James Kallstrom, who led FBI probe into crash of TWA Flight 800, dies at 78

James Kallstrom, the Marine-turned-FBI-agent who oversaw the bureau's criminal probe into one of America's worst aviation disasters, the 1996 explosion of TWA Flight 800 off the coast of East Moriches, died Saturday.

The cause was heart failure, in Fairfield, Connecticut, according to his wife, Susan Kallstrom. He was 78.

In recent years, James Kallstrom became a vocal critic of how the bureau handled Hillary Clinton's email scandal, and a supporter of Donald Trump's presidency.

But he gained national prominence when leading the FBI’s New York office and heading up the probe into the July 17, 1996, explosion of TWA Flight 800, which killed all 230 passengers and crew aboard.

In 1997, Kallstrom pushed to suppress a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms report concluding that mechanical failure was to blame. He described the report as "unprofessional and reprehensible," with agents still convinced a bomb or missile was to blame, according to a Washington Post story at the time. Other bureaucrats argued that failing to release the report could put future flights at risk. He eventually had a change of heart and relented, the Post story said.

Families came to trust Kallstrom — even those who believed a missile was to blame — who oversaw agents in the investigation, which included studying holes in the remnants of the plane they reconstructed at a Calverton hangar where the wreckage was kept.

Before his retirement that year, Kallstrom had considered resigning in 1996, but decided against it because he wanted to complete the TWA investigation.

"It was not in my character to leave before the TWA Flight 800 investigation was concluded," Kallstrom said at the time. "I thought I owed it not only to the bureau but to the victims’ families and to the American citizens."

The National Transportation Safety Board conducted the official investigation into the crash and ruled out a missile or bomb as the cause.

Investigators in 2013 petitioned the federal government to reopen the investigation, saying evidence showed a possible missile brought the plane down, to which Kallstrom told Newsday, "It’s foolishness. … It’s crazy."

After retiring from the FBI, Kallstrom became a vice president for the credit card company MBNA Corp. in Delaware.

In the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, then-Gov. George E. Pataki appointed Kallstrom to a new post — head of a New York State office in charge of firming up security to avert terrorist attacks.

"When I was governor, we never had any concerns that the feds maybe were holding back information from us or there was something we should be told that we weren’t. There was totally open communication and Kallstrom, of course, was the lead guy on that," said Pataki, who met Kallstrom after the TWA 800 crash.

A captain in the U.S. Marine Corps during the Vietnam War, Kallstrom was chairman and a founding member of the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation, a nonprofit that provides scholarships to children of Marines or federal law enforcement personnel killed on duty.

After the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995 — killing 168 people, including 19 children, and injuring several hundred more — Kallstrom and others also helped raise money for victims and their families, said foundation director Sue Boulhosa.

His wife said of her husband: "He was a true patriot in every sense of the word, from the time he was a little kid in Boy Scouts."

Born on May 6, 1943, in Worcester, Massachusetts, Kallstrom fought in Vietnam and joined the FBI in Baltimore, leaving the military in 1969.

During his 27-year tenure at the FBI, Kallstrom, considered to be a leading wiretap expert, had agents plant microphones in rooms where members of the Mafia met. The recordings helped prosecute Mob boss John Gotti and others.

More recently, Kallstrom had become a critic of the FBI's handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a personal email server while secretary of state, and also spoke out in support of Donald Trump.

In 2016, Kallstrom told Fox News host Megyn Kelly that some supervisors and senior staff at the FBI were angered by then-director James Comey's decision to recommend against charges for Clinton over her use of the server.

Kallstrom met his wife-to-be, when she worked as a secretary in the Baltimore FBI office, she said. They celebrated 50 years of marriage in April.

"He was my champion," she said. "He was just a truly, truly a humane, big-hearted, marvelous, incredible man."

Along with his wife, James Kallstrom is survived by two daughters. Boulhosa said the funeral will be next week at St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan.

With AP

By Matthew Chayes

matthew.chayes@newsday.com,chayesmatthew,

Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.