an issue right away. Lots of time to think in that 1. Brutal.
@@thephantomeagle2 Over two hundred people saw something rising from the ground that hit the plane. One of those witnesses was a military pilot in the air who saw two explosions, a bright white explosion followed a few seconds later by a yellowish/orange explosion. A bright white explosion is what you would see when an anti-aircraft missile explodes. A yellowish/orange explosion is what you would see from a fuel explosion.
@@Klaatu2Too On top of that if it had been an internal explosion then the entire plane would've been in pieces. They had once side, I want to say port that had a giant hole in it and the rest was blasted away from that point. The fuselage on that side was in large pieces where the other side was all in small pieces many of which were either too small or missing and you saw large gaps on the far side from the hole, where the side with the hole was almost complete.
It must have been a poisonous bottle of Budweiser or something who someone threw at the plane. Because three different investigating teams could not find any trace what so ever of explosive material on the wreckage. I hate tin foil people, who always look for the most improbable cause of everything... idiots.
This was my flight to Paris enroute to Saudia Arabia for a contractor job. Fortunately, I rescheduled and left a day earlier. I realized this after I landed in Riyadh and saw the news on TV.
What’s with all the aggressive comments on here towards the content creator? If you don’t want to watch a ‘rerun’, click off. If you’ve read other comments, perhaps you would have noticed that the video has been updated with new simulator details. Even if the video was purely a reupload, all the foaming at the mouth, demands and nastiness pointed at The Flight Channel is really inappropriate and weird.
He is making lots of revenue off this channel and lying about air crashes like the TWA 800. People can say what they like unless UA-cam censors them which it does a lot.
I am very grateful to The Flight Channel for their tireless efforts to bring such a realistic and thoughtful re-creation to their audience. I'm also grateful that I never have to endure an aviation disaster as a passenger! The delayed feeling of doom, that your life is going to be over and not to have anticipated it must be dreadful. The re-creations also address those many questions of, "what happened or how did it happen?" I have a deep attraction to aviation but also possess a huge fear of flying. Of all the flying I've done, it never goes away.
As an airline crew member, nothing is more fearful than an out of control fire. One time a small fire started on my aircraft as we were taxiing for take off, as the captain was about to start the roll down the runway, the first class cabin started filling with smoke, we rushed the plane back to a gate and rushed all the passengers off. It could have been disastrous had we taken off.
Yeah, TWA had a history/reputation of being cheap because they were lax on inspections and upkeep. Neglecting their planes finally caught up to them when bad wiring caused the spark in the gas tank.
@@lunayoshiTwa was very unlucky really and they made bad decisions America Airlines, United and Delta did have horrible accidents cuz of trying to cut corners too
Amazing they were able to recover parts of the second plane from the ocean floor. There were some very experienced Pilots lost. Along with the transplant on the lifeflight. Condolences to all involved. I hope the information lead to alternate procedures to prevent other occurrences.
I fish in this very same area where Flt 800 went down, it’s not far off the south shore of Long Island, just outside of Moriches inlet about 8 miles into the ocean, it’s not very deep in this area, roughly 100-120 feet of water.
This is one of the plane crashes I really remember being in NJ and in high school this got alot of coverage on NY stations. back then internet wasnt what it is now, no social media and phones, you got your news from tv and papers and being in high school my attention was focused on other things. But this was one of those events, OJ, Princess Diana, Biggie, Pac, Kurt Cobain that got my attention and I really remember. RIP
I remember this horrible crash. Amongst the passengers was a bunch of high school kids with a French club on their way to Paris. A first responder found one of their passports - a 15-year-old boy - and that grown man tough guy was in tears on TV.
> "Oh hey: this button that specifically only lights on when there's a fire somewhere in the plane itself just lit up..." > - "Better just ignore it" > "Aight." > "Aight." Many such cases.
I’ve flown my whole life, and also have been scared of planes my whole life. I want to trust everyone and everything, but flying is risking my life. You never know what could possibly happen in years, days, hours, minutes and even seconds. It’s insane how your life could change in a millisecond. R.I.P.
Can’t be afraid. When your number is up, it’s up. Doesn’t mean to take unnecessary risks though. Flying is safe.. I’d like to call it fun.. it once was.. now it’s like taking a bus. The scar on my right knee from being up against the seat in front of me for 5 hours is finally gone.
Ironically the Pilot of the Eastland Airlines was also in a Major Incident that could have crashed his plane a few years earlier but landed Safely. It was a problem with the 737’s at that time that lead to 2 Crashes about a few years apart. Now he witnessed the events of TWA 800! That man must have had more Therapy than anyone could have imagined! Hope he’s doing ok nowadays!
It was a computer. This is why they don't want you to ship computers or other electronics with lithium batteries. Those things leak or explode at high altitudes or pressure or something. I dunno. I worked for a store that shipped UPS and we had to ask about the lithium battery before we would be allowed to ship it.
Perhaps no one in 1987 realized the issues with lithium batteries, especially in apartheid-era South Africa. That could be why that possibility was never considered then; today it probably would be the first thing investigators consider.
A full tank of fuel would take a lot longer to heat up than a few hundred litres sloshing around in the bottom of the tank. Also, a full tank of fuel would mean that there would be very little air in the tank to cause a fuel/air explosion. So yes, you're correct. It's a shame that they couldn't fill the big centre tank and leave the wing tanks empty instead.
I was wondering the same thing. I didn't take physics and failed chemistry, so I don't know if filling the tank would've prevented this or just delayed the inevitable.
@@patogenify is this vulture tactics? "If I complain on a comment that might get lots of attention even though it has nothing to do with why I'm whining, someone will see my comment, too, and maybe THEN they'll care" kinda deal? Help me out, there's gotta be something more reasonable here that I'm just not seeing.
Yes. whistleblowers in the NTSB, Military, etc. have all confirmed the cover-up of an errant Submarine missile test. The missile locked on to 800 instead of the towed drone nearby.
When this happened there was talk of the accident being caused caused by the US Navy as it was holding an exercise in the area. High-powered radar, or a missile. The hint in the video is that they don't know where the spark came from. Boeing tends not to put sparky things in their fuel talks.
Several people reported seeing a missile heading towards that plane,over 100 people reported the same thing and when they reconstructed the plane, the pieces where the explosion happened were bent inward,not outward like they would have been if the explosion was on the inside of the plane.The people that reconstructed the plane were ordered to keep silent.I saw a video on this with the actual plane.If i find it again,I will post it in these comments.
Also odd that the see- eye- aye produced its own animated video "explaining" what happened, and did "protest to much" that it wasn't a missile shooting up that people saw, but the plane itself somehow shot up looking like a missile. So Mr. Viki, yeah sure.
I am always surprised about this accident that when images appeared of the hangar where the Boeing 747 - 100 was rebuilt to carry out the accident investigation, the upper bubble of the plane had a row of several windows as in the version of the Boeing 747 - 200 when the plane TWA dropped corresponds to the version of the Boeing 747 - 100 that has the upper bubble with only three windows, what is the explanation for this difference? Excellent channel and work they do, the best of UA-cam. Greetings from Argentina.
