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TWA Flight 800 10 Year Anniversary (Pics)
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Thanks, Fred, those are really nice.
As some of you know, I sort of grew up around TWA, my dad was a mechanic there for 40 years, and I'll never forget the night 800 went down. I was on my way to the Poconos for the Nascar weekend, and when I arrived at my mother-in-law's house around 9:30 and called the wife to let her know I had gotten in, she told me a TWA plane had crashed. I knew my sister was flying home from Florida that week, so my first thoughts were of her.
I flipped around the channels at Mom's until I stumbled across the then brand new MSNBC cable network, literally their third day on the air. Brian Williams (now the NBC Nightly News anchor) was on, and I spent most of the night sitting up watching the coverage. My initial worries for my sister were quickly eased, but it was obvious from the scenes of fire on the water that there was little chance anyone survived.
With about 3 hours sleep I headed to the race track the next morning, where the crash was the leading topic of conversation, made more so by the fact that one of the drivers was from nearby Montoursville, PA, the town that lost so many students on Flight 800. The driver, Blaize Alexander was still a teenager himself, having graduated from Montoursville High only a year earlier, and knew many of those lost.
The Flight 800 crash was particularly painful for TWA. In addition to the larger crew on a 747, there were a number of off-duty employees flying to Paris that night; it was the largest number of airline employees ever lost in a plane crash. While doing their best to deal with the crash and loss of friends and family themselves, TWA employees were painted as cold, heartless or incompetent because they couldn't provide confirmation of passengers fast enough for some, and later their maintenance was called into question over the reported cause of the blast. From first hand experience, let me tell you that TWA employees, from the cockpit and cabin crews, to the agents in the terminals, and the mechanics keeping them flying were some of the best trained, most dedicated workers in the industry. The stain on their reputation is one more tragedy of Flight 800.
My thoughts and prayers are with those lost that night and the ones who were left behind.
RIP TWA 800
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Great pics Fred, seems like not too long ago this tragedy happened.
R.I.P.
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Fred- excellent pictures, Truly a sombering moment.
I recall that night very vivedly.
I was playing with a TWA 747 that night playing "Crash and land" with it. I was maybe 9 I think? Sitting on the living room floor. Breaking News at CBS that was on at the time showed a TWA 747 just like what i was playing with. I was confused, were they talking about my plane? I kept on listening, to a reporter in STL at the airport.
I started crying and ran to my room. freaked out thinking I had caused the crash because I was doing it to my own plane models. Dad came into my room and he got me to know it wasn't my fault, but boy I was freaked. The coincedence was to unreal for me.
I had just flown into STL on TWA from MCO on an L-1011, First class barely a month before the crash. One of the last times I flew TWA.
I can vouch for Mosse's testimony and say the TWA crew's truly were one of the best I had ever experienced in the air.
This place will certainly be a place I aim to visit should I ever make my way up to New York.
Alex
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i remember being in my hot tub out on the back porch of my house on the bay when i lived in suffolk county and seeing the actual fireball weird to say it but that crash was actually the event that led to my love and choice to make a career in aviation for myself. Irony to that is that August 14th that year i was flying on delta from LGA toTPA on a Delta 727 and guess what was the flight number. 801! I was flipping out and after takeoff number two decided to act up as any person familiar wit the JT8 on the number two spott on a 727 does and it spit a small chunk of the turbine baldes out landing someplace in Flushing. We landed at JFK uneventfully after dumping 15,000 pounds of Jet-A but my aunt had to pry me from the seat in the terminal to get on the replacement 727 that night.
