But mostly they were silent, huddling together and vainly attempting to turn raw emotions into words. To some it is still a story of a terrorist conspiracy that persists despite well-documented facts showing the plane was actually brought down by a tragic mechanical failure. After a forensic dentist emerged visibly shaken from the medical examiner's office, saying it was difficult to settle himself Thursday night even after he was home and comfortably in his own bed, Wetli said that most members of his staff are tolerating the trauma well, thanks to years of training and experience. The memorial, which also includes gardens, has flags from the 13 countries of the victims, a curved black granite memorial with the names of the victims engraved on one side and a wave releasing 230 seagulls on the other. It's no more emotionally stressful than a doctor who deals every day with childhood leukemia. This year marks 25 years since a plane explosion killed 16 students and five adult chaperones from Montoursville high school. What Happened to TWA Flight 800? * DeLange, Sylvain, Paris They were people. "That center part of the aircraft is of interest," said Francis. The cargo area has been the site of explosives in past bombings, including that of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. She was a reporter on a children's television show and an accomplished pianist. * Gabor, Daniel, 27, ran middle-distances for University of Arkansas, of Fayetteville, Ark., and Walnut Creek, Calif. But memorial gardens, while comforting, cant erase the scars of losing a daughter. Records from the medical examiner's office also are being subpoenaed by the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York for possible presentation to a grand jury, if investigators confirm the crash resulted from a criminal act. * Gasq, Clair, France * Teang, Rachama-Chan, France Mercurio, Giuseppe, of Palo del Colle, Italy, produce-stand worker and part-owner of jewelry store near Bari, Italy (married to Anna d'Alessandro) * Silverman, Jamie, 15, of Los Angeles (daughter of Eugene and Marietta Silverman) Capital, of Greenwich, Conn. Literally, it was the shock., Jill Ziemkiewicz had just turned 23 in 1996 when she suspended her dream to be a landscape designer and signed up to become a TWA flight attendant after noticing an ad in a newspaper. Critical analysis of injuries sustained in the TWA flight 800 midair disaster. In the spring, a local newspaper named her one of Binghamton's brightest students. * DiLuccio, Debra Collins, 47, TWA flight 800 crew, of Agropoli, Italy; formerly of Athens, Ga. * Tofani, Mauro, 46, a cloth merchant, of Prato, Italy. Notifications can be turned off anytime in the browser settings. Unnamed passenger flying with Elsie Ostachiewicz, * Paquet, Huguette, France Cashman drew comfort by helping to build a monument to the TWA 800 victims atop a sand dune overlooking the beach at Long Islands Smith Point State Park. The reports are being sought by the families for legal purposes. This is a history lesson. * Hansen, Lars, Groenbakken, Norway He also said some of the victims were found to have carbon pigments or water in their lungs. The tortuous search for bodies and plane remnants was delayed as rain, wind and fog rendered the Atlantic impassable for search crews. Some of the mourners wept quietly. Thirteen minutes after TWA flight 800 took off on an otherwise clear night, the plane was rocked by an explosion in a fuel tank near the wings. He said the bodies will be identified through medical records and interview materials. "She was already, even at 15 she had lists of colleges and rankings and ratings so she was really focused on her future," Jez said. Suspicions of foul play seemed to be confirmed when a number of eyewitnesses reported that they had seen what appeared to be a missile shoot up toward the airline an instant before the explosion. * Wolfson, Eleanor, chaperone of Montoursville, Pa., school group (mother of It's not Hollywood and it does not happen overnight.". * D'Alessandro, Anna, of Palo del Colle, Italy (married to Giuseppe Mercurio) It was surreal.. * DeLouvrier, Judith, 47, a philanthropist who was a trustee of her family's Philadelphia-based Connelly Foundation, of New York City In an effort to test the mechanical failure scenario, NTSB investigators will examine the area around the tank, where fumes could have ignited and exploded during flight, according to officials. The suspension prolonged an already arduous search. Rose, Katrina M. , 26, of Cleveland Heights, Ohio. SMITHTOWN, N.Y. Autopsies