This was a later model 747-100 that actually had 10 upper deck windows. However, to maintain a uniform look on their fleet of 747s from that time, they plugged 7 of the 10 upper deck windows, so that it looked the same as the earlier 747-100s in the fleet that only had the three upper deck windows. These plugs, together with the windows, were knocked out of the fuselage during the explosion or when this section hit the ocean, therefore resulting in the 10 window holes that can be seen on the wreckage. Refer to the photo close-up photo in this Wikipedia article that clearly shows the plugged windows: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWA_Flight_800
There were 16 high school French club students from central Pennsylvania who were on TWA 800 to visit France. Their parents took a video of them at JFK airport just before boarding the plane. They were all so excited to go. I think of them every time I see the story of TWA 800.😢
That is the first thing I ever think of too, young people with their whole life ahead of them how horrible for everybody that had loved ones on this plane
final destination 1 😂
I still think of those 16 kids, too. For me it's a minor coincidence that I sat next to a high school exchange student from PA on my way to study at the University of Cape Town in 1984. The adventurous idealism is so strong at moments like that.
I also think of a young recent hire among the flight attendants on board TWA 800. A male friend of hers later recounted how excited she was to have been given the Paris route so soon. It's one of those haunting stories of a forbidden paradise.
Oh well, we are alive. that’s the main thing @@craigfinnegan8534
Why are you laughing at a tragedy?
My neighbor, who I had known since my childhood, was a head steward for TWA and was hopping a free flight to France onboard TWA 800 when it exploded. Just a few days before, maybe a week, I had seen him mowing his lawn and we had waved to each other. You never know when.
Ken....you NEVER know when....thank you for your comment.....
20 bucks says that man doesn't exist and you're just attention thirsty
@@AlexandreG 20 bucks says you're just an @hole. But I should make a correction - he was not the head steward on that particular flight. He was a head steward for TWA, but on that flight he was catching a freebee to Paris. His body was also one of the first, if not the first, to be recovered and identified. You can look it up. His initials were WD.
@@ScottA2345 oh WD, that one, I know him too! Huge family friend, used to gather around the a fire eating grilled pork and telling beautiful tales. Good times
@@AlexandreG BTW - Just Google the crash to find articles from the evening and following day that it happened, You can easily find who I am talking about. His picture was featured in many of the initial articles. But of course, you're just too lazy of an @hole to actually put that much effort into it. Skid mark.
I’ll always remember TWA flight 800. The day it went down, my father was told he had terminal cancer and he’d be lucky to live another year. Exactly 1 year to the day, he passed away at 57yrs from the cancer that killed him. That afternoon my brother and I were watching the tv, and the family/friends of those lost from flight 800 were throwing roses into the ocean. So the pain of losing my father is associated with those that lost loved ones on that flight. Life is precious. And I pray for those that suddenly lost loved ones in August 1996.
I’m so sorry 😞
@@karlacuello-uo7tw Thank you. I have been blessed with many wonderful memories of him. Thank you again for your kindness.
Sorry about your father. May he Rest In Peace
Hello, I understand you miss your father and I can tell how much you loved him! God bless you!❤️
I’m so sorry ☹️
May all their souls rest in peace 🙏 🕊️ ❤️
Love from Mumbai, India 🇮🇳 ❤️
There's something utterly horrifying about this crash, perhaps the fact that most of the passengers were likely aware of what had happened, could _see_ the catastrophic damage, and _knew_ they were going to die.
With most fatal crashes, you can imagine passengers and crew believing they might just survive until the very last instant, but not so with TWA800.
God it's too horrific
Not with China 5735, that went down vertical and the forces were probably over 4G's which would probably make most pass out before impact
this is why Ill never take a commercial flight.
😂 @@timarc9895
You are more likely to die driving to an airport than on a commercial flight 😂
@@timarc9895 It's about 1000x safer than driving.
the "God bless him" from Virgin 009 haunts me. The flight decks from those two other flights were the fit to know there was absolutely no hope.
It really is chilling comment from the Captain of Stinger B507- an Eastwind Air 737-a lot those people died horrific deaths. The complete opposite of Al Haynes “want to be particular and make it a runway” line.
@@donnix1192fill me in on Al haynes line
Imagine experiencing that while in flight and control of your own aircraft. I wonder if the thought ever crossed their minds “Are we next?” Some rogue country shooting down passenger planes? Or an EMP anomaly? Or….. ???
@@enigmawyoming5201it must go through their minds I think, it would mine, how frightening.
@@martindunstan8043 - Yeah, it’s not like “This plane I just saw disintegrate is just like my plane I’m responsible for. Things like a passenger plane blowing up in the sky happens all the time. No big deal”.
I was in Ireland when TWA 800 happened and was totally freaked out, as we had just taken off from JFK days before and I was assuming a terrorist attack. Even worse, I later met a man whose daughter had been on the plane as part of the class trip from Montoursville PA. His son saw it on the news and asked his Dad what flight his sister had been on. The Dad didn’t remember and went to check her flight info. One can only imagine how his heart dropped when he saw it - TWA 800.
no.. that is so depressing.. god.. :(
It was an attack without question. Just covered up.
I was packing to fly on TWA the next morning when I saw it on the news. I was a little freaked out.
@StevieSeagal 100 % bullshit.
From the US military as well..
there’s a beautiful memorial for TWA 800 at the TWA museum in kansas city. there’s a glass slab etched with a poem, a model of a 747 suspended in clouds and a recovered piece of debris from one of the plane’s cargo bins. the museum is definitely worth a visit, even just for that alone
kansas city? the plane left from NYC. HOW INSULTING TO THE DECEASED
@@PostUp_Time The one in Kansas City is just a small memorial within the TWA museum. The actual large dedicated TWA Flight 800 Memorial is located at Smith’s Point Beach at Suffolk County’s Smith Point County Park, Fire Island, Central Long Island in New York.
what kind of morbid ass stupid shit is that? I was at the beach when it went down - we don't carry on like that - have a museum in your bullshit state dedicated to meth heads and stealing gas - k?
It is not insulting. Once you are gone it doesn’t matter if they put the memorial on the moon.
@@PostUp_Time Maybe dial down the fake outrage about things you know nothing about.
My father was part of the recovery efforts of the Heldeberg off of Maurituis as a medic. It was widely believed in South Africa at the time that the accident was due to an explosive placed on board. He says the search efforts left a permanent scar on his memory owing to the debris that they located containing children's clothes and toys.
That was the government excuse. The most likely explanation is that SAA were smuggling rocket propellant from Taiwan.
As a mechanic that built 747's for 35 years it tore my heart in two for the people and families that suffered. I also suffered for the fact that a 747 went down. They were the majority of my life. Both construction and repair. I pray the families have found peace among this tragedy.
Was the design regarding the AC-packs directly under the CWT changed after that accident?
I will never forget this tragedy. My neighbors, the Benjamin's, were on that flight. They were going to see their child. What sorrow our little PA town had. On going prayers to all the families and the Benjamin family.
Mr. Benjamin was my Computer teacher at Masterman the year or two before this.
Just reading that I really felt the emotion "what sorrow our little PA down had" -awful to read. I am so sorry.
😭😭😭
@@RD-zj6vc 😔
Among the dead was also Marcel Dadi, an expert guitar player pretty well known back then. He was someone who really mattered to me, one of his records was one of my childhood favourites. He was traveling with the Guitar & Keyboards magazine chief editor. I still remember the competely black front page of the October '96 number. Inside, a small picture of Dadi and the chief editor (can't remember his name) and a few words. R.I.P.
This has got to be one of the most horrific ways to die couldn't imagine the horror rip to the 230 people who lost their lives ❤
It was pretty quick, you lose consciousness really fast.
@@bowlchamps37 not at only 16,000ft.
@@ligmasack9038 at what altidude do you do?
I always find the ValueJet crash in the Everglades to be the most horrific of all of them.
@@ligmasack9038 For most people I am guessing c20K feet, but it was said the JAL Flight 123 pilots were not on oxygen even higher than that, and were still conscious .
