TWA Crash, Flight 800
Sacred Heart School of Halifax
Halifax, Nova Scotia

By Maureen (grade 8)

On a still July 22 evening at 8:48 pm, many lives were lost and changed as TWA Flight 800 blew up in the sky and plummeted into the dark Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Long Island, New York. The flight was thirty-one minutes into its scheduled six-hour flight from John F. Kennedy International Airport to Paris, France. There was no warning of mechanical distress from the pilot whatsoever before the plane blew up and dove into the Atlantic.

The FBI are searching for and recovering any clues that will lead them to how and why the airplane blew up. Objects recovered by the investigation have included chunks of the plane, badly burned bodies, running shoes, post cards, passenger baggage, passenger seats, and even the black box. The only clue that the black box held was a loud noise but officials could not identify that noise. The FBI have a strong suspicion that the plane was sabotaged by terrorists.

An element of the story about the TWA airplane crash that is seldom told is of the victims of this disaster. A man that proposed to his girlfriend less than two hours earlier got killed in the crash. Sixteen students and five chaperones from a high school in Montoursville, Pennsylvania, were on their way to Paris. A wealthy doctor decided to take an earlier flight home to her husband and children. The families and friends of all of the victims are suffering the loss of a loved one.

This crash has been the worst air catastrophe since terrorists blew up an Air India flight from Vancouver to London killing 329 people in 1985.