TWA Flight 800: The tragedy in pictures

Flames from TWA Flight 800 that exploded over the water off Long Island burn hours after the explosion on July 17, 1996.

A piece of debris from TWA Flight 800 floats in the Atlantic Ocean near Moriches in this July 18, 1996 photo.

In the aftermath of the crash of TWA Flight 800, crew members of the Coast Guard cutter Jupiter load pieces of the jetliner on to the ship's deck on the morning of July 18, 1996. A section of the plane's tail can be seen in the water.

Crewmen aboard a U.S. Coast Guard boat pick up pieces of debris that floated on the surface July 18, 1996, the morning after TWA Flight 800 went down in the Atlantic about 10 miles off East Moriches.

Al Catalano picks up a rose to toss into the ocean at Smith Point County Park to pay respects to the victims of TWA Flight 800 on July 23, 1996. Andrea Donadio and Monika Hamada are in the background.

Navy diver Brad Fleming is fitted with a diving helmet which is connected to a cord to supply fresh air to the diver, allowing longer dive times, at the wreckage site of TWA Flight 800. Fleming was diving Thursday, July 25, 1996, off Fire Island.

Two friends of Donna Griffith, 36, one of the TWA Flight 800 victims, at her graveside at the Westhampton Cemetery after her burial service on July 24, 1996.

Wearing a ribbon honoring the victims of TWA Flight 800, Gov. George Pataki arrives at the Ramada hotel outside of Kennedy Airport on July 24, 1996.

The media coverage of TWA Flight 800 tragedy is pictured in East Moriches at the Coast Guard Station on July 24, 1996.

Wearing ribbons for his wife and two children who died on TWA flight 800, Joseph Lychner stands before the media at the Ramada Plaza JFK Hotel while Gov. George Pataki speaks on July 24, 1996.

National Transportation Safety Board vice chairman Robert Francis, left, confers with James Kallstrom, head of the FBI's New York office at Kennedy Airport Thursday, July 25, 1996. The pair were awaiting the arrival of President Bill Clinton who was flying to New York to meet with the families of victims of TWA Flight 800.

Officials carry an ice chest containing a black box removed from the wreckage of TWA Flight 800 July 25, 1996, at the U.S. Coast Guard station in East Moriches. Both black boxes will be sent to Washington for analysis.

Bernard Loeb, of the National Transportation Safety Board, displays the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder of TWA Flight 800 on Thursday, July 25, 1996.

President Bill Clinton boards Air Force One with first lady Hillary Clinton at Kennedy Airport on July 26, 1996. Clinton came to New York to be briefed on the TWA Flight 800 crash recovery efforts. He later met with families of the flight victims.

On July 27, 1996, John Feeney of New Hyde Park is seen after the funeral service of his wife, Vera Feeney, and their daughter, Deirdre Feeney. Both died in the crash of TWA Flight 800.

At Smith Point Park on July 29, 1996, Gina and Anthony D'Orlando of Shirley were among many Long Islanders who felt compelled to come to this piece of shoreline that has become a shrine of sorts to the victims of TWA Flight 800.

A section of TWA Flight 800 is taken from recovery barge at Shinnecock U.S. Coast Guard and loaded onto an Army National Guard truck for transportation to Grumman plant in Calverton on July 29, 1996.

Curious spectators stand on the end of the jetty as wreckage from TWA Flight 800 is brought through Shinnecock Inlet in a barge. What appears to be a TWA cargo bin was part of the wreckage brought into the Shinnecock Coast Guard Station on July 29, 1996.

A U.S. Navy diver support boat cruises the Atlantic Ocean off East Moriches in the search area for TWA Flight 800 wreckage, Saturday, July 27, 1996.

Al Baker, then a Newsday reporter, looks over a panel of photographs of victims of TWA Flight 800 in the logistics room at the Suffolk County Medical Examiners office in Hauppauge on Monday, July 29, 1996. The office gave a press tour of the facilities to help explain what happens as they try to identify the victims.

Dane Sookram is consoled after participating in a funeral service for his mother, JoAnne Sookram Griffith, at St. Therese of Lisieux Church in Brooklyn on Monday, July 29, 1996. Griffith, a TWA flight attendant, perished in the crash of TWA Flight 800.

Environmental chemists work on records relating to dental X-rays in the logistics room at the Suffolk County medical examiner's office Monday, July 29, 1996, in Hauppauge. They are working on trying to identify victims of the crash of TWA Flight 800.