Wow! I think in the first crash, what happened with the cockpit separating and the fire with the
passengers, death must have happened very quickly. But the second had so much time for all, including the passengers, to be absolutely terrifed. So horrible. RIP to all those souls. Thank you for this excellent presentation.
Yes! Exactly. The people on South African Airlines 295 were alive as the fire took hold and steadily got worse. The plane was a 747-200 Combi, 2/3rds passengers, 1/3 cargo. The plane was nicknamed The Heldeberg. The crew tried to put it out but it was too far advanced. All this time the passengers in the cabin were conscious, but increasingly incapacitated by the toxic smoke that filled the cabin. At one point they altogether rushed to the front of the cabin in an attempt to get as far away from the fire as possible. I can’t imagine the terror they felt, knowing they were not going to get out alive.
I'm not so sure passengers would have had a very violent whip lash at the first explosion that literally decapitated people internally by hitting their heads against the seats in front of them. 2 major fires and 72% of passengers being sucked out also, they found 202 possible remains out of the 230 passengers
183 died instantly due to being pulled out of plane or the violent whiplash
15 passengers they are not sure if immediately fatal
4 we're not immediately fatal (all in same section
Remaining 28, not enough remains to determine
No matter what still totally horrible
It is the Flight Deck
It ceased being a CockPit when WoMen became commercial Pilots
Otherwise - it would be a PussyPit
So get the point and educate yourself to a higher level
I saw a CNN article from 1997 that stated that according to autopsies majority of passengers were gone before the plane hit the water but as many as 40+ were possibly conscious before the plane hit the ocean.
the jet was hit with 5 surface to air missiles, they have over 80 sworn avadavats from people on the ground including 2x E6's flying in a helicopter if anyone would know what a SAM would look like they would. On your streaming TV search for TWA FLIGHT 800.......FOR THE TRUTH.
I was on the TWA flight number just before this one. Coming back from Europe. Hit me like a ton of bricks. I'm now training to be an airline pilot.
That was 27 years ago & you're now training to be an airline pilot! Were you a child then? I worked the
night shift that night in Nassau Cty. (law enforcement) & was delayed getting to work, by the emergency
vehicles heading to the nearest land to the crash! I also used to load 747's at JFK with food, in the 70's
& no one is going to tell me that it wasn't a bomb or missile! R.I.P.
@@rongendron8705 I had just graduated high school. Taught School for 15 years and got fed up and started flying.
@@jyellowhammer Fed up with teaching at school? START FLYING
@@kitfistodajedi
What do you thing I have been doing for the past 8 years! lol
I said it like a jingle. (For all the bored teachers out there, TWA's got you covered. Join us, and start achieving your dreams of flight. TWA, the airline for you.) ADVERTISEMENT LOL
I was meant to be on this flight and last minute changed to the next day. My family thought I was on this and the relief upon finding me alive and mine at my good fortune had us all sobbing. My Guardian Angel or something helped. May they all RIP
I’ve seen a ton of comments like yours everywhere. Stfu with the bs already. It’s not about you btw. Also, no one buys your bs
you’re trying to get thousands of comments, but all you get are mine schooling you
I love seeing little stories like this. It is heartbreaking what happened to the ones who got on the flight, but it’s good to see some light in the darkness. You were very lucky indeed.
if it was actually you - your stories would have been longer, sympathetic and emotional.
Prove it
I remember this so well. I was in Puerto Rico visiting my family during this crash. JFK is one of the airports I always left from as I live in the New York City area. I was just a little girl, ten years old. I think this was the first time I was ever confronted with an actual plane crash and the possibility of a plane crashing. I was flying home the next day, and I was terrified to get on that plane. Planes were second nature to me, I had flown my entire life multiple times a year. I felt so much empathy for those families. I remember hearing the story of the dad who lost his wife and two little girls. It reminded me of my dad staying behind as I usually traveled with my mother and sister. This one definitely changed me and even though I was ten, I was truly understanding the fragility of life.
there were videos of a streak heading toward the plane. Government cover up indeed.
I flew Lufthansa from JFK to Ukraine in 2016 and I bought a few magazines to read on the flight. The first article I read was about the young Lufthansa pilot that committed mass murder by flying the plane into a mountain. Creepy feeling as I'd never thought of that before
RIP to all those lives. I can't imagine the horror they felt.
the error in aircraft are so frequent and become habits for pilot to turn off those false alarm, which is cause those kind of incident, should the pilot trust those alarm and send someone to check the cargo bay to put out the fire , they probably still have high chance of survival
it was definitely a bomb on board
@@paulwoodford1984not true,,, it was lithium battery on a computer in cargo that cause fire
What is really stupid about some Engineering designs is that even in a car you could see how much feul you had in 1996, so how did an aircraft of that size did not have a same kind of system like the car has to show the pilot how much petrol he had????
I can, which is why I stopped flying for anything other than family weddings/funerals. I'm not dying for a vacation or business deal. My bud as a intl salesman..his plane dropped suddenly once due to major turbulence one flight injuring many..emergency landing..he got ptsd, quit and never worked in the same capacity again.
my uncle was one of the last people to place an item on that aircraft. He worked for TWA and was responsible for cargo placement for emergencies. He placed a heart on board for a transplant overseas. His hair turned white within 1 week because of this and the interviews from the FBI.
Poor man:( I wonder too if heart recipient survived..
@JJ-bo6nc Well, I’d be careful assuming they were a recipient…
@@Sniperboy5551huh???
That's the one hit by a missle
BS you troll....not buyin it. What was his name so we can check your claim?
This is SO much better than most Air Crash videos... no narration necessary.
I remember the day TWA 800 went down. I was at a buddy’s house & the crash site/debris images came on the news. This was before 9/11, so it was a pretty big deal…similar to the day Challenger exploded. It’s pretty impressive that the NTSB was able to recover much of the plane & reassemble it to find the actual cause. It was clearly horrible for all those on board, but I can’t help but to think of the group of school kids on their first flight & school trip to Paris. What an absolutely horrible tragedy. Rest in Paradise to all the souls lost that day. 😔🥀
My father who was a United Airlines pilot for 34 years thought the military accidentally shot it down..he was distrustful of our government anyway so was not surprised he thought that when I asked his opinion.
Miss you Papa! Miss talking to you about all things aviation!.
James Hykes UAL Captain (from 1960-1994)
A local NYC newspaper that was named The Village Voice had a detailed investigative report on the strong possibilities that it was accidentally shot down by a Naval ship due to Naval exercises occurring at the same time in the Atlantic. I remember TWA 800 and I still have those newspaper articles. (I live in NYC).
Im sorry for the loss of ur father. I too have lost my father and miss him dearly.
However, the shootdown theory has been long disproven. There simply were no ships, planes or anything else anywhere near enough to shoot a missile. It is believed, that those, who thought, they saw a missile, actually saw the "headless" burning plane ascending, then stalling and dropping to the ocean. And believe me, even if the NTSB and the FAA would cover for the US military like that, we in the rest of the world would not. And there were several other nationalities onboard, whose agencies also investigated.
@@dfuher968 Disproven? Nonsense. It's plain as day when you examine ALL of the facts and eyewitness accounts.
@@BrakRulesAll Nothing to see here, Mr. Collins. Move along.
@@dfuher968 thats ridiculous. who "disproved" it. the government? pff ha ha.. they indeed had a sub with trident missiles onboard and they were running training missions. Do you really think the government wouldn't try to hide that? if you do, then you dont know the thousands of horrific thing our own government has done. They WANT you to think this is a crazy conspiracy theory. they accidentally shot the plane down and dozens of witnesses saw the trident heading toward the plane. They were all interviewed the night it happened but then they were never played again.
