TWA800

Captain Ray Lahr

Would anyone be willing to help me with an accident investigation? At about 8:30 p.m. on July 17, 1996, TWA800 was climbing through 13,760 feet at a speed of 437 mph on a trip from New York to Paris. At that moment, the center fuel tank exploded and blew everything forward of the wing off of the aircraft including the cockpit. The CIA and the NTSB contend that the aircraft continued to fly and zoom-climb to as much as 17,000 feet trailing flames. This is supposed to explain the rising bright streak seen by about 100 eyewitnesses (never mind that most of them saw the streak rising from the surface). As a pilot with a slightly used engineering degree dating back to 1951, my contention is that the B747-100 immediately pitched up and stalled and fell out of the sky. Here is the significant data that Boeing provided to the NTSB: PARAMETER BEFORE NOSE SEPARATED AFTER NOSE SEPARATED Gross Wt (lbs) 574,000 494,606 C.G. %MAC 21.1 57.8 Iyy slug-ft^2 27,790,000 15,880,000 Ixx slug-ft^2 19,110,000 18,970,000

Several other parameters can be found in pages 634 thru 643 in Airplane Flight Dynamics Part I by Jan Roskam, including the wing span of 196 feet, wing area of 5500 sq ft, and MAC of 27.3 ft. I don't think CFD had been invented yet when I went to school. Any help would be sincerely appreciated.