TWA Flight 841 (1974)
- For the 1979 incident on the same flight number, see TWA Flight 841 (1979).
| Occurrence | |
|---|---|
| Date | September 8, 1974 |
| Summary | Terrorist bombing |
| Site | Ionian Sea |
| Aircraft type | Boeing 707-331B |
| Operator | TWA |
| Registration | N8734-disaster |
| Destination | New York |
| Passengers | 79 |
| Crew | 9 |
| Fatalities | 88 |
| Injuries | 0 |
| Survivors | 0 |
On September 8, 1974, a Boeing 707-331B (tail number N8734) operating as TWA Flight 841 took off from Ben Gurion International Airport, Tel Aviv en route to JFK International Airport, New York City. It was scheduled to land in Athens, followed by Rome, and then proceed to New York. After stopping for 68 minutes in Athens, it departed for Rome. After leaving the Greek mainland, the pilot reported that one of the engines was on fire and was going to try to land on the island of Corfu. Shortly thereafter, the plane lost contact with ground control. Eighteen minutes after takeoff, the plane crashed into the Ionian Sea. All 79 passengers and nine crew members were killed.
Although the idea of terrorism was initially scoffed at, the National Transportation Safety Board determined later that the plane was destroyed by a bomb hidden in the cargo hold, which caused structural failure resulting in uncontrollable flight.
A youth organization in Beirut claimed responsibility for putting a guerilla on board with a bomb, and suspicion has fallen on Abu Nidal and his terror organization. This was the first known instance of a young Arab boarding an American plane in a suicide mission, predating the September 11 attacks by nearly three decades.<ref name="Werth">
External references
- AAR 75-07 Boeing 707 Ionian Sea Crash
- Barry Werth, 31 Days: Gerald Ford, The Nixon Pardon and a Government in Crisis (New York: Simon and Schuster). 1979. ISBN 978-1400078684