I live 2 miles up the road from the beach near where the crash was. There is a beautiful memorial with flags from every country passengers were from
As I recall, in the late 1990s and early 2000s fueling procedures changed so that as fuel emptied from a tank, nitrogen gas replaced it, preventing fires from igniting, and fire sensors have been improved in cargo holds, along with regulations concerning the transport of Lithium ion batteries, which have an inherently higher risk of overheating and explosion and burn fiercely.
Other changes included those made to fuel system electrical circuit breaker design, fuel pump design, fuel pump activation logic, flight deck warnings and flight crew/ maintenance procedures.
There was a long fight about that. The military used nitrogen to put inert atmosphere in their fuel tanks, but of course their need was greater. They get shot at.
The airline industry resisted the fill mandate, claiming it would cost too much. The winner ended up being a system that captured spent gases from the engine. Its like your car exhaust, it can't burn twice. This saved having to carry tanks of nitrogen.
Cargo holds are a different thing. They figured out that fires will put themselves out if you seal the compartment from air, it basically consumes the oxygen and dies. The counter proof for this was the airline that went down because it was carrying oxygen generators, since it made its own oxygen and burned though the cargo hold. It was a very stupid move to carry that cargo, and it was misidentified.
(Most) airliners now also have a nitrogen generation system, to counter the fumes in an empty(ing) tank.
@@scottfranco1962 I'm trying to remember what they did with the excess oxygen after they extracted the nitrogen from the bleed air. I recall that was a hazard in itself
@@scottfranco1962 You're awesome. I love when people who have great knowledge go into detail.
I vividly remember this. I had flown on TWA, approximately 2 weeks prior, to Germany for a high school trip. We flew back about a week after Flight 800 blew up. It was pretty nerve-wracking for many of the students on the trip. Me? I had a couple of rum & Cokes that a nice flight attendant served 17-year-old me and a classmate.
"I think that was him."
"I think so."
Definitely made this grown man tear up.
Ahhhh, all those people, and the person waiting for their transplant… that is awful. Out of all the videos on this channel I have seen, the way this plane broke apart and how everyone died had to have been the most frightening thing ever. Imagine being a passenger and seeing the cockpit blown away and there is NOTHING you can do to save yourself, same with the guys free falling in the cockpit. Horrific.
Imagine knowing two of the people who died on that plane.
I'd actually prefer that when it's my time vs years of suffering.
@@johniii8147no you wont. Just say anything for the sake of it.
i would think that the pressure was so great upon separation the people remaining at the very least lost consciousness.
@@israelgynosanya3129 No I really mean it. Watched to much suffering at this point in life. I do feel bad for the affected, but when it's my time I want it over quick. This all happened very quickly.
I've seen many NTSB animations and have read up on many air accidents during my flight training. TWA 800 is one of the most horrific. It's easy to be disconnected and not really understand the gravity of what's happening in this video, but the recreation at 5:00 grounds you immediately. I don't know if it's the poor quality or the realization that what appears to be a small little rc plane on the screen is a real jumbo jet with hundreds on board.
I hope I never have to see anything like that in my career.
Its a very extensively covered accident, and Ive seen the animation several times b4. Every single time, all I can think is, plz, plz, plz, let them have lost consciousness quickly.
@@dfuher968”God bless them” from the Virgin Air pilot, I hope they lost consciousness quick but many were alive to know they were staring at death with the front of the plane gone from their sight.
As a frequent domestic flyer, and sometimes overseas traveler, I’m always aware in the back of my mind of what could happen at any moment while flying. It’s the terror of watching your own death happening in real time that freaks me out and sometimes makes me wonder why I continue to climb on board of these “flying machines” when any small mistake made by well-intentioned humans could be the end of us. Still, I know that flying is safer than driving. It’s just that the type of death is so much more terrifying (imo) in an air crash vs a car accident. Peace be upon all those who have died this way.
LOL, did you really have to use GROUNDS you immediately to describe what happened to them, not us?
@adriennekliger3005 - Yes indeed, but there's no need to freak out about flying if you were to live, work, and play at a nice place where you don't have to fly away from.
I was a flight attendant for TWA when this happened. One of the worst nights of my life, and many of my brothers and sisters in the industry. When something like this happens, we're all family even if you're with another airline. It hurts just as much.
We all have our own ideas of what really happened, and I'm going to keep my version to myself. Speculate all you want, I'm not going to divulge.
Safe to say July 17 still stings even after 27 years. R.I.P. to my brothers and sisters aboard Flight 800.
Fine words. I bet you've got some stories to tell from that period.
@@anthroposmetron4475 It was definitely a different time in the airline industry. I hear about the differences today from my friends who still fly.
Papa, papa, PLEASE tel us what you think happened! (I must add that if I was as close to retirement in my profession as I am but worked in your field instead, THAT would've sent me into retirement a wee bit early).
Well said. I will never forget the non-rev flight I flew so often. 😔
@stiram5 my very first flight was TWA 800. My parents where from France and we went there to visit. I was about 7 years old. The Flight Attendants where so good to me it was the best memory. I later became a Flight Attendant myself. I remember exactly where I was when flight 800 went down.. RIP to all the crew and passengers.
A student at the school of mine many years ago was one of the best athletes in school. He was in the school's cross-country, and headed on this flight to France. He was 20. There is a memorial at my school.
The fact that one passenger still had a pulse after going through this hell is nothing more than a testament to the human body’s physical endurance
Both of these stories were so very painful to watch.😪 I'm already squeamish about flying. So I can't imagine being on either of those flights & realizing how scared those people had to have been.😢R.I.P. to all the lives lost on both flights.
Yes, It's put me off ever flying again.
It seems horrible but statistically it's way safer than driving. If you collide at 70+mph on a busy highway or lose traction due to ice or water the result probably would still be quite lethal
@gillianbrookwell1678 highly unlikely you will ever be involved in such an incident. These ones serve to make flying safer for all of us.
The most aggressive crash imo, when the cockpit is gone? the engines go into OVERDRIVE and max speed.
Amazing what truly UNBELIEVABLE stories dishonest folks push, when all the available eyewitness testimony says opposite.
Might as well say it, here we are 27 years later, many reading this were kids when this happened.
I was 32 and remember minute details, and thought "wow, now that corrupt Bi!! C!inton is in, look how the FB! are now a pack of L I A R S.
Boy how prophetic in retrospect, which shows how one large coverup leads to more coverups.
But, I digress.
Back to TWA FLIGHT ✈️:
That clear as crystal summer eve over Long Island Sound, dozens or even hundreds of witnesses saw + later TOLD FB!
they "saw an umistakable flight exhaust trail & heard the noise of a fast streaking airborne object (many said, pointedly, 'missle') suddenly fireball as it impacted and exploded the large passenger jet directly overhead" as it tried & failed to continue on its flight ✈️.
Instead it's flaming wreckage with hundreds of bodies rained down in full public view.
You'd have thought this would have been headlines, but NO !
Instead the FB! agent phalanx fanned out to "cancel the story" by THREATENING every single citizen who dared say the verboten word "Miss!e".
I'll let others speculate as to "why" suppress that damning narrative for one farfetched and uncorroborated, of a gas tank explosion.
All I can say is, that day in 1996, I realized that certain parts of what claims to be our Government (if NOT Constitutional, they're "FAKE NEWS" Agencies run by Dark powers) had become actual enemies of the Average American Citizen, by whose "consent they govern".
Not so much !
Things have gotten better OR worse since then, my fellow Americans ?
