With this in mind, the NTSB staged an impressive experiment to recreate the conditions inside TWA 800’s CWT. They acquired fuel from the same supplier in Athens, flew it to JFK aboard a Boeing 747, left exactly 190 liters of it in the CWT, ran the air conditioning packs for two and a half hours, then took off within one minute of TWA 800’s actual departure time, on almost the same day of the year, using the same aircraft weight and configuration. The airplane then climbed along a trajectory which stayed within 1,000 feet, 20 knots, and one minute of TWA 800’s actual flight profile, while sensors monitored temperatures and fuel concentrations in the CWT. By the time the plane reached 13,800 feet, the temperatures in various parts of the CWT ranged from 38.3 to 51.7˚C, above the minimum ignition temperature of 36.4˚C, and the fuel-air ratio was 0.054, above the minimum ignition concentration of 0.038. The experiment therefore left no doubt that the fuel in TWA 800’s center wing tank was flammable at the time of the accident.
