(Something New ? ? ? Jim)
          Nose gear doors baffle TWA crash investigators
 September 5, 1997 Web posted at: 10:53 p.m. EDT (0253 GMT)
     NEW YORK (CNN) -- Federal officials investigating the crash of
 TWA Flight 800 are baffled by the recent discovery of impact damage
 on the doors that close over the front landing gear.
     According to several people involved in the investigation, for
 the last two weeks National Transportation Safety Board investiga-
 tors have been trying to figure out what could have caused the nose
 gear doors to blow inward -- and whether whatever caused that damage
 happened before the plane's center fuel tank exploded.
     Examiners who have been looking at crash wreckage for the past
 13 months are now said to be mystified about the significance of
 the damage on the doors, which are located below the flight deck
 and well forward of the plane's center fuel tank. The investigators
 are equally troubled by the fact that these nose gear doors were
 among the first things on the plane to have come off in flight.
     One crash investigator told CNN on Friday that the discovery
 keeps open the question of whether the fuel tank explosion was the
 primary or secondary event in the in-flight breakup of TWA flight
 800. But Shelly Hazle, an NTSB spokeswoman, downplayed the signif-
 icance, emphasizing that investigators will have to see how this
 newly discovered evidence fits into their theory of how the plane
 blew up.
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