They uploaded this video like last year, I watched it like 6 times already and it’s so sad
The other pilot say “ it’s him , god bless him “ 😢
Imagine being the passengers and staff on the first flight. Wete they fortunate enough to promptly loose consciousness or were they conscious long enough to understand that the cockpit had fallen from cabin? 😥
@@kylieharrison3782 The aircraft broke in two behind the first few rows of seats so the people immediately behind that would definitely have knows that the cockpit had gone. How long they remained conscious thereafter is uncertain. I wonder whether the flight crew realised the extent of the damage or whether they thought the aircraft was still in one piece as it went down.
It's called overspeed.
Somewhere there's a guy who, on that day, while working at the Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson airport, misplaced the luggage of Italian international football star Christian Panucci, eventually leading to him missing TWA800.
Someone below commented that this terrible scenario (fuel-air combo, delays etc) does not seem too unthinkable, I wonder if someone can fill in what was done to prevent this from happening again.
RIP all.
It's bad that the results of the investigation and recommendations were not mentioned after each of these 2 video sections indeed. That gives the whole video and the channel a real bad vibe, as if they are interested only in showing the accidents, not the lessons learned from them.
@@Chimel31you’re absolutely right. Great comment.
From memory, I think they have a system which purges any oxygen out of the center tank. That way the fuel air explosion can't happen. Possibly they checked wiring in that area of all 747's then flying and found many were in poor condition, that was changed too. This crash/incident is on several shows of this type (Air Crash Investigation etc). I can't remember the specifics though.
Lessons learned, and steps taken to prevent such tragedies should be a prerequisite to posting horrific events on UA-cam. Just IMHO.
No offense, but google it.
I just want to say how fascinating these videos are and the reaearch you have to do to make these videos must be immense .i for one love watching them ,its my new pass time .
I have seen an interview with a man who claims he was in the navy on a ship in 1996 doing some type of field test training exercises when someone on his ship accidentally hit TWA 800 with a missile, causing the explosion. He said that everyone on the ship was ordered to keep quiet about it.
I recall news networks at the time reporting claims of seeing surface to air weapon type things from folks on the ground at the time. watched this vid cause beyond that I didn't ever recall hearing the NTSB post mortem describing an actual cause.
@@derekhamel2991 There is a person named William Teele who claims that he was in the US navy on a navy ship in 1996 which accidentally shot down TWA 800. You can find videos and more info about it if you search around on the Internet. I have watched an interview he gave and it looked to me like he was telling the truth, although nobody can really be 100% certain.
Ironic when it initially comes out that the an explosion onboard and evidence points to a missile, only to later be changed by the CIA, FBI, and NTSB. Many people on Long Island were interviewed after the incident and most claim seeing two to three missiles rise near the surface of the ocean and strike the plane. There’s a documentary that was put out in the early 2000’s about the whole incident and how the U.S. government covered it up and made up the whole cover story that faulty wires near the gas tanks were responsible. Even though interviewed NTSB employees go on record to state that there were explosives residues on the aircraft fuselage pieces! It’s a terrible tragedy that occurred, but even more so that the government changes the narrative and threatens its own citizens over the truth!
Yes, I believe that’s what happened. The break up is very typical of a missile strike. Based on the ground conditions and the resiliency of the plane, there’s no way there could be a center fuel tank explosion. But that’s just my opinion.
Lies
My wife and I and some friends flew from Johannesburg to Swaziland in our plane for the weekend when the Helderberg went down. We were stunned at the news and it cast a gloomy pall on the weekend. Many people staying at the hotel got together in groups and we discussed the horrific incident. It was such a tragedy. RIP to all.
The black boxes were recovered from the ocean floor at a depth of about 12000 feet or so.
newton, super interesting to imagine these horrific conversations ya'll had!
@newton
As a kid I flew a number of times on Helderberg between Mauritius & Durban during 1983 & 1985 (4 x per yer during school holidays). I recall boarding Helderberg many times flying out South Africa. I would usually be seated in the upper deck.
It's chilling to think I could have been on that flight.
Not for a solitary moment do I believe the cause of fire was computers.
The govt was importing all manner of weapons and explosives by any means possible during the arms embargo against the then SA govt.
The airline was govt owned & the CAA (investigative ppl) were also govt controlled.
Servers them right for the Apartheid bs
Only the cockpit voice recorder was found, the flight data recorder was never recovered. So only one of the so-called black boxes were recovered.
In my opinion you have some of the best content on You tube...everything you want portrayed in absolutely realistic audio and video..by far my favourite ..and rip to all those that died so horribly ..absolutely tragic and sad
UA-cam has nothing to do with it
i well remember that tragedy. A group of American French language students were on their way to Paris on TWA flight 800. My wife made that trip years earlier as a student.
I remember that
Some of the kids had a premonition and got off the flight, avoiding the crash. But Death hunted them down and killed them in horrific ways annyway
@@godoftheinterwebzfinal destination
@@godoftheinterwebznow you know what final destination was based on
@@-bubby9633 This and the Key bridge
My father was the flight engineer on TWA 800 . He retied months before at 62 years old . He said it was blown up .!!!!!
Listen to the voice of experience. When the FBI tells witnesses what they saw… my bullshit detector starts going off. I don’t know if it was a missile… obviously can’t prove or disprove it and you’ll never know the truth. In the long run, it doesn’t really matter.. these people are dead.
TWA Flight 800 was the 9/11 of the 90s. I still remember it, even though I was only in the first grade.
Further, as time as gone on, I'm pretty sure it was actually a terror attack; numerous boats in the bay describe a smoke trail arcing up towards the aircraft, which then fell apart in the water.
Terrible tragedies. I remember hearing of TWA800's disintegration within hours of its happening and suddenly recalling then it was a flight I regularly took in those days.
🙄
No disintegration the navy shot that plane down
Ok. I'll bite. Why?
@@JamesFaye-lt4dvno they didn’t. no one shot the plane down. it was a result of the ac packs heating up, the fuel in the tanks was vaporised due to oxygen in them which then ignited due to the heat and i think there was also a broken circuit or something like that which caused the breakup
Never realized 800 was transporting an organ for transplant. I hope the recipient is okay today and that there's at least one survivor from this tragedy.
I think a tragedy is something that’s unavoidable like the person who needed a organ transplant, flying is a choice and a stupid one at that.
@@calummacleod2107 230 people dying in terror through no fault of their own isn't a tragedy? But the potential death of a hypothetical organ recipient who likely didn't take proper care of their body is? Um, okay
@@calummacleod2107 What the hell are you talking about? Why do you think flying is a "stupid" choice? lmao
@@calummacleod2107 Enjoy your bike ride to Europe. Btw, going to other countries by boat is also more dangerous than flying.
I was thinking about that too. Tragic on both ends
There was another crash similar to the second, but they found there was something in cargo that should not been. More passengers died on that flight even though they were able to land relatively early because the pilot made a turn before stopping the plane. I think the wind from the turn intensified the flames.
I think it’s a Saudia L-1011 Tristar
@@harishms6643 No, that was the flight in Saudi Arabia by the 3 Stooges pilots. The captain landed safely but not right away. He thought the fire wasn't serious so he landed the plane far down the runway, then waited 3 minutes to stop the engines. When an attendant asked him if they should evacuate, he said yes, but then said no. When they opened the doors 23 minutes after landing, everyone was dead. The flight I was referring to, I remember it was in the US.
@@Sakja I think it was the one that happened in the Florida Everglades. I think it was a Jet Blue that had supposed empty oxygen canisters that exploded and caused the plane to go down. Might have been in the late 1990's.
@@Sakja Sorry dude, it’s my mistake. Thank you for pointing it out. Those pilots (l-1011) were definitely out of their minds.
