NEW YORK — Nearly a decade after TWA Flight 800 went down off Long Island, killing all 230 people on board, the chief of the National Transportation Safety Board said industrywide fuel-tank problems that caused the crash are "largely unchanged."
On Thursday, acting NTSB Chairman Mark Rosenker slammed the Federal Aviation Administration for "moving much too slowly" to require explosion-prevention "inerting" devices that have been on the board's most-wanted list since shortly after the July 17, 1996, tragedy.
"Ten years after the TWA accident, fuel-tank inerting systems are not in place in our airliners, and flammability exposure is largely unchanged," Rosenker said, referring to devices that pump nitrogen into partially filled fuel tanks to reduce oxygen that can cause explosions.
Victims' family members were outraged.
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"The FAA is a disgrace. It is time for a congressional investigation," said John Seaman, chairman of the Families of TWA Flight 800 Association, whose niece Michele died on the Paris-bound flight. "They are supposed to be protecting the American flying public. They should be held accountable."
After a four-year, $38 million investigation — the largest in aviation history — the NTSB concluded in 2000 that a center-wing fuel-tank explosion triggered by poorly designed wiring in the 25-year-old aircraft was the most likely cause of the Flight 800 crash.
Since 1959, 26 fuel-tank explosions have been documented in commercial and military aircraft. Four of them occurred after Flight 800, and 346 people have died in those explosions.