reveal that most passengers aboard the ill-fated TWA Flight 800 died almost immediately in the air, sparing them the long plunge into O'Hara, Janet, 39, of Irvington, N.Y. (wife of John O'Hara). Almost everyone knew one of the students.. "There's a process called onioning,' where you can keep covering up the levels of trauma one on top of the other," said Louis Gallagher, coordinator of Suffolk County's community mental health response team who has been working 20-hour days counseling victims' families. * Kwiat, Kimberly, 26, of Briarcliff Manor, N.Y. (sister of Patricia Kwiat) * Gaetke, Dan, 33, owned landscaping business and taught elementary school art; of Kansas City, Mo. * Baszczewski, Daniel, student from Montoursville, Pa. The community gathered at the school to mourn. As a student of landscape architecture at Rutgers University, Jill longed to walk amid lush flowers and shrubs and clipped lawns at Versailles. * Amlund, Svein, Norway Zara, Jean * Carven, Paula, off-duty TWA flight attendant and part-time real-estate agent, of Bel Air, Md. . * Torche, Melinda, 47, TWA Flight 800 crew, Mission Viejo, Calif. * Uzupis, Larissa, student from Montoursville, Pa. * Van Epps, Lois, mid-50s, English teacher at Edgemont Junior and Senior High School in Scarsdale, N.Y., of New York City The National Transportation Safety Board determined the cause of the explosion was likely a short circuit that ignited fuel vapors as the pilots were shifting fuel to better balance the airplane. (married Family members left the following morning by bus to New York. "We've had marina customers afraid to come down," said co-owner Harvey Gessin. A comparison was performed against injury data from takeoff and landing incidents. If you purchase a product or register for an account through one of the links on our site, we may receive compensation. Meshulam, Avishaim And no one is very comfortable going there, so close to the place where that happened, and just sitting and relaxing and playing volleyball." Also scattered in the surf or deep below were the bodies of the 230 victims. Mychal Judge who comforted the grieving. * Rio, Celine * Holst, Virginia, 31, merchandise distributor, Manorville, N.Y. (wife of Eric Holst) She was overseeing the renovation of her Manhattan home, but her children were vacationing at the family's summer place in Hericy, France. Murta, Angela. As families of the lost passengers gathered at a hotel, we were introduced to the grace and kindness of a Franciscan priest the Rev. * Percy, Marion, Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y. (sister of Chrisha Siebert, cousin of Stephanie Gaetke) EVEN AFTER THE MYSTERY OF what happened to TWA Flight 800 is eventually solved, images of the 230 passengers who died in the crash will endure. * Lohan, Britta, Barcelona, Spain * Kwan, Barbara, 40, off-duty TWA employee, of Scottsdale, Ariz. TWA Flight 800, a Boeing 747, bound for Paris, France with 230 people aboard, crashed July 17, 1996, minutes after takeoff from John F. Kennedy International Having a great time and then that happened, holy mackerel.". * Verhaeghe, Rick L. , off-duty TWA flight officer, 48, Goldsboro, N.C. Photos: TWA Flight 800 With help from the Navy as well as contracted fishing trawlers scouring the ocean floor, investigators were able to recover more than 95% of the He attracted an unusually eclectic, though uniformly wealthy, clientele, including Richard Gere, Mick Jagger and Yves Saint Laurent. Hurd, James III, manager of a family automotive shop in Glen Burnie, Md. * Penzer, Judy, 49, artist and muralist, Pittsburgh and Lawrence, N.Y. ""He was very successful, but you wouldn't know it.''. * Mazzola, Salvator, 36, of Palermo, Italy. Evidence indicated the explosion was the result of an electrical failure that ignited the flammable fuel/air mixture in the tank. Constance Coiner, 48, an English professor specializing in women's literature, was awarded tenure last year at the State University of New York, Binghamton, and also won the school's award for excellence in teaching. ""Change is good,'' he said in the memo he wrote to his staff. All 230 people on board died including 16 students and five chaperones from the Montoursville Area High School French Club headed to Paris. He began his career as a protg of Andy Warhol's, honing his visual sense by working at Warhol's famed Factory studio and going antiquing with the father of pop art. * Brooks, Ruth, 79, of Edgartown, Mass. * Brooks, Edwin, 81, former executive vice president of Taco Industries, of Edgartown, Mass. The NTSB is exploring