Originally Posted By: mattwithcats
It was an old early 1970's 747 "A" model, with the three windows on the second deck. A "131" model, first type ever built...
Almost 100,000 hours on the frame, and exceeded Boeing's limits on cycles (takeoff/landings) and on number of pressurizations of the cabin.
Three other 747-131's were stripped down and found to have deteriorating wiring...and a host of other problems.
Original -100 models of the 747 had 3 windows, but were modified to 9 windows in the early 70's including the TWA 747's.
No way a missile brought down that airplane. A heat seeking missile would go for one of the engines, not the cold fueslage. And no way you could keep 100-200 sailors quiet about shooting down an airliner.
Secondly, center tank pumps need fuel to keep them cool, on that flight, the center tank was almost empty, and per Boeing procedure, you run the center tank fuel pumps intil the fuel pressure light illuminates. Without the cool fuel around the pumps, the boost pumps get extremely warm. Combine a hot fuel pump with fuel vapors and you could get an explosion, like what happened on TWA 800.
I have seen fuel pumps that were removed from the center tank and the steel was color changed due to the extreme heat from being run without cooling fuel.
The problem was so serious that the NTSB and Boeing changed the procedure on the 747, 757, 767 airplanes to shut off the center tank fuel pumps with 1,000# of fuel remaining to ensure that the pumps were only run when there was cooling fuel available.
My .02