Members of the Suffolk County Homicide Squad work in the antemortem room set up at the Suffolk medical examiner's office in Hauppauge on July 29, 1996. They are coordinating incoming information on the victims of TWA Flight 800 and matching records with bodies. Standing in foreground is Homicide Det. Norman Reim.

Tommy Ray Moorefield, a FBI fingerprint specialist, examines a palm print as he works to identify a victim of TWA Flight 800 Monday, July 29, 1996, at the Suffolk County medical examiner's office in Hauppauge.

Sections of TWA Flight 800 were taken from a recovery barge at Shinnecock U.S. Coast Guard and loaded onto Army National Guard trucks for transportation to Grumman in Calverton July 29, 1996.

At Smith Point County Park in Shirley beachgoers enjoyed the surf on July 29, 1996 not far from the flowers and signs that were left on the boardwalk and on the sand below in memory of the victims of TWA Flight 800.

Alexander Greene, at left, with family and friends after the funeral ceremony at Riverside Memorial Chapel in Hewlett for his wife Renee Greene on July 23, 1996. Renee Greene was killed in the crash of TWA Flight 800.

Cardinal John O'Connor officiates at the Mass of Christian Burial at New York's St. Patrick's Cathedral, Thursday Aug. 1, 1996, for Elsie Lopez Ostachiewicz and Chelsea-Lynn Harris, a mother and her daughter killed in the crash of TWA Flight 800. Mourners include their husband and father Jonathan Harris, third left, and New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, behind O'Connor.

New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, left, and Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, stand at attention as the American flag comes into view during opening memorial ceremonies at Montoursville, Pa. Saturday, Aug. 17, 1996. The memorial service was for the 21 Montoursville area victims of the TWA Flight 800 crash.

Parts of TWA Flight 800 arrive on a barge near the Shinnecock Coast Guard Station in Hampton Bay on Friday Aug. 2, 1996.

A recovered piece of TWA Flight 800 is unloaded at the Shinnecock Coast Guard Station in Hampton Bays on Saturday, Aug. 3, 1996.

The second truck in a two-truck convoy carries TWA Flight 800 debris from the Shinnecock Coast Guard Station to Calverton for examination in August 1996.

A flatbed truck makes its way north on Route 24 toward Calverton with wreckage from TWA Flight 800 on Aug. 3, 1996.

TWA 800 wreckage comes through the Shinnecock inlet on Aug. 4, 1996.

A large portion of the fuselage of TWA Flight 800 is loaded onto a National Guard flatbed truck in Shinnecock on Aug. 16, 1996.

Bishop John McGann talks with Bishop Emil Wcela, the auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of Rockville Centre near a shrine for the TWA 800 Flight victims under the boardwalk at Smith Point County Park on Aug. 17, 1996. McGann celebrated a Month's Mind Mass for the victims of TWA Flight 800.

Early morning sunrise comes up at East Moriches on the USS Grasp (ARS-51) before she pulls anchor Tuesday, Aug. 27, 1996, after 36 days on the station. Divers from the Grasp recovered more than 50 victims of the TWA Flight 800 crash during 537 dives.

Wreckage from TWA Flight 800 lay on the floor in an aircraft hanger in Calverton Tuesday, Sept. 24, 1996, in this photo released by the FBI in Manhattan Friday, Sept. 27. As the Navy continued to retrieve wreckage from the Atlantic Ocean and investigators worked to reassemble what already has been recovered, a team of FBI agents is in Athens analyzing information gathered by Greek officials concerning the explosion, a source close to the investigation said.

President Bill Clinton greets Brian Cox, 5, of Montoursville, Pa., at the White House Wednesday Oct. 9, 1996 during a ceremony where the president signed the Federal Aviation Reauthorization Act of 1996. Brian's sister Monica died in the crash of TWA Flight 800.

Unidentified observers look over wreckage of the landing gear from TWA flight 800 on Nov. 19, 1996 at a hangar in Calverton. The FBI announced Nov. 18, 1996 that it is closing its criminal investigation into the crash which killed all 230 aboard after failing to find evidence to support theories that a bomb or missile brought the ill-fated flight down.

Using a surface air supply, U.S. Navy diver Aaron Knight, shown here aboard the Navy salvage ship the U.S.S. Grasp on Nov. 11, 1996, was the first Navy diver to go down to the ocean floor at the crash site of TWA Flight 800.