options to continue its robust training program. Richey, Brent Previous reports of commercial airline disasters have reviewed incidents occurring at takeoff and landing. * Martin, Betty Ruth, 69, of Belleville, Ill. Please enable it to take advantage of the complete set of features! (married What followed was unbelievable grief and anguish. The .gov means its official. Snyder, Capt. Charbonnier, Constance, 49, TWA flight 800 crew, of Northport, N.Y. ", Ziemkiewicz reached for a stack of letters from Jills friends, then another photo album and more pictures. * Notes, Gadi, 29, senior associate at investment banking division of Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, Inc., Israeli citizen; New York. * Bower, Jordan, student from Montoursville, Pa. She was also on the varsity tennis team. Community Rules apply to all content you upload or otherwise submit to this site. ""He called me from the pay phone in the airport and asked me to marry him,'' Snow says. * Johnson, Eleanor, 50, retired vice president of editing firm, of Springfield, Va. (married to Leonard Johnson) * Berthe, Maurice, Belleville, France * Rhoads, Marit, 48, TWA Flight 800 crew, Bellevue, Wash. (married to Scott Rhoads) * Lang, Raymond, 51, TWA Flight 800 crew, of Tafton, Pa. * Griffith, Joanne, 39, off-duty TWA employee, of Brooklyn, N.Y. He had won a scholarship to attend the University of Pennsylvania in the fall. The PubMed wordmark and PubMed logo are registered trademarks of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). * Charbonnier, Jacques, 66, TWA flight 800 crew, of Northport, N.Y. Her Daughter Larissa Uzupis was one of the 21 people from Montoursville High School and one of the 230 people who boarded Trans World Airlines Flight 800 and didn't make it home. * Bouhs, Leonie, France official website and that any information you provide is encrypted Two other men in the cockpit, Capt. * Johnsen, Arlene E. , 60, TWA Flight 800 flight attendant, owned a bed and breakfast, of Grand Junction, Colo. The 54-page transcript released Monday during the opening of federal hearings into the July 17, 1996, disaster was described by investigators as routine conversation, revealing nothing unusual leading up to the blast aboard the Paris-bound flight that killed all 230 people aboard. I lost my heart, my soul, said Ziemkiewicz. Even today as she looks back, Bedison feels pained as she recalls the students who were lost and the towns collective grief. Almost all the students who died were classic overachievers, the kind of model students that parents boast about to anyone who will listen. Unauthorized use of these marks is strictly prohibited. Two Coast Guard crew members who spent two days and nights pulling bodies from the ocean were so traumatized by what they had seen and touched that they were in serious emotional distress, according to local watermen who know them. Weaver, Monica, student from Montoursville, Pa. TWA Flight 800 grabbed the worlds attention when shortly after takeoff from John F. Kennedy International Airport in July 1996, the Paris-bound Boeing 747 exploded, Even as trauma specialists comforted the families of victims at Kennedy airport, they have been attending carefully to the search teams, pathologists and investigators exposed to the human horrors being pulled from the ocean. * Graham, Steven, 38, a marketing director for the long-distance phone company Ameritel, of Napa, Calif. -- Allen, Lamar, of Marietta. "You would see ripping, shredding and tearing of bodies" from a bomb in the cabin, he said. * Jones, Ramona, 61, retired hospital employee; West Hartford, Conn. * Karschner, Amanda, student from Montoursville, Pa. (wife of Dan Gaetke, cousin of Chrisha and Brenna Siebert). * LaForge, Alain, Hermelinghen, France * Michel, Pascal, Montpellier, France Its still raw, he said Just talking about it now makes me feel like it happened yesterday.. * Dodge, Warren, 50, off-duty TWA employee, of Brentwood, N.H., and Ashland, Mass. But for victims relatives like Carol Ziemkiewicz, formerly of Rutherford, who lost her daughter Jill Ann in the TWA 800 fireball, it is still a troubling story of lives cut short an open wound of the heart that never seems to heal. * Hazelton, Sandra, of Beachwood, Ohio, a high school French teacher taking her daughter to Paris as a college graduation gift. The mother opened her box of memories and the pain and darkness poured out again. * Price, Peggy, United Airlines flight attendant, of Englewood, Colo. (married to Dennis Price) Price, Dennis, investment manager, of