{"id":4768,"date":"2026-07-18T13:07:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T13:07:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=4768"},"modified":"2026-07-18T13:07:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T13:07:09","slug":"exclusive-egyptian-terror-group-claimed-responsibility-for-downing-twa-flight-800-off-long-island-in-1996-new-fbi-records-reveal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=4768","title":{"rendered":"Exclusive | Egyptian terror group claimed responsibility for downing TWA Flight 800 off Long Island in 1996, new FBI records reveal"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

A terror group from Egypt told the FBI it was responsible for downing TWA Flight 800 and killing all 230 people aboard, according to newly surfaced FBI records featured in a new documentary marking the 30th anniversary of the tragedy.<\/p>\n

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An explosive claim buried in a trove of newly obtained Freedom of Information Act documents is reviving decades-old questions about whether a missile or bomb brought down the Boeing 747-100 off Long Island on July 17, 1996.<\/p>\n

Among the records obtained by the transparency nonprofit Judicial Watch is a New York teletype dated two days after the crash, case file 265A-NY-259028: \u201cFBI headquarters received faxes generated from Cairo claiming credit for the destruction of the aircraft,\u201d the cable states.<\/p>\n

The document does not name the terror group or otherwise provide an assessment by investigators at the time of the veracity of its claim to have brought down the jet. A 14-month FBI and Joint Terrorism Task Force probe, along with a four-year National Transportation Safety Board investigation, ultimately rejected that theory.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s existence is prompting a series of questions from Judicial Watch, which filed suit in federal court this week against the NTSB to get more information and whose findings will be featured in a new 45-minute documentary, \u201cJudicial Watch Investigates TWA 800 \u2013 30 Years Later,\u201d which debuts Saturday on YouTube.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s see the faxes. Did you pursue it? To what degree?\u00a0 Was it a fraudster? Was it legitimate?\u201d asked the group\u2019s chief investigator, Chris Farrell, who has spent years trying to untangle the evidence.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s pretty alarming considering there was a massive effort to swat that theory down back in \u201896,\u201d he added. \u201cCairo at that point was a hotbed for all kinds of militant Islamist supremacists.\u201d<\/p>\n

TWA Flight 800 departed JFK International Airport in New York at 8:19 p.m., bound for Paris, and blew up 12 minutes after take off over the Atlantic Ocean near East Moriches, New York. <\/p>\n

All 18 crew and 212 passengers died instantly.<\/p>\n

Another partially redacted line states that \u201cone of the crew on board flight 800, working as a flight attendant was [redacted].\u201d The reason for the redaction isn\u2019t known but James Kallstrom, the FBI New York field office chief who was placed in charge of the probe, was close friends with a fellow FBI agent whose wife was a member of the crew on the doomed flight.<\/p>\n

The NTSB determined after its investigation that the \u201cprobable cause\u201d of the accident was \u201can explosion of the center wing fuel tank (CWT) resulting from ignition of the flammable fuel\/air mixture in the tank.\u201d<\/p>\n

The $40 million probe, which included painstakingly reassembling the aircraft from pieces recovered from the sea floor, couldn\u2019t determine the source of ignition, but said the \u201cmost likely\u201d culprit was a spark caused by a short circuit. <\/p>\n

The FBI dropped its probe in 1997, with then-assistant FBI Director Kallstrom telling reporters: \u201cFollowing 16 months of unprecedented investigation we must now report that no evidence has been found which would indicate that a criminal act was the cause.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The documentary raises other questions about investigators\u2019 conclusions, including why existing 747s were never grounded after the incident, and why no other 747s ever suffered a similar explosion in the succeeding years.<\/p>\n

Another document obtained through one of the group\u2019s 13 FOIA requests is a February 1997 internal FBI memo for briefing family members more than six months after the event that references the \u201cthree most likely theories\u201d for the cause of the explosion \u2013 the bomb theory, the missile theory and mechanical failure.<\/p>\n

\u201cDespite a wealth of circumstantial evidence indicating that the aircraft was struck by a missile fired from a sea-borne platform, the exact cause of the explosion remains a mystery,\u201d it states.<\/p>\n

Numerous eyewitnesses said they saw streaks of light before the explosion. A CIA video simulation said witnesses were seeing burning, leaking fuel.<\/p>\n

Also featured in the film is Dr. Tom Stalcup, a physicist who consulted on multiple lawsuits brought by family members of the passengers killed. He described identifying a piece of the fuselage with a curved end that he said indicated there was an external source of the explosion \u2014 and made the alarming claim that it had been bent back during the investigation. Numerous family members of victims settled with the airline and Boeing in the years following the crash, with some taking $2.5 million in compensation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe curl was gone, they flattened it like a pancake. And so they altered the evidence to make it like there was no internal damage caused by an external force,\u201d Stalcup said in the documentary.<\/p>\n

Asked to comment on Stalcup\u2019s claims, the NTSB referenced its earlier .<\/p>\n

\u201cThe source of ignition energy for the explosion could not be determined with certainty, but, of the sources evaluated by the investigation, the most likely was a short circuit outside of the CWT that allowed excessive voltage to enter it through electrical wiring associated with the fuel quantity indication system,\u201d it said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

\u201cContributing factors to the accident were the design and certification concept that fuel tank explosions could be prevented solely by precluding all ignition sources and the design and certification of the Boeing 747 with heat sources located beneath the CWT with no means to reduce the\u00a0heat transferred into the CWT or to render the fuel vapor in the tank nonflammable.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Post has reached out to the FBI and CIA for comment.<\/p>\n

Farrell refuses to accept the official explanation. <\/p>\n

\u201cI can tell you that the official explanation \u2014 this guess that a spark of unknown origin somehow ignited the center fuel tank is preposterous,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

The group is hoping the documentary renews interest in the strange and tragic story, and prompts government agencies to hand over additional documents that might fill in still more details. <\/p>\n

Read more British Open\u2019s Tale of Two 62s question won\u2019t get answered until end of final round<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThey have not been forthcoming,\u201d said Farrell.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A terror group in Egypt claimed responsibility to the FBI for downing TWA Flight 800 off Long Island in 1996, newly surfaced records in a documentary on the tragedy’s 30th anniversary reveal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4767,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-us-news"],"yoast_head":"\nExclusive | Egyptian terror group claimed responsibility for downing TWA Flight 800 off Long Island in 1996, new FBI records reveal - Metro Transit Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=4768\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Exclusive | Egyptian terror group claimed responsibility for downing TWA Flight 800 off Long Island in 1996, new FBI records reveal - 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