What Really Happened to TWA Flight 800?
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Alum Profile COM'80 Kristina Borjesson says her documentary is the first film to focus entirely on the forensics of the plane crash, and it disputes What Really the NTSB's conclusions. Happened to TWA Flight 800? Kristina Borjesson's docu- mentary suggests that 1996 flight was downed by missiles !" #$% &'#%("))" of July 17, 1996, broadcast journalist Kristina Borjesson left work early after wrapping up a docu- mentary on Fidel Castro for CBS. Her husband was at JFK International Air- port, putting their 11-year-old son on a plane to visit relatives in France, and an exhausted Borjesson climbed into bed for a nap. “All of a sudden the phone rang,” she says, “and I heard my neighbor’s voice say, ‘Was that your son’s plane that just went down?’” A Paris-bound Boeing 747 had exploded off the coast of Long Island, N.Y., just after 8:30 p.m., killing all 230 on board. “I can’t even describe to you that feeling,” says Borjesson (COM’80). “It was like hot oil was poured on my brain. I started dry-heaving.” But her son was safe; his Air France flight was five minutes behind the doomed aircraft, TWA Flight 800. “For that moment, I knew what the family members of those victims were going through,” she says. “I lived it.” The tragedy would remain part of Borjesson’s life for the next 17 years, the subject of her own on-again, off-again investigation. Her documentary, TWA Flight 800, which she wrote, directed, and produced, premiered on the EPIX But some, including Borjesson, ques- “This was an investigation that was cable TV channel last July. It is the first tioned the explanation. She and Tom corrupted and undermined,” says Borjes- film, she says, to focus entirely on the Stalcup, film coproducer and a physicist son. “The forensic evidence and eyewit- forensic evidence, and it disputes the who began looking into the accident on ness accounts clearly show that there conclusions of the National Trans- his own time shortly after the explosion, was ordnance external to the airplane in- portation Safety Board (NTSB), charge that the FBI stepped volved in this crash. And that does not fit which spent four years investi- WEB EXTRA in early and sidelined the the government’s official probable cause gating the accident. Watch a experts in aviation investiga- assessment of what happened, which is In 2000, following what the trailer of the tion: the NTSB. They believe a low-velocity deflagration in the center NTSB described as the most documentary that debris from the fuselage wing fuel tank caused by a spark, the TWA Flight extensive and complex probe in was mishandled, and that the origin of which they have never found. So 800 at bu.edu/ its history, the safety board de- accounts of dozens of eyewit- they closed this investigation before they bostonia. termined that TWA Flight 800 nesses who recalled seeing the could even find the ignition source for was brought down by an explosion of the same thing—three fast-moving missile- what they were claiming happened.” center wing fuel tank. Although the cause like objects streaking up into the sky to- The documentary features several could not be established, it said, it was ward the plane before the fireball—were members of the original investigation most likely the result of a short circuit in ignored or rejected. The documentary is team, along with eyewitnesses to the the electrical wiring outside the tank. available for streaming on Netflix. crash. In June 2013, they were joined by !" BOSTONIA Winter–Spring 2014 554-75_BostoniaWinterSpring2014_r1.indd4-75_BostoniaWinterSpring2014_r1.indd 6262 22/4/14/4/14 44:34:34 PPMM I was given my walking papers a few weeks number of objects in the sky at the same after that….That told me that the story was time is not in the least bit strange.” controversial, that there were limits to the The NTSB discounted the possibility freedom of the press. And it really tore my of a missile strike in its 2000 determi- guts out, because I was so happy at CBS. I’d nation. “NTSB investigators examined just won an Emmy for investigative report- every piece of wreckage for any physical ing, and I was on a roll.” evidence that the crash of Flight 800 In 1998, Borjesson was invited to produce could have been caused by a bomb or mis- a segment on TWA Flight 800 for the pilot sile,” the board said at the time. “No such program of a new television series called evidence was found.” Declassified, to be hosted by Oliver Stone. Stalcup says he is trying to get more Shortly after accepting the assignment, her information from the US Department of car was broken into and documents and a Defense’s Missile Defense Agency. computer stolen. Then, articles began ap- The bottom line, he says: “No one has pearing in the press: “Conspiracy crank Oli- yet challenged anything factual in our ver Stone is doing a missile show on TWA” documentary.” The two maintain their was the gist, she recalls. ABC canceled the own media fact-checking page on their show. Over the years, she has been invited to website, www.flight800doc.com. speak publicly about the crash, typically on the anniversary. +',-# .