On July 17, 1996, TWA Flight 800 was blown out of the sky shortly after taking off from John F. Kennedy Airport in New York.
Two hundred thirty people died in the crash.
Investigators and journalists have covered the event, and the official cover story is that an electrical failure in the Boeing 747 caused the fuel tanks to explode.
The United States Navy was running a training exercise off Long Island at the time, testing the Lockheed Martin SPY-1A 3D phased array radar system on the Frigate USS Carr, under the command of Captain Keith L. Wray.
At the time, the smaller Navy frigates did not usually have the SPY-1A capability. SPY-A1 is typically a part of the Aegis Combat System and deployed on the larger US Navy missile cruisers.
That evening, the Navy was testing the configuration on the smaller frigate.
The USS Carr was part of a battle group testing a system that allowed one ship, the Carr, to track a target drone (being towed by a small aircraft) while another ship, the USS Leyte Gulf, "fired" a missile in what was assumed to be a simulation exercise.
One eye witness, operations specialist William H. Teele the third, was in the Combat Information Center of the USS Carr when the incident occurred but was ordered to remain silent.
11 авг 2022