@@marciadiehl5733 That was Valujet 592 on May 11, 1996. It was the oxygen generators that began to activate, causing extreme heat in the cargo hold. A tire then exploded, causing flames to burn through control cables, causing the airplane to go into an uncontrolled descent, and crash. There's a SaberTech guy who has an FBI warrant in connection to that crash, but they haven't found him yet.
I remember watching a very long, very detailed analysis of this done by one of the investigators on C-SPAN some time after the crash. The sheer amount of detail and the almost agonizing amount of thought and science that the NTSB and FAA put into the investigation was above and beyond what you might think such projects have to do.
From what the investigation I had seen the wire that was fractured or exposed was some sort of power wire that caused the two breaks in in the pilots last transmission. If you listen while he’s speaking you hear one and then the second half a second or so later that ( permanently) ended his transmission and caused the spark that caused the ignition in the center tank.
it was shot down by the US military. do some research.
I don't care what anyone else thinks, it's a good video & TWA 800 always moves me emotionally. Normally these don't get that 😢 out of me, but TWA 800 does. Generally it's all about whether I can figure out what went wrong before it is explained. Thank you.
ACTUALLY... when the other pilot said 'god bless them' I chocked up, NO... I'm not religious, it just got to me! RIP, all!
This would be a tough one to figure out. Not like when the pilots were flying out of DFW, flirting with the flight attendant and forgetting to put the flaps down on takeoff!
@@tomsurrey2252 Yeah, that comment got to me too. One doesn’t need to be religious to understand when somebody makes that comment, they just want to say the most they can come up with to express their grief and concern for those, their families or friends who have, or will soon be suffering.
@enigmawyoming5201 what else can you say after watching 200-someodd people die?
I've been wanting you to do this one for a long time! Marcel Dadi was on this flight. Great guitar player. He was returning home to France from receiving an award in Nashville.
These are reruns. The first one was posted 10 months ago. Looks like you waited longer than you needed to. 🙃
He didn't even get to enjoy his honor for one day
Marcel attended the annual Chet Atkins Appreciation Society gathering in Nashville (which occurs every July). I started attending the year after. It was a somber event, being the first gathering after the accident. I met a few of his family members who flew to Nashville from France. They wanted to meet everyone who he was hanging out with just before that tragic flight. Everyone celebrated his life with music that weekend.
Speaking of great musicians, the legendary sax player Wayne Shorter lost his wife _and_ his niece, who were both on TWA 800 travelling to visit him in Italy (where he was obviously gigging).
I lived in Hampton Bays at the time, and the trucks taking the wreckage would pass my house.
Those were some very tough days for the whole community.
I was watching them pull it out of the water. Took me a long time to get back on a plane.
Every case like this hurts my heart - so incredibly sad. The passengers and crew are hostages to circumstances beyond their control - if they're conscious, they know their fate.
28 years later now they are talking about TWA 800 was shot by a missile
Horrific. I can't imagine the terror of those passengers.
For the TWA, the coroner stated the vast majority died instantly due to broken neck. I've never trusted these kinds of statements since one wonders if they are sugar coated for the sake of the families.
What happen to the patient waiting for the organ??🤦🏻♂️😦
@andersonrodriguez8258 I wondered that, too. Both families.
@@cchris874a lot of them were for sure alive until it hit the sea
@@cchris874Coroners don’t sugar coat anything. They have a legal obligation to tell the truth and if the necks are broken the necks are broken. Especially in mass casualty events and investigations where the FBI are involved. If people have similar injuries then you can come to that conclusion that it probably happened at the same time suddenly when the nose of the plane blew off. The plane would have experienced massive depressurization in a split second as well as traveling at high speeds, altitude, fire and debris traveling through the air. It is absolutely believable that the vast majority of people died very quickly but they still lived to know the plane exploded and something was seriously wrong. No doubts their last moments were terrifying. The families are aware the plane literally broke in half in the air. They don’t need the coroner to sugar coat anything. I’m pretty sure they are aware of how awful the situation was.
Two very tragic and horrible incidents. RIP to all involved. The initial one - you know people were aware of what was going on after the explosion, but I never took into consideration the fire that was engulfing them as the fuselage flew way up in the air before defending. I hope and prey they were unconscious at least. The second one, also, the poor people KNEW they were doomed before their deaths. Just horrible all around.
You don't know that. The explosive concussion and fireball most likely helped them to die instantly. The only way to know is read the autopsy reports.
autopsy reports of those who sat in the last several rows of flight 800 where alert to what was happening to them.
@alexal3986 OMGODDDDDD
All the while i was quite sure all died instantaneously but this autopsy, can we find it online pls? My God have mercy
I think I would have been tempted to bolt for the door the moment I heard: "This is your pilot, Capt. Kevorkian."
I did wonder if they were related.
"Sorry your organ transplant was lost in a 747 crash."
You must be hilarious at Funerals.
@@Kamina1703 Did you watch the video?
Talk about a worst nightmare. The nose of the airplane tears off and instead of falling with it you keep climbing even though there’s no pilots
I doubt the passengers knew that all the cockpit went off, I wonder f the pilots were still contious when it went off, that would have been horrifying
It's a myth it kept climbing. And I say that as someone who does NOT believe in the shoot down.
@@cchris874 I didn’t know it was a myth but if it’s found a long ways away from the nose then it’s plausible it kept flying straight or climbing
@@O.J._is_Guilty
In theory it's possible. But in order for the "zoom climb" scenario to happen, forward speed needs to be given up for vertical speed. But the radar returns cited in the final report don't show that. That's one point the missile proponents got correct, I believe. I don't know about the rest of their theorizing though.
The flight channel does such a great job putting these video's together. Thanks so much for your hard work!!
I don't believe the flight Channel put this video together did they?
@@Fromseatosee yea they do
They use a game called Xplane 11
So many layers of tragedy. The organ being transported for transplant. The pilots of the other planes that witnessed the explosion. And of course, the people on board TWA 800.
Remember this vividly. I was 13.
My old Commanding Officer onboard USS Waddell(DDG-24), Rear Adm. Edward Kristensen, was in charge of the US Navy salvage efforts for TWA 800.
He is a very good man.
Imagine having to tell that organ recipient their life is NOT going to be saved today! Sad! RIP, to all the souls lost that fateful day!
Wonder if they the patient got another die prolly die
Like 200 people died and ur worried about the living that stuff has a chance …..
It's not important the plane was shot down and it was covered up. That's just the tip of the iceberg.
@@jessicahitchens6926it was not shot down. Quit looking for what isn’t there
@@ChicagoMel23 Shot down. 😑
It's a scary thought that this can cause an explosion. There's always gonna be some residue in an empty tank. Then, there's plenty of scenario's where a plane has to wait for a couple of hours. With the AC on of course if there's hundreds of passengers on board.
Now, i know planes have crashed and disintegrated for the wildest, most unthinkable reasons. Sometimes a very minute little detail. But this? Seems like a scenario common enough to thoroughly test during development.
This video oversimplified that to the point of getting it wrong. The gas mixture in the empty tank became rich enough to be ignitable after it was warmed by the a/c packs, because increasing the temperature of a volatile liquid raises its vapor pressure. But the source of ignition, which was never definitively proven, is thought to have been a spark from faulty wiring in the fuel quantity indication system. At the time, it was thought it was acceptable to allow gaseous mixes in tanks to reach ignitable concentrations as long as no ignition sources were present. This doctrine changed as a result of this accident. Still, there was never a time when 747s were blowing up left and right just because it was hot outside.
@@random_silicates Katie Couric was still misinforming people on air during 9/11 that this was an intentional bombing, smh!
