SEARCHERS have recovered the fourth engine from the Trans World Airlines jumbo jet that exploded over the Atlantic Ocean last month, according to radio reports in New York yesterday.
The engine found on Thursday was badly mangled, with three turbine blades either sheered off or missing, the radio said. The engine could provide more evidence about the cause of the Boeing 747's crash on July 17th.
TWA Flight 800 exploded about 11 minutes after takeoff from New York's John F Kennedy International Airport on a flight to Paris. The plane crashed into the sea off New York's Long Island all 230 passengers and crew died.
Searchers recovered two more bodies yesterday, bringing the total found to 204. About half the wreckage has been pulled from the sea so far.
The chief federal law enforcement official investigating the crash said the piece of evidence needed to prove that a criminal act brought down the jet might never be found, the New York Times reported.
In an interview, Mr James Kallstrom, assistant director of the FBI in New York, said the unspecified piece might be no larger than a football and could be lost in sand at the bottom of the sea.
Finding it would call for a stroke of luck, he said.
Investigators say there are three prevailing theories of what caused the crash a bomb, a missile or catastrophic mechanical failure.
But the lack of any obvious evidence such as chemical residue from explosives to either prove or eliminate these theories leaves crash detectives mystified.
Mr Kallstrom said most evidence and intelligence so far tended to support the theory that a bomb destroyed the plane. But investigators will not begin chasing possible suspects until the cause has been determined.
"We can't charge somebody with bombing an airplane if we can't show the airplane was bombed," he said.
Meanwhile, for the second time in as many days, a piece of an aircraft has fallen out of the sky on to a New York street. Police said an eight foot long wingflap was found yesterday morning by a resident of Howard Beach, in the borough of Queens near John F Kennedy International Airport.
"The wing flap, which is of unknown origin, apparently fell to the ground," a police spokeswoman said.
On Wednesday night, a Delta Air Lines jetliner was forced to make an emergency landing because of an engine failure that also resulted in a 10 inch (2 cm) piece of metal dropping from the engine on to houses and a car in Flushing, Queens. No one was inured in either incident.