Coffins are lined up for a memorial service at Pinelawn Memorial Park in Pinelawn for victims of the TWA Flight 800 crash whose remains were not recovered. About 60 relatives of the victims came to the service on Dec. 4, 1996.

Pictured is one of the radar images on display during a news conference held by Pierre Salinger in Paris Thursday, March 13, 1997. Salinger presented a set of radar images he said was taken from an air traffic control video from JFK airport where the TWA flight 800 took off July 17, 1996. This image reportedly shows the radar one second after the plane exploded. Letters CST (for COAST) under the TWA Flight 800 means that the plane is not sending any signal anymore.

Lona Middleton, a graduating senior at Montoursville High School, visits the graves of Wendy Wolfson and her mother Eleanor on June 5, 1997. The two were killed aboard TWA Flight 800.

The Evergreen 747 that simulated many of the conditions of TWA Flight 800 rolls down the tarmac at Kennedy Airport the evening of July 14, 1997 after arriving from Atlantic Beach.

James Kallstrom, assistant director of the FBI, holds a sheet of aluminum in front of the reconstructed fragments of TWA Flight 800 in Calverton on Wednesday, Nov. 19, 1997. Engineers at Boeing fired titanium fragments of such sheets to simulate the effect of a missile warhead explosion on a Boeing 747. The tests contributed to the conclusion that no missile struck TWA Flight 800. The plane exploded and crashed July 17, 1996, while en route from New York to Paris, killing all 230 people aboard. The FBI investigation found no evidence that a criminal act brought the plane down.

TWA Flight 800's landing gear at the Northrop Grumman facility in Calverton on Nov. 19, 1997.

A New York State trooper stands guard in front of the reconstructed wreckage of the Boeing 747 aircraft that was TWA Flight 800 in Nov. 19, 1997, in Calverton. At center is a strut that would normally support the right wing as well as the location of the central fuel tank widely believed to be the cause of the initial explosion. The FBI announced on Nov. 18, 1997 that it is closing its criminal investigation into the crash which killed all 230 people aboard after failing to find evidence to support theories that a bomb or missile brought the ill-fated flight down.

Joe Lychner of Houston, Texas, walks among fragments of TWA Flight 800 in Calverton on Nov. 19, 1997. Lychner lost his wife and two daughters in the crash.

TWA Flight 800 wreckage is rebuilt at the Northrop Grumman facility in Calverton, pictured on Nov. 19, 1997.

Lou Taylor of Honeywell showed components from the Fuel Quantity Indication System during his testimony in Baltimore, Md., on Dec. 9, 1997, the second day of NTSB public hearings on the TWA Flight 800 investigation.

Jim Hurd, left, who lost his son Jamie in the TWA 800 crash, sorts through personal belongings recovered from the wreckage at Calverton on June 6, 1998. Helping are NTSB personnel Sharon Bryson and Peter Goelz.

The reconstructed parts of the 747 which was once TWA Flight 800 is slowly moved into a new hangar at the old Grumman plant in Calverton on Sept. 14, 1999.

Inch by inch, a tractor trailer moves the reconstructed wreckage of TWA Flight 800 from the hangar where it was pieced together, to another hangar at the old Grumman plant in Calverton on Sept. 14, 1999.

Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani speaks to the families of those on TWA Flight 800 at the dedication of the memorial at Smith Point County Park on July 14, 2002.

Michael Press, a Navy Seabee reserve, puts the final touches on the TWA monument for the victims of TWA Flight 800 at Smith Point County Park on Wednesday, July 10, 2002.

Families and friend of those on TWA Flight 800 are pictured at the dedication of the memorial at Smith Point Park on July 14, 2002. Carol Olsen of Macon, Ga., puts a carnation below her daughter's name on the wall of those lost.

An aerial view of the TWA Flight 800 Memorial at Smith Point County Park are pictured on April 16, 2003.

The TWA Flight 800 Memorial at Smith Point County Park is pictured on Wednesday, July 12, 2006, nearly 10 years after the fatal crash.

A couple looks at the TWA 800 International Memorial, dedicated to the 230 people who died from an explosion on TWA Flight 800 in 1996, on June 19, 2013 in Shirley. The flight was en route to Paris when an explosion killed everyone on board. The reason for the explosion has been a source of controversy since the tragedy and a documentary suggests the final conclusions of the official investigation into the explosion may have been incorrect.

Families of the victims of TWA Flight 800 remember their loved ones at a ceremony at Smith Point County Park on July 17, 2015, 19 years after the jet exploded in midair in 1996, killing all 230 people on board.