many suspected terrorism at the time andle still question whether the government came to the right conclusion in saying that it was not terrorism. there were 230 people on board that plane. all lost their lives. the twa tragedy is the subject of a cnn special report which comes up next. at 11:00, our news coverage of malaysia airlines flight 17 continues. that's all for now. thank you so much for joining us. // 18 years ago this week twa flight 800 exploded in the sky over the shores of long island. it was bound for paris with 230 people on board. no one survived. the suspicion of terrorism was almost immediate. many eyewitnesses described a streak of light heading toward the plane before it blew up. in the weeks, the months and then years afterwards, the biggest and most intense investigation in aviation

history at the time ensued. eventually the u.s. government offered their best explanation for what happened. to this day though, many still question if they got it right. this is a cnn special report, witnessed:the crash of twa flight 800. >> we saw two fire balls go to the water. >> twa 800 exploded right in front of me. i knew right away there were no survivors and it was kind of a sickening feeling. >> i saw a bright light and then white smoke plume behind it. and an explosion. >> i do believe i saw a missile. >> there was obviously some suspicion that it might be a terrorist act. >> we do not know what caused this tragedy. i want to say that again. we do not know as of this moment. >> the investigation was looking at almost every possibility including state actors. definitely thought about gadhafi and libya.

we were at iraq and saddam hussein. the president was prepared to take whatever action needed to be taken. >> a huge potential crime scene. >> this investigation would have been one of the largest carried out by the fbi. >> i had a thousand agents working on the case. >> my fiance was on the plane. my sister paula with her son. 9 years old. >> our biggest concern was a recovery of our loved ones' bodies. there were a lot of times that i doubted the existence of god. and i said, god, how and why could you let something like this happen? my name is joe litschner and i lost my wife pam who was 37, shannon who was 10, and katie who was 8 on flight twa 800.

pam decided they would take a trip to europe and it was supposed to be a very short trip. just over the weekend. i had to go on a business trip up to calgary. when i left, they jumped in my arms and they wrapped their arms and legs around me. both of them did that twice before i left on my trip because i wouldn't see them for over a week. shannon was 10 years old when she passed. and i guess i would really describe her as a very kind-hearted little angel. and she even promised me that she would be the one who would take care of me in my old age. katie was different than shannon. she was a little spitfire. she knew what she wanted in life and i'm sure that she would have

gotten it. i talked to pam just 15 minutes before they boarded the flight. she called me and told me the flight was delayed. and i could hear the kids playing in the background. and we were talking about what time they would expect to arrive now. and you know, everything will be okay. >> my name is donald. we lost our youngest daughter on flight 800. sheryl was 16 years old. she was part of the french club and they were planning on taking this trip. her older sister took the same trip four years before so there is no way we could tell her she couldn't. drove sheryl into the school where they met the greyhound bus to go to jfk. she and the other kids were very

excited. we had 16 students, plus five chaperones. when sheryl decided to take the trip, make this trip, i really didn't want her to go. i was concerned and i just had that feeling. we really couldn't refuse her. i wish we had have. >> twa 800 was on the tarmac for a long time, from early afternoon until the departure time that evening. my name is john. at the time of the twa 800 accident, i was one of the five board members at the national transportation safety board. at the departure time of that air may not from jfk, it was a quite hot summer day and therefore the airplanes and the equipment in and around the planes were most likely well over a hundred degrees. that we believe played a role in

this accident. the airplane left about 8:20 in the evening, and 11 or 12 minutes later, the event occurred. >> i'm captain david mclane. he was with eastland airlines and i was the primary witness to the accident when it blew up. at the time of the accident we were over long island about 16,000 feet, headed out over the water. it was dusk. it was around 8:30 in the evening. you could see a long ways, a good 50, 60, 70 miles or more. i saw this flight departing out of jfk with a bright light, kind of yellowish colors. and i mentioned to my first officer, and we thought that possibly it might have even been a fire but there was no smoke or anything. and it was probably the landing polite. they were crossing our flight path. they were moving from the right to the left so we had a very good sight of them. they were about 13 miles ahead of us.

and i flicked on the landing lights to let them know that i saw them. and at that exact instant he blew up. exploded right in front of me. it was a big fire ball. and almost immediately you could see the two wings fall off. and the fuel was obviously coming out of the wings and the wings were on fire. so there were these long fiery streamers going about 3,000 to 4,000 feet all the way down to the water. i reported almost immediately, there's been an inflight explosion. >> we just saw an explosion out here. >> i missed it. did you say something else? >> we just saw an explosion. about 16,000 feet or something like that. it just went down to the water. >> twa 800. >> i think that was him. >> i think so.