It was shot down. So don't worry about it.. The story is ridiculous 🤣
@@jessicahitchens6926it was not shot down, that’s nonsense
It was probable that it was shot down accidentally during a military exercise. A lot of evidence points in that direction.
Please note that Helderberg disaster was the main reason, why Boeing stopped the production of the B747 Combi version. It just so happen that at the time of this disaster, I was busy with my training as a ATC at the old Jan Smuts Airport. The true cause of the fire on the main deck was never established, and South Africa was also deep in the grips of a world wide trade boycott and a arms embargo. Many high tech materials for missiles, etc had to be sourced from third parties and it was rumored that the cargo pallets on the main deck, was filled with new weapons technology, missiles parts, unknown chemicals (presumably weapons grade), etc.
Nothing would surprise me. And they love to bring countries to hell with their little embargoes
Not just a trade boycott, but airspace boycott as well, so the Helderberg could not take the most direct route since that would take it over nations that put the at the time aparteid South Africa under boycotts and embargso and those nations wouldn't let SAA fly through their airspace, which explains the long route
Your video's are so professional and always respectful, my only criticism (I don't even like calling it that lol) is the length of time the narration is up for.
Maybe it's just me, but i find myself having to either speed read, and thereby missing other info shown, or as I do many times, pausing the video, which isn't ideal.
That said, I do enjoy your content (despite the tragic circumstances covered) and I'm glad to see your channel doing so well👍👍
Dang thats deep, respect for those onboard...
How horrifying to be toward the front of TWA 800 and seeing the front of the airplane disappear. I can only hope the passengers lost consciousness quickly, before they had a chance to understand their fate.
How would they lose consciousness exactly? They most likely saw everything. Death is ugly, don’t sugarcoat it
@@GoldenMushroom64the cabin pressure would be gone, the high right of speed and velocity could cause you to lose consciousness . Don’t be so naive.
@@MisterRawgers I'm not sure they were yet at sufficient altitude to cause loss of consciousness upon cabin pressure disintegration. I think the video said the incident occurred at around FL138, which isn't that high.
@@GoldenMushroom64 You're not the sharpest tool in the shed, are ya?
At that height one would only become hypoxic (an oxygen deprived state) and eventually lose consciousness. So yes, probably saw most of it.
I have been saying for the longest time that all cargo areas need to be completely airtight and outfitted with a Halon fire suppression system. Once the fire is confirmed out that area can be vented.
Combis went out of use after the Helderberg crash. But yeah, it can still happen in the luggage compartment.
That makes too much sense.
If you make a certain area airtight, rapid decompression in that area will make the surrounding floors or walls collapse. This has happened several times (damaging flight control systems and has led to major crashes). This effect is reduced by spring loaded flaps in walls and floors for pressure equalisation. Halon is not used in the cabin/fuselage because you have the possibility of killing the passengers and crew especially if the cabin/cockpit is not completely air tight.
You're damned if you do, damned if you don't. If you make the aircraft like a submarine, it would be too heavy to take off (or too uneconomical for people to fly on them)
Fire suppression systems in lower cargo areas ("luggage compartments") have always been available.
@@ImperrfectStranger
Am I remembering correctly that the containers the cargo goes in has fire suppression, within the shell?
@@grmpEqweer I'm not aware of container internal extinguishing systems, but I've been out of the industry for a while. I'm not sure if the regulations would allow an independent fire suppression system.
The usual fire extinguishant is fed into the cargo via small tubes. The extinguishant is fed in in stages; a rapid blast, followed by a long slow release up to several hours depending on the system. Some 747 freighters do have an extinguishing system for the main deck, but most just depressurise the cabin to 25,000' to reduce the oxygen content (when the crew push the main deck cargo fire switch).
Two of the most horrific incidents back to back, the second one being even worse IMO due to the duration. Not good ways to go.
Yeah, the only comfort I get from the Helderberg crash, if u can call it comfort, is that autopsies of the few bodies found showed, that the passengers died of smoke inhalation fairly early in the timeline.
Swiss Air 111 as well... Those people all would have been completely conscious all the way down and would have known there was an issue right away. Lots of time to think in that 1. Brutal.
Many people on Long Island saw something that hit the aircraft that day. The Navy was doing maneuvers out in the ocean that day
I remember hearing that they saw a streak of light head right towards it and hit it
@@thephantomeagle2 Over two hundred people saw something rising from the ground that hit the plane. One of those witnesses was a military pilot in the air who saw two explosions, a bright white explosion followed a few seconds later by a yellowish/orange explosion. A bright white explosion is what you would see when an anti-aircraft missile explodes. A yellowish/orange explosion is what you would see from a fuel explosion.
@@Klaatu2Too On top of that if it had been an internal explosion then the entire plane would've been in pieces. They had once side, I want to say port that had a giant hole in it and the rest was blasted away from that point. The fuselage on that side was in large pieces where the other side was all in small pieces many of which were either too small or missing and you saw large gaps on the far side from the hole, where the side with the hole was almost complete.
It must have been a poisonous bottle of Budweiser or something who someone threw at the plane. Because three different investigating teams could not find any trace what so ever of explosive material on the wreckage.
I hate tin foil people, who always look for the most improbable cause of everything... idiots.
Nice tinfoil hat you got there.
This was my flight to Paris enroute to Saudia Arabia for a contractor job. Fortunately, I rescheduled and left a day earlier. I realized this after I landed in Riyadh and saw the news on TV.
Amazing that all these guys with all that experience and all these sensors and gages and yet still these catastrophic situations still happen.
Hold on - if the tail section separated it’s irrelevant what the pilots did or didn’t do.
What’s with all the aggressive comments on here towards the content creator? If you don’t want to watch a ‘rerun’, click off. If you’ve read other comments, perhaps you would have noticed that the video has been updated with new simulator details.
Even if the video was purely a reupload, all the foaming at the mouth, demands and nastiness pointed at The Flight Channel is really inappropriate and weird.
He is making lots of revenue off this channel and lying about air crashes like the TWA 800. People can say what they like unless UA-cam censors them which it does a lot.
I am very grateful to The Flight Channel for their tireless efforts to bring such a realistic and thoughtful re-creation to their audience. I'm also grateful that I never have to endure an aviation disaster as a passenger! The delayed feeling of doom, that your life is going to be over and not to have anticipated it must be dreadful. The re-creations also address those many questions of, "what happened or how did it happen?" I have a deep attraction to aviation but also possess a huge fear of flying. Of all the flying I've done, it never goes away.
As an airline crew member, nothing is more fearful than an out of control fire. One time a small fire started on my aircraft as we were taxiing for take off, as the captain was about to start the roll down the runway, the first class cabin started filling with smoke, we rushed the plane back to a gate and rushed all the passengers off. It could have been disastrous had we taken off.
Millions of parts on a plane. All it takes is one of them to go bad and it can take you down. Really scary stuff! R.I.P.!
Yeah, TWA had a history/reputation of being cheap because they were lax on inspections and upkeep. Neglecting their planes finally caught up to them when bad wiring caused the spark in the gas tank.
A single, small frayed cord, a spark.....
@@lunayoshiTwa was very unlucky really and they made bad decisions
America Airlines, United and Delta did have horrible accidents cuz of trying to cut corners too
Yes. Especially those parts that are in a Naval submarine missile which locked on to TWA800 instead of the planned drone in the vicinity.
@@windsorpatbwrong quit spreading lies
Amazing they were able to recover parts of the second plane from the ocean floor. There were some very experienced Pilots lost. Along with the transplant on the lifeflight. Condolences to all involved. I hope the information lead to alternate procedures to prevent other occurrences.
