Flight Victims Memorial

Jet, July 31, 2000

U.S. Secretary of Transportation Rodney Slater, New York Gov. George Pataki, New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and family and friends of the victims of the infamous TWA Flight 800 explosion break ground for a memorial at Smith Point Park in Shirley, NY, near the site where the plane went down four years ago, killing all 230 people on board.

The memorial, which organizers expect to have built by next summer, will feature a 12-foot granite wall with the names of the victims. Flight 800 had just left New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport for Paris on July 17, 1996, when an explosion sent the plane plummeting into the ocean. The National Transportation Safety Board plans to meet in August to review reports and evidence from the crash and determine a final cause.