>> god bless him. >> it probably affected me more now than it did back then. 230 lives are gone and it wasn't until the next day that they started mentioning people, the french club that never got to france. and it started to become more human then. and that's when i started to feel it. i was sure it broke up immediately and i'm sure everybody was killed instantly as far as i could see. i imagine they didn't know what hit them. i thought it was a bomb or some sort of sabotage. there was no other cause than something on board that caused the explosion. >> when a major airliner goes down, suddenly your first sense

is that somebody was responsible for blowing it up. the fbi, they were working on the theory that this was a deliberate act of terrorism. hey pal? you ready?

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...and we'll replace destroyed or stolen items with brand-new versions. we put members first. join the nation. ♪ nationwide is on your side ♪ . i would like to say few words about the crash last night. first on behalf of the american people, i want to say to the families of the passengers, we are well aware that only the passage of time, the love of your family and faith in god can ease your pain. but america stands with you. >> when twa 800 tragedy happened, i was chief of staff to president bill clinton. i immediately called the president and said that i had just been informed that a large

airliner had gone down off of long island and was not sure what was the cause of it. but did say that there had been an explosion and when the plane went down. and so, you know, there was obviously some suspicion that it might be a terrorist act. there was a pause. you could tell that he was shocked by the news. because he knew that an awful lot of lives had been lost. >> the chief of staff, leon panetta has just met in the situation room with all the agencies involved and has finished briefing me on our response. >> i can remember the meeting. we went around. there were some who thought there might have been some witnesses to the plane going down. there was even some talk about the possibility of seeing some arc of light that might have gone toward the plane which

would have indicated some kind of missile. my first sense was that this was not just an accident. this was something that had been caused deliberately. >> the fact was nobody really knew. >> i want to caution the american people, we have no evidence. we have no evidence on this flight yet, that would indicate the cause of the accident. so let's wait until we see the evidence. >> at about 8:30, my mother who had been dead for two years, she said in her southern ohio-kentucky accent that i can never misplace, she says, don, sheryl is okay. she is with me. she did not say heaven. it was implied. i turned around expecting to see

my mother. i saw nothing. i received a telephone call from the mother of one of sheryl's friends that was on the trip. she says, don, there was a plane crash out of jfk at 8:30. and i turned the tv on. they said it was like two mile high when it went down. my wife donna and i both realized that there shouldn't be anyone surviving from that crash. >> by 2:00 a.m. in the morning, it became very apparent from the news reports that they were not finding any survivors. my biggest goal right after that was to get there as fast as i possibly could. and to be as close to where the event happened. i needed to be near my family.

>> i got a call from the coroner. he wanted us to come to new york. bring dental records, other health records from sheryl so that he could examine them. later we talked to the coast guard who recovered her. he was in tears when he saw us. we had something with sheryl's picture on it. he saw the picture and started crying. he says, i recovered her. he said i thought, i thought i felt a heartbeat. and we worked on her trying to -- trying to revive her. he says, we couldn't.