Englewood, Colo. (married to Peggy Price) -- Schuldt, Mike, 51, TWA Flight 800 Crew, Safety Harbor. She wasnt going to Versailles, Carol Ziemkiewicz now reasons. My family will never be the same.. available), from The Associated Press. (niece of Anna Maria Shorter) * Darley, Francois, Grenoble, France an instant loss of consciousness.". Harkness, Eric, 23, off-duty TWA employee, of Columbus, Ohio. After an exhaustive, four-year-long investigation, the NTSB determined the probable cause of the crash was an explosion in the center wing fuel tank. * Shorter, Anna Maria, of Los Angeles, wife of saxophone player Wayne Shorter who was not on the flight (aunt of Dalila Lucien) The site is secure. Analysis of the data revealed no global correlation between seat position and pattern of injury. * Furlano, Rosaria Pares, France. * Scott, Michael, 44, physicist, of Stevenson, Ala. (married to Barbara Scott) * Jensen, Suzanne, 31, associate at G.E. Her assailant was sent to jail, but after serving only two years of a 20-year sentence, he became eligible for parole. Some of the 196 bodies found so far did contain shrapnel, he said. One dead, two hospitalized after crash in Lackawanna County. The plane had exploded 12 minutes after takeoff at JFK International Airport. They flew the New York-Paris route, one of their favorites, as often as five times a month, departing on Wednesdays and returning home to Northport, N.Y., on Sundays. * Simmons, Olivia, 50, schoolteacher and off-duty part-time TWA employee, Orange, N.J. * Gough, Analei Ralli, off-duty TWA flight attendant, of Mill Valley, Calif. (married to Donald Gough) Rance Hettler, 18, played football, basketball and baseball and was the district track champion, but he still found time to work on Students Against Drunk Driving and the History Club. Vacationer Joanne Bechhoff canceled a birthday party she had booked for tonight on the sandy volleyball court at the water's edge because she said she simply could not bear to be in a place so closely linked to such a huge tragedy. * Caillaud, Daniel, Deux Sevres, France A comparison of these injuries with those of takeoff and landing crashes showed differences in injury pattern and severity. 26 years after Flight 800 crash, victims' friends, family still gather TWA Flight 800 crashed in the Atlantic Ocean near East Moriches on July 17, 1996. For Montoursville, a 4-square-mile speck of a town in central Pennsylvania with just 4,600 residents, the loss of 21 residents was a shock to the system. But he said the pattern of injuries he has seen -- which reflects examinations of less than one-fourth of those on the plane -- would not be consistent with a bomb, plastic or otherwise, in the passenger cabin. * Romagna, Barbara, 76, of Sun City Center, Fla. Allen, Ashton, 15, of Marietta, Ga. 1994 Nov;37(5):826-30. doi: 10.1097/00005373-199411000-00020. "It's like a car smashing into a brick wall at 400 m.p.h.," said Suffolk County Medical Examiner Charles Wetli. Then a letter. Complete autopsy records, toxicology screening, and forensic analysis were reviewed. Methods: So was Judith Rupert, who graduated from Montoursville High in 1961 and worked as a school secretary for 34 years. * Haurani, Dr. Ghassan, of Grosse Pointe Shores, Mich. (married to Nina Haurani) The much-criticized Flight 800 investigation ended in late 1998, with investigators concluding that the explosion resulted from mechanical failure, not from a bomb or a missile., Wreaths and flowers float in the Atlantic Ocean Thursday, July 17, 1997, at the location where TWA Flight 800 crashed one year ago, killing all 230 people on board. Bogard was a former teacher at Montoursville High School during the time of the crash. For Here are the stories of some of the victims who were struck down off the coast of New York last week: THEY STARTED GATHERING AT montoursville High School just hours after the crash. A private memorial service for the families of the victims of the 1996 TWA Flight 800 explosion is being held on Saturday, 25 years after the disaster that killed 230 HAUPPAUGE, New York (CNN) -- The Suffolk County medical examiner has released the first autopsy report on the victims from TWA Flight 800. From that investigation we issued safety recommendations that fundamentally changed the way aircraft are designed. Benjamin, Joan JACQUES AND CONSTANCE CHARBONNIER fell in love on an airplane. He says his daughter wanted to go on the trip but because of a planned family vacation, he wouldn't allow it. GEORGIA -- Allen, Ashton, 15, of Marietta. But Watli has said since early in the