ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, July 23, 1996 TAG: 9607230091
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: From The Associated Press, Los Angeles Times and Houston Chronicle
NOTE: Lede
Divers reached a large section of downed TWA Flight 800 on the ocean floor Monday, pulling six bodies from their watery tomb and searching for any evidence of what caused the disaster.
``This is a big step forward,'' FBI Assistant Director James Kallstrom said. ``We predicted this would be a good day, and it was.''
National Transportation Safety Board Vice Chairman Robert Francis said the fuselage section was found in a ``wreckage field'' of airplane parts scattered 120 feet below the surface.
The discovery, which came after bad weather and equipment glitches had hampered recovery efforts for several days, was announced at an emotional seaside memorial service.
At a news conference Monday night, Francis said there are literally hundreds of objects on the ocean floor.
The discovery came as divers reached the bottom of the ocean for the first time since the plane exploded over the Atlantic Ocean on Wednesday night, killing all 230 aboard.
Kallstrom would not comment on CNN reports that chemical residue of the kind likely to come from a bomb had been found on a piece of wing recovered from the site. CNN cited sources close to the investigation.
ABC, also citing unnamed sources, reported that a piece of metal had been recovered with blast marks on it that could indicate a missile or a bomb.
The suspicious residue is being sent to Washington for study at a government laboratory.
But law enforcement officials said it was ``premature and irresponsible'' to conclude that the residue proves the crash was the result of deliberate sabotage or terrorism.
``There is residue, but we're not certain of what it is. Field tests have been wrong in the past. Some of it could still be from an engine fire or from mechanical maintenance processing,'' a well-placed law enforcement official said.
Officials hope that Navy teams will be able to lift the wreckage out of the water today, as investigators try to determine whether the Boeing 747, which plummeted in flames a half hour after taking off for Paris , was brought down by a bomb, a missile or because of human or mechanical failure.
With the latest discovery, ``we think we'll know the answer sooner rather than later,'' Kallstrom said.
The bodies were retrieved under a piece of fuselage 30 feet by 60 feet at a depth of 104 feet, as members of the 230 victims' families attended a memorial service under leaden skies on Fire Island - as close as they could get on land to the spot where Flight 800 plunged into the ocean nine miles offshorecq -MB
Afterward, many of those at the service waded into the gentle surf and, one by one, tossed roses into the water.
By Monday, 55 of the 105 recovered bodies had been identified, officials said.
Other developments included:
nU.S. counterterrorism officials received a threat Monday against Americans from a clandestine Saudi group calling itself the Movement for Islamic Renewal on the Arabian Peninsula. It warned of an imminent ``fourth attack'' after the successful strikes against two U.S. military installations in Saudi Arabia and the TWA crash. But U.S. officials characterized the communique as part of ``a stream of threats'' and said that they had no reason to believe the group was behind the attacks in Saudi Arabia or the TWA crash.
The discovery of the debris and the bodies was the first break that investigators have gotten since Thursday.
The wreckage and bodies were discovered in the same area in which authorities had reported finding a single body Sunday and in which searchers had seen a sheen of oil floating to the surface, suggesting aviation fuel or oil from fuel tanks or engines. However, they said Monday, the remains found Sunday belonged to a body that had been partly retrieved shortly after the crash.
Officials in the Suffolk County, N.Y., medical examiner's office and FBI investigators said many of the bodies already recovered were of victims sitting in the first-class seats and other sections at the front of the airplane.
Meanwhile:
The landing pattern at JFK International Airport was changed Monday, making incoming planes fly over the Ramada Plaza Hotel there.
A United Airlines flight from Kennedy Airport to Los Angeles was delayed more than two hours Sunday night when a passenger was escorted off the plane by FBI agents and Port Authority police. The unidentified passenger had been moving repeatedly from seat to seat on the plane.
A TWA 727 landed safely Monday night after losing power in one of its three engines. Flight 6057 from Newark, N.J., carrying 146 passengers and crew members, was bound for St. Louis. Shortly before its scheduled landing, the plane's pilot notified the control tower at Lambert Airport that the No. 3 engine had shut down, said airport spokeswoman Marie Yancey.
The plane landed safely at 6:35 p.m., Yancey said. There were no injuries.
A New York Post reporter was arrested Monday for allegedly impersonating a mourner for two days at the Ramada Plaza Hotel, the gathering spot for relatives of those who died in the crash, a Port Authority spokesman said.
LENGTH: Long : 102 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. Rowers take flowers out to sea to toss in memory ofby CNBthose killed in the airliner crash. color.