>> closure for me is recovering the bodies. that's my number one priority. i had three people on that plane and i cannot leave one of them out there. >> that was really the only thing that mattered. while the fbi and the ntsb and everybody else was off running exactly trying to figure out exactly what happened in this crash. >> we have a massive investigation ongoing. of the fbi's twa investigation.- when this tragedy happen, the country was a very high state of alert. within a day and a half, i had a thousand agents working on the case. i immediately thought this was more than likely terrorism. we didn't know for sure. the fact that a 747 blew up in a fire ball, that's not a normal thing to happen. the fact that numerous shoulder

fire missiles were lost over the years from different thefts, from armories around the world, within ten minutes of it happening we had people calling our command center and telling us they saw things ascending into the sky. we took that very seriously. >> my name is mike wire. i was a witness to flight 800. yes, i do believe i saw a missile. i was standing on the beach bridge taking a break and i was looking out over the ocean. i saw what looked to be like cheap fireworks coming from the roof of a house. and it went out to sea, zig zagged and had a white smoke plume behind it. and it arced over and disappeared for a few seconds. and then an explosion started getting bigger and bigger and bigger until it filled up most of the sky. and out of that ball of fire, a

fuselage, you could see it coming down, burning. one wing flew off. and then a shock wave. i could feel it in my chest and shoulders. a 65-ton bridge that i was standing on. there was another two explosions and then one more, four total. >> the investigation was looking at almost every possibility, including state actors. we definitely thought about gadhafi and libya. we were looking at iraq and saddam hussein. the president was prepared to take whatever action needed to be taken. fraud resolution department. ugh, we don't have that. what should i tell him? just make that super annoying modem noise... (shuuuuuuuh....zzzzzzzz...de ee...dong...shuuuhh...) hello? not all credit report sites

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the investigation starts a week into it, we've got the location of the debris. there are three major debris fields. this was a huge potential crime scene. the debris is at 130 feet of water and the command center is set up at the coast guard station a long island. and we start the process in conjunction with ntsb recovering the pieces of the plane and the bodies up from the ocean. we were really looking to see if any of the bodies that were intact had any signs of an impact of terrorism. then we could put where that body was on that airplane. so it was very necessary for us to sort of map that and then map the damage. that's why we had to reconstruct the airplane, to see that.

to see if there were any holes penetrating the outside of the airplane that lined up with some explosion that took place outside the airplane. >> when twa 800 went down, there were a whole series of things that had happened that had raised concerns about growing terrorism. we saw the flight go down over scotland. we had the bombing that took place at the trade tower. if you add the fact that a trial was going on for the people involved in the bombing at the trade towers, don't forget that within ten days of that incident, we had a terrorist act at the olympics. >> you're dealing with a situation in which the president of the united states is increasingly concerned that we're becoming more and more the

target of terrorism. >> we do not know why twa flight 800 crashed. if it proves to be a criminal act, other security steps may be required. whatever needs to be done, we will do it. i will use the full powers of the presidency. and if congressional authorization is required, i am certain we will have full bipartisan congressional support. >> at that point in time, the investigation was looking at almost every possibility including state actors. we definitely thought about gadhafi and libya since they were at that point suspected of having brought down the other airliner. we were looking at iraq and saddam hussein. we were looking at the possibility that even iran might have played a role in this as well. clearly if we had determined that this was a foreign actor,

or a terrorist group, similar to what happened on 9/11, that president clinton would not have hesitated to take action. >> the investigation was huge from the standpoint of its involvement. we had to look at all the people on the plane. who were they? what was their background? were they mentally stable? who put anything on the plane? who took it off? who could have had access to the center of the airplane where the baggage was stored? what was their background? what's their criminal record? are they citizens? now you start to see the size of the investigation. we're talking thousands of people. as to the missile theory, who was on long isle that night? who was there in a car, on the beach, who rented a boat, who has a boat? did anybody steal a boat?

it had hundreds and hundreds of people say they saw things from their porches, from their boats, and that's why we put a lot of emphasis on the missile theory. >> my name is pat milton. i work for the associated press as a reporter and he was sent out to the crash site about an hour and a half after it occurred. and i ended up covering the crash day by day for four years. there were hundreds of eyewitnesses along the coast of long island who swore they saw something in the air that night. some characterize it as fireworks. others said maybe that it was a missile going toward the plane. one of the elements that did arise was that, was it a friendly fire action? we had learned that the u.s. navy had a ship that was in the area, the uss normandy.

