The investigation into the cause of the crash, one of the most complex in civil aviation history, officially ended in 2000. The pieces of the plane were packed into boxes, the NTSB Materials Laboratory chief said.
The NTSB began its lease of a building from GW at the Loudon County campus in 2003, and it has since remained the wreckage's storage facility, Wildey said. After an eight-week reconstruction, the plane began to serve as an educational tool, he said.
During Engineering and Technology Day, Wildey explained how the accident occurred to the group of high school students. Although the FBI originally blamed the crash on a criminal act, the NTSB determined that an electrical current was able to propagate through wires into the center section of the aircraft's fuel tank, which was full of flammable vapors, he said. Within six months, Wildey explained, the investigators decided that the explosion occurred in the center section of the wing tank.
Conspiracy theories about the ignition source and cause of the crash still circulate today. Wildey said the NTSB will continue utilizing the wreckage for educational purposes and that the downed plane's remains will stay at the Virginia campus indefinitely.
The NTSB began its lease of a building from GW at the Loudon County campus in 2003, and it has since remained the wreckage's storage facility, Wildey said. After an eight-week reconstruction, the plane began to serve as an educational tool, he said.
During Engineering and Technology Day, Wildey explained how the accident occurred to the group of high school students. Although the FBI originally blamed the crash on a criminal act, the NTSB determined that an electrical current was able to propagate through wires into the center section of the aircraft's fuel tank, which was full of flammable vapors, he said. Within six months, Wildey explained, the investigators decided that the explosion occurred in the center section of the wing tank.
Conspiracy theories about the ignition source and cause of the crash still circulate today. Wildey said the NTSB will continue utilizing the wreckage for educational purposes and that the downed plane's remains will stay at the Virginia campus indefinitely.