-#/0%1-. Borjesson, who holds Stalcup, meanwhile, had been amassing a master’s from Columbia University’s information about the accident, talking to School of Journalism, has produced eyewitnesses and evaluating their accounts, for networks such as CBS, CNN, PBS, analyzing technical reports, and requesting and Arte in France. She won Emmy and information from the government through Edward R. Murrow Awards in 1995 for the Freedom of Information Act. He believes investigative reporting for the documen- he uncovered the smoking gun: Federal Avia- tary Legacy of Shame, about migrant tion Administration radar data showing un- farmworkers in the United States, and explained debris flying away from the plane she was nominated for an Emmy for the at four times the speed of sound. That, he Castro documentary, The Last Revolu- says, is much faster than if there had been a tionary. She’s also published two books, fuel tank explosion. He called the NTSB and Into the Buzzsaw: Leading Journalists Ex- the media, but says he was unable to gener- pose the Myth of a Free Press (Prometheus ate any interest in his findings. Books, 2002) and Feet to the Fire: The “There’s enough in the public domain now Media after 9/11 (Prometheus Books, for any scientist to conclude that the official 2005), and she lectures on investigative theory is wrong,” Stalcup says. reporting and the press. He turned to Borjesson, whom he’d met She says she felt a responsibility to about a year after the crash. “I said, ‘Kristina, the retired investigators and the eyewit- we have to do this ourselves.’” It turned out nesses who participated in the documen- BETH PERKINS their timing was right. Henry Hughes, an tary, as well as to the flying public and NTSB senior accident investigator who had the victims’ families. She remembers some of the family members of crash vic- been part of the government’s Flight 800 in- one family member telling her that her tims in filing a petition asking the NTSB vestigation, had just retired. Once he agreed husband had left her because she’d to reopen the case. The safety board is to work with Borjesson and Stalcup, several booked their daughter on Flight 800. reviewing the petition. other former investigators came forward, It reminded Borjesson of the conver- too. Soon EPIX was on board, agreeing to sation she’d had with her own husband #$%&'() )*(? When Borjesson returned fund and broadcast the documentary. about which flight to put their son on in to work at CBS the day after Flight 800 went The film stops short of theorizing about 1996. “My husband is French; he said, down, she was assigned to look into the the source of the streaking objects seen by ‘This TWA flight is much cheaper,’ and I crash. She ran into trouble after receiving a eyewitnesses. That was by design. Borjesson said, ‘Well, go for that,’” Borjesson says. piece of seat foam from the wreckage, which says she and Stalcup included only informa- “And he said, ‘No, Air France is better. she’d planned to have tested for traces of tion they could document and verify, she It’s a state-run airline, and their main- solid rocket missile fuel. Borjesson says that says. Borjesson herself declines to speculate. tenance record is far superior.’ I said, the man who had received the foam from a “My position is very vulnerable,” she says. “If ‘In that case, go for that.’ But I was right member of the official investigation and sent you look at the history of my career, you can there in that woman’s shoes for two sec- it to her for testing had every right to do so, see just how vulnerable I am.” Stalcup is a bit onds. Besides the victims, people’s lives but the FBI came calling and claimed it was less cautious. “The three objects may seem were destroyed. Their families were de- stolen. “CBS, much to my chagrin and dis- strange to the layperson,” he says, “but those stroyed. And it could have been any one may, returned it immediately,” she says, “and familiar with missiles will tell you that that of us.” Cynthia K. Buccini Winter–Spring 2014 BOSTONIA !" 554-75_BostoniaWinterSpring2014.indd4-75_BostoniaWinterSpring2014.indd 6363 11/30/14/30/14 111:591:59 AAMM.