it did have surface to air missiles on it. >> it had a crew of 400 people. we went and interviewed everybody on the normandy, we accounted for all the missiles on the normandy. because they were out of range of twa flight 800. but we had to run all these things to ground. >> the two theories are that there were a bomb on board or a missile from the outside. on the missiles from the outside, missiled when they take down airplanes will do it in two ways. one is they can come slamming into the airplane which is very difficult to do. the other is they explode nearby the airplane. so in either event, you're going to have holes from outside going inside the airplane. i went over every inch of that airplane looking for those holes and i did not find any holes. i looked for all i was worth. >> we had at least three radars

that saw this event. some initial reports that evening showed some anomalies on one of the radars that was mistaken by someone from the faa as a missile hitting the plane. and later on, it was determined to be some sort of electrical interference that happens all the time. but sure, the radars were critically important. >> the fbi hung on to every bit of the radar data and they tried and tried and tried to connect those dots, if you will, and despite their best efforts, they were not able to prove that was a missile that came up to hit the airplane. >> as time went on and the pieces of the puzzle started to come together, we had the string of connected dots that lead us to the center fuel tank. >> we know the center fuel tank exploded. that's a fact. the question was, what caused it

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the population is about 5,000. a very small town. we lost 21 people, students and chaperones on flight 800. it seems like everybody knew at least one or a few of the people

involved. very difficult, very hard on the town. sheryl was about the third person recovered. in her seat, fully clothed and brought out by the coast guard. she had her ticket in her blue jeans and it had her name on it. >> the ramada inn at jfk airport was the place where all the family members congregated. each day we would have a morning briefing and an afternoon briefing. the daily briefings became really everything to us because they would tell you who was recovered. someone would come around and tap you on the shoulder. that tap on the shoulder, i know it sounds odd, but that was a blessing because all we wanted at that point in time was to recover our loved ones' bodies

and take them home. you talk about blessings and god's intervention in helping you through tragedies like this. a friend of mine who is a chapel with the new york city police, he gave me this little cross i have. and soon after that, pam was recovered and then katie was recovered and shannon was recovered. i gave this cross to another person who had not recovered. and then right after that, his person was recovered. and they passed it down all the way, all the way down the line to the last person. jim hurd, his son jamie had not been recovered. and through their dredging operations out there, they ended up finding jamie. so in the end, everyone came out of the water. as far as the investigation is concerned, i was obviously very involved because i had a vested interest in finding out what happened and ensuring that

justice was served for my family. >> the fbi and other investigators were simultaneously investigating the missile and the bomb theory. the bottom line is everything was centraled around the center fuel tank. that's where they knew the catastrophic event took place. they just didn't know what set off that center fuel tank. if it was a bomb, a missile or a fuel failure. >> in the flight twa 800 investigation, i was the chairman of the group determined to how and why it came apart. it is unusual to reconstruct an airplane to this degree. this is the biggest jigsaw puzzle i've ever been involved with. we looked at differences in soot patterns and any other differences we could find to determine which fractures came first, which damage came first, and we used in it big areas and backed up and started making a larger sequence until we were able to determine pretty much

conclusively the whole break-up sequence of the airplane. we have a giant pile of evidence that leads directly to the initial event being this explosion within the fuel tank. >> the tank is pretty big, 20 by 20, four to six feet high. the bottom tank is supposed to be perfectly flat. the pieces that we recovered on the airplane have a definite bow in it. they were pushed out from the inside. if you go above it, it is pushed upwards into the cabin. so whatever happened happened inside the tank. >> west bank the center fuel tank exploded. that's a fact. the question was, from the day we said the center fuel tank blew up, three or four months out, what caused it to blow up? so ntsb is looking at all the pieces of the airplane for blast. where did the bomb blow up? we found traces of high

explosive in the airplane. about six months out. it was down in the double-sided tape that held the carpet. it made no sense that there was an explosion there. because we had the flooring and we had the seats and we had the overhead put back together again where this was found. we didn't know why it was there. later on we found out in st. louis, someone who works on bombs, training a dog, went on the plane and he had some components of things they made bombs of. it was leaking and that stuff stuck to the sticky part of the tape. >> the fbi has found new evidence -- >> this surprised everyone. investigators as well as journalists. there was a lot of news coverage around that that pointed to the fact if ingredients like this was found, it had to be a bomb. or maybe possibly the ingredients in a missile. this further contributed to the fact of eyewitnesses and many