investigation that he believes Luggage and wiring and food and seats and fuel and pillows and blankets and peeled-off sections of the fuselage were scattered for miles on the ocean surface and across its sandy floor. Pathologists are meeting daily with family members, conducting interviews about minute details of the victims' bodies to help determine who is who. But theres a big hole in the family.. Carven, Jay, 9, of Bel Air, Md. Because this was his last trip, O'Hara planned to mix relaxation with business. * Grivet, Cyril, senior lab technician at Carnegie Institution lab at Stanford University, Stanford, Calif. * Lychner, Pamela, 37, prominent Texas crime victims rights advocate, of Houston (mother of Shannon and Katie Lychner). Then another. The garden, which is based on one of Jills designs as a budding landscape architect, features wind chimes a favorite of Jills and a fountain designed to replicate thesunflower, which was one of Jill's favorites. He acknowledged that families of the victims are extremely impatient for their loved ones to be identified; 16 have been tentatively identified and the dentist colleague has been positively identified along with his wife traveling with him on Flight 800. As with many tragedies, the rest of the world eventually moved on. Some people say time heals all wounds. 2012 Apr;83(4):412-7. doi: 10.3357/asem.3155.2012. (AP Photo/ Ed Betz)ASSOCIATED PRESS. * Omiccioli, Monica, 23, seamstress, of Fano, Italy (married to Mirko Buttaroni) Clicking on a highlighted name will take you to a short biography of that person. National Transportation Safety Board 490 L'Enfant Plaza, SW Washington, DC 20594, Congressional and Regulatory Correspondence, In-flight Breakup Over the Atlantic Ocean Trans World Airlines Flight 800, Boeing 747-141, N93119. family, friends or officials (ages and occupations given where When it was revealed that several U.S. Navy vessels were training in the Long Island area on the night of the blast, some began to suspect that Flight 800 had been accidentally downed by a Navy test missile. * Rojany, Yon, 19, headed to Rome to try out for European basketball team, of Los Angeles Not only was TWA 800 one of the worst air disasters in U.S. history, it also raised questions about how America responds to conspiracies, how our government monitors the maintenance of aging commercial jetliners and how we treat relatives of victims. In reality, it is a very slow and tedious process. Thirteen minutes after TWA flight 800 took off on an otherwise clear night, the plane was rocked by an explosion, majestic and seemingly indestructible commercial jetliner blew, WCBS interviews Mike Kelly about the 25th anniversary of TWA Flight 800, Your California Privacy Rights / Privacy Policy. ", He added, "Given that we're going to bring up the great majority of the aircraft, I think we're going to find out what happened.". Nelson, Twyla, New York At 8:02 p.m. on July 17, 1996, Trans World Airlines Flight 800 left from John F. Kennedy International Airport bound for Paris. Conclusion: * Aikey, Jessica, student from Montoursville, Pa. He says he knew nearly all the students on board the flight. Family and friends gathered to honor the victims of TWA Flight 800 at a ceremony at Smith Point County Park, 23 years after an explosion sent the plane plunging to the sea, killing all on board. * Von Hedrich, Joseph, Bel Air, Md. Jez said her daughter had a bright future ahead of her. "As physicians, part of our training is being able to separate -- to empathize without sympathizing," said Wetli, who was deputy medical examiner in Dade County, Fla., during Hurricane Andrew. * Fry, Carol, former school board member, Montoursville, Pa. Because the plane was loaded with fuel for the long transatlantic journey, it vaporized within moments, creating a fireball seen almost all along the coastline of Long Island. Chrysou K, Halat G, Hoksch B, Schmid RA, Kocher GJ. Some 180 miles from Rutherford, in Montoursville, Pennsylvania, Stephanie Bedison bears similar emotional scars as the Ziemkiewicz family. It was hard to accept, said Bedison, now retired from her job as a special education teacher and track and cross-country coach at Montoursville Area High School. O'Hara, Caitlin, 13, of Irvington, N.Y. (daughter of Janet and John O'Hara). Medical investigators were holding up remarkably well as they went about their gruesome work -- opening body bags, removing corpses, examining them in painstaking detail -- when a forensic dentist looked up from one of the bodies and told his colleagues: "I know this person.".