More than a decade after concluding a fuel tank explosion destroyed TWA Flight 800, senior U.S. accident investigators stood their ground on Tuesday against skeptics claiming new evidence suggests missile fire downed the jumbo jet. "I'm totally convinced there was no bomb or missile," National Transportation Safety Board investigator Jim Wildey told reporters at a briefing outside Washington. Skeptics, including a former NTSB investigator, last month petitioned the agency to re-open its investigation and will release a documentary on the crash this month. Conspiracy theories, outrage swirl around TWA 800 plane They said evidence suggests one or more missiles destroyed the Paris-bound Boeing 747 over the Atlantic shortly after takeoff from New York on July 17, 1996, killing all 230 on board.
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Accident investigators respond to critics who claim missile fire brought down the jet in 1996
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The National Transportation Safety Board blamed the crash on a fuel tank explosion
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Skeptics have asked for a new investigation and are releasing a documentary on the crash
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TWA 800 crashed into the Atlantic after taking off from New York on a flight to Paris
But at the same time, the board allowed the original @placeholder 800 investigators to brief the media on the four-year investigation.