from the public who theorized that this plane was brought down by friendly fire and that the government was covering it up. >> there was a tremendous effort many, many, many visits by experts to take a look at the physical evidence of the airplane. we're talking about something of substance that can bring an airplane down. there was no evidence that happened. the physical evidence on the airplane didn't support that. >> over into october of 1997, and i said look, ladies and gentlemen, is there anything else that any of you think we can do that would add to this investigation? or would add to the determination where we are now that the explosion or the terrorists did not bring down the plane? is there anything else we can do? the could nnclusion is no. >> there's a fair number of eyewitnesses who still insist this plane was brought down by bomb or a missile. despite the fact that there is no evidence, they will not

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the mission of the law enforcement team was to determine whether a criminal act was responsible for this disaster.

the time has arrived to report to the american people the results of that effort. we must now report that no evidence has been found which would indicate that a criminal act was the cause of the tragedy of twa 800. >> the fbi came out with the statement that it was a criminal act, the fbi came out with a video. the video depicted the aircraft in flight. and the blowing off the aircraft. >> a fourth eyewitness reported that he watched a white light traveling upward. >> it showed the plane flying quite a good distance above the house. it clearly did not match anything that i witnessed. i just figured it was something that passified the public. it did fit the scenario of what they wanted it to fit. >> the center fuel tank went boom.

and it cracked up a whole bunch of the airplane. now that cracking just led to the whole airplane breaking apart. >> we believe that the nose broke off just forward of the wing. that came right down. straight down. the engines were still producing the same amount of power so it will go up because it is lighter. the airplane itself rose and continued a few thousand feet more ending up in the 16,000 foot range. you have a lot of fuel being mixed with the air and already the fire, so now the fire ball gets to be quite large and noticeable. >> there were some witnesses who saw a rising streak of light. we believe this was from the nose section coming off. the residual fire burning in the airplane. the airplane rising up and creating what appears to be a vertical streak of light. >> from the ntsb's point of view

and the fbi's point of view, the evidence has to support what you see. no matter how much the fbi tried to tie those eyewitness statements into it being a missile, the physical evidence just didn't support that. >> i did not see anything come out of the airplane. i have never said it could not have been another missile or a rocket that was fired at it. it could have came from the other side of the airplane. from what i saw there was no other cause and something was on board that caused the explosion. but if there was any rise in their elevation from the explosion, i guess i would have seen it. i did not see that. everything from when i saw the explosion went down, not up. the wings fell right off the airplane right away. so how will it climb? they have no wings. >> it's a dark sky. it is sort of coming at him. he may have been able to see the wing tip lights.

when this event occurred, the breaking up of the airplane and the nose fell off, i'm sure he didn't see that. because the airplane is now unlit and the nose is dark and the surrounding water is dark. so what he probably saw was the fire ball when it occurred. >> the fbi 16 months into their investigation determined that there was no evidence of a bomb or a missile. and they closed their active investigation. the ntsb then took over. four years later the ntsb came out with their probable cause. >> good morning and welcome to this meeting of the national transportation safety board. this leads to the inescapable conclusion that the cause of the in-flight break-up of twa flight 800 was a fuel air explosion in the center wing tank. >> the accident occurred on a a hot day in july. the airplane was sitting at the

tarmac at the gate with the air conditioners running. and the air conditioners are located right underneath the fuel tank right here so they provide a large source of heat. we did some testing and found out that the temperatures were well over 100 degrees in most of the tank. >> the temperature rose quickly on the fuel and it is turning to vapor very, very rapidly and filling up the container with vapors, an explosive mixture of vapors. >> when you provide the conditions together and they introduce a spark in there from any source, it will ignite and burn rapidly. it will explode. >> in some manner there was a spark. an ignition source. the safety board looked at all types of ignition sources. we looked at bombs and missiles and determined neither was a possible scenario. so our strong suspicion is that

some of the wiring that led inside the tank introduced high voltage into the fuel tank. the safety board wasn't able to determine exactly the cause of the spark that got into the fuel tank. >> i think in part because the ntsb was unable to pinpoint what exactly set the center fuel tank off, that they only came up with a probable cause and not a definitive cause. that that has given rise to people feeling that this plane was brought down by a bomb or a missile. >> i was suspicious about the investigation. there was at least two seconds purposely deleted from that flight data recorder. i trusted the government before we went through this. i do not trust them now.