I fish in this very same area where Flt 800 went down, it’s not far off the south shore of Long Island, just outside of Moriches inlet about 8 miles into the ocean, it’s not very deep in this area, roughly 100-120 feet of water.
@@bobbertee5945 Thank you for explaining this to me. I was thinking it was miles down.
This is one of the plane crashes I really remember being in NJ and in high school this got alot of coverage on NY stations. back then internet wasnt what it is now, no social media and phones, you got your news from tv and papers and being in high school my attention was focused on other things. But this was one of those events, OJ, Princess Diana, Biggie, Pac, Kurt Cobain that got my attention and I really remember.
RIP
I remember this horrible crash. Amongst the passengers was a bunch of high school kids with a French club on their way to Paris. A first responder found one of their passports - a 15-year-old boy - and that grown man tough guy was in tears on TV.
It was hit by a missile. Any story to the contrary is cover. There was a naval exercise at that time.
This one always breaks my heart all over again 😢😢😢❤
I saw this while on Long Island. It happened during daylight hours just before sunset.
I remember watching tv that night when they broke away for the news bulletin. It was horrific.
> "Oh hey: this button that specifically only lights on when there's a fire somewhere in the plane itself just lit up..."
> - "Better just ignore it"
> "Aight."
> "Aight."
Many such cases.
I’ve flown my whole life, and also have been scared of planes my whole life. I want to trust everyone and everything, but flying is risking my life. You never know what could possibly happen in years, days, hours, minutes and even seconds. It’s insane how your life could change in a millisecond. R.I.P.
Can’t be afraid. When your number is up, it’s up. Doesn’t mean to take unnecessary risks though. Flying is safe.. I’d like to call it fun.. it once was.. now it’s like taking a bus. The scar on my right knee from being up against the seat in front of me for 5 hours is finally gone.
If I remember correctly, TWA 800 is the accident that inspired the crash of Flight 180 in Final Destination
Passenger, courtney johns, was the inspiration for the comic character Stargirl as well
Yes.Because several of the students had bad premonitions and didn't get on the plane,but went on later to experience tragic,untimely deaths.
The minimum ignition temp for airline fuel vapor is 97 degrees? Dang. That seems low
Someone messed up on that figure.
Temperature and Pressure are inversely related when it comes to ignition temperature
Ironically the Pilot of the Eastland Airlines was also in a Major Incident that could have crashed his plane a few years earlier but landed Safely. It was a problem with the 737’s at that time that lead to 2 Crashes about a few years apart. Now he witnessed the events of TWA 800! That man must have had more Therapy than anyone could have imagined! Hope he’s doing ok nowadays!
Yes the rudder hard over on approach.
@@ryancarlson8959 Yes
6:58 "I think that was him" it got me.
Each time I see a video on this I am bought almost to tears, RIP all those who perished that day.
That's a beautiful video! Keep it up, you always upload good contents🙂🙂🙂
Allowing flammable cargo on passenger flights seems a bizarre decision to me.
It was a computer. This is why they don't want you to ship computers or other electronics with lithium batteries. Those things leak or explode at high altitudes or pressure or something. I dunno. I worked for a store that shipped UPS and we had to ask about the lithium battery before we would be allowed to ship it.
@@lunayoshi "they don't want you to ship computers or other electronics with lithium batteries"
Except in this case I guess.
um..... fuel?
@@mkoury83 um..... what?
Perhaps no one in 1987 realized the issues with lithium batteries, especially in apartheid-era South Africa. That could be why that possibility was never considered then; today it probably would be the first thing investigators consider.
So had they filled that tank up with fuel, maybe it wouldn't have crashed?
Love this channel ❤
A full tank of fuel would take a lot longer to heat up than a few hundred litres sloshing around in the bottom of the tank. Also, a full tank of fuel would mean that there would be very little air in the tank to cause a fuel/air explosion. So yes, you're correct.
It's a shame that they couldn't fill the big centre tank and leave the wing tanks empty instead.
Nobody's knows what caused the fire even if the conditions were perfect for combustion .
I was wondering the same thing. I didn't take physics and failed chemistry, so I don't know if filling the tank would've prevented this or just delayed the inevitable.
No. It was shot down probably by the US Navy..
TWA 800 is seared into my soul, the catastrophic events, the awareness of the passengers. RIP🙏
These plane crashes are so heart breaking..... Rest in Peace.
So sad ❤ hugs to all family members
@@patogenify🤡
Sad he doesnt know whats newest content to upload that the main
@@patogenify is this vulture tactics? "If I complain on a comment that might get lots of attention even though it has nothing to do with why I'm whining, someone will see my comment, too, and maybe THEN they'll care" kinda deal? Help me out, there's gotta be something more reasonable here that I'm just not seeing.
@@patogenifyyou know it’s a compilation of similar incidents right? The other two were separate videos. And the creator combined them into one video
@@RWSARTIST_A1my pointed comment is not on this disaster but on what the purposes of the craeator trying to do
still brings tears to th eyes with regards to the souls on board
I remember the reports of a missile strike being the cause as people said they saw the missile streak up and hit the plane.
Yeah pretty much it. it it will forever be covered up
Yes. whistleblowers in the NTSB, Military, etc. have all confirmed the cover-up of an errant Submarine missile test. The missile locked on to 800 instead of the towed drone nearby.
@@paulwoodford1984No. many know the truth. but cannot talk about it as we’ve seen recently with boeing.
@@yapyapyup The truth will never come out.
It was originally reported on the news
When this happened there was talk of the accident being caused caused by the US Navy as it was holding an exercise in the area. High-powered radar, or a missile. The hint in the video is that they don't know where the spark came from. Boeing tends not to put sparky things in their fuel talks.
Several people reported seeing a missile heading towards that plane,over 100 people reported the same thing and when they reconstructed the plane, the pieces where the explosion happened were bent inward,not outward like they would have been if the explosion was on the inside of the plane.The people that reconstructed the plane were ordered to keep silent.I saw a video on this with the actual plane.If i find it again,I will post it in these comments.
Yeah sure
A Pittsburgh radio station talked about that for a long time !
No. There was no missile, the center fuel tank exploded due to the A/C wires caused sparks,
Site-88 many people said early on they saw a missile heading toward it. Two had been in the military. There was a big cover up
Also odd that the see- eye- aye produced its own animated video "explaining" what happened, and did "protest to much" that it wasn't a missile shooting up that people saw, but the plane itself somehow shot up looking like a missile. So Mr. Viki, yeah sure.
I am always surprised about this accident that when images appeared of the hangar where the Boeing 747 - 100 was rebuilt to carry out the accident investigation, the upper bubble of the plane had a row of several windows as in the version of the Boeing 747 - 200 when the plane TWA dropped corresponds to the version of the Boeing 747 - 100 that has the upper bubble with only three windows, what is the explanation for this difference? Excellent channel and work they do, the best of UA-cam. Greetings from Argentina.
Twa did have 747 - 200
I think Only PaNam did use the 747 -100 (As they we're the ones who wanted a double deck plane)
You ain't the only one who noticed
Probably a modified 747-100 with 747-200 windows
This was a later model 747-100 that actually had 10 upper deck windows. However, to maintain a uniform look on their fleet of 747s from that time, they plugged 7 of the 10 upper deck windows, so that it looked the same as the earlier 747-100s in the fleet that only had the three upper deck windows.
These plugs, together with the windows, were knocked out of the fuselage during the explosion or when this section hit the ocean, therefore resulting in the 10 window holes that can be seen on the wreckage.
Refer to the photo close-up photo in this Wikipedia article that clearly shows the plugged windows:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWA_Flight_800