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she was very excited. >> what does that photograph mean to you now? >> we were in new york. i was suspicious about the investigation.

>> what's the word? >> we would have updates at least once a day from the ntsb. >> there was a lot of wreckage there -- >> explaining what was going on and these meetings, we would get different stories. they would change what they were saying. >> there they are. and i said i would like to have a copy of the flight data recorder tape. >> the interior boxes were smashed a bit. i said i would like to have these analyzed independently. i want to believe what you're saying but i'm having a great deal of difficulty doing that. >> the tapes were in good condition. >> after i received the copy of the flight data recorder, i sent that copy to my expert to analyze this for a living. and he said there are at least two seconds purposely deleted from that tape.

>> as far as the ntsb purposely deleting anything, i don't believe we've ever done that. >> the one piece of damage -- >> i looked at the data. i looked at that little blip. there is a space in the information and we did look at it. we talked about their being an event, something, that the data was missing. and it is unexplainable. just missing. >> i do not know what is on those two missing seconds. i think something that might indicate that there may have been an outside explosion next to the airplane is what i feel but there is no way that we'll ever know. my wife, she passed away september 8th, 2012. donna died being suspicious that we had never been told the

truth. i trusted the government before we went through this. i do not trust them now. >> i spent some time with a couple of the families that felt there was some sort of a cover-up but i convinced them there wasn't. i think they believe what i said is true. there are some that you'll never change their view. everything is government does is a conspiracy. >> in one of the congressional hearings, the fbi testified that there were no eyewitnesses to the crash that described seeing a missile. and this is a point that critics have pounced on in later years. >> could you give us some information on how many witnesses on the ground or in other airplanes at the time believed they saw something coming from the ground headed toward that plane? >> i wouldn't want to say that they all saw something coming

from the ground. there are about 200 people that saw events in the sky that they described. none of which described a missile. >> as i look back at the question, i could have probably been more articulate and describe that a lot of witnesses used the term missile. they were good people and they're not making up a story. but the reality is none of them saw a missile. their description of what they saw does not fit what a missile would actually look like. do i feel like justice was served with this investigation? yes. absolutely. i've been intricately involved in this investigation. i don't believe that there is anyone else other than other family members who have more of a vested interest in making expert justice is served in this case. if i did not believe in the outcome of this crash, that would clearly be a problem for me.

when this first happen, there were some very dark and cold and lonely nights. there were a lot of times i doubted the existence of god and i said, god, how and why could you let something like this happen? and when i was at the end of my rope and i was about to give it up, he, every single time he would send me somebody to carry me during those darkest days. and godave me another family. i married brenda bragg and had rachel and colt and in some regards, i mean, i'm the luckiest man in the world. i have a family waiting for me in heaven and a family here to

take care of me while i'm here. >> the case is never closed. >> probable cause is never cast in concrete. it can always be changed if we have new physical evidence that would change our thinking on what happened. >> in the end i stood up and said, i had 99.9% confidence that it was not an act of terrorism. which means that a future investigative leads come in that result in us looking at this, we will certainly do that. and that's the .1% that i'm leaving there. >> without question it was a theory and it clearly could have been a possibility. but i think i was left with the feeling that you know, in the end, we might never really know what happened.

// -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com good evening. welcome to our viewers in the united states and around the world. this is the second hour of our special edition of "outfront." news at cnn. we are getting new pictures of the crash site from our crew on the ground. it is the reality of what investigators are facing on the ground. bodies of the 298 passengers that lost their lives in body bags along with debris and luggage. we do not know how many bodies at this time have been transported and we don't yet know exactly w