In the Blink of an Eye : The FBI Investigation of TWA Flight 800 by Pat Milton - used book

Like the sinking of the Titanic, the crash of TWA Flight 800 just off Long Island, New York, in the early evening of July 17, 1996, captured the world's imagination. Associated Press reporter Pat Milton has covered the story from day one and was granted unprecedented access to the FBI investigation--the largest and most complex in the agency's history.

Initially suspecting that a crime had been committed, James Kallstrom, the head of the FBI's New York office, led the two-year investigation from the start. In the Blink of an Eye offers a rare look at the efforts of several government agencies--which often had different missions--to find the truth about the most mysterious and disturbing disaster in aviation history.
        
Commercial jets don't just fall out of the sky. So what happened? Was TWA's Flight 800 the first plane to be downed by enemy action within the United States? On the night of the crash, President Clinton told his national security advisors to ready a plan to retaliate if the destruction of Flight 800 proved to be a state-sponsored terrorist attack. If a bomb or missile had caused the disaster, Kallstrom was determined to find the perpetrators before they struck again. If it wasn't either of these, he was no less determined to preclude the sort of conspiracy theorizing that followed the Warren Commission report on the assassination of JFK.
        
As Kallstrom and his agents tried to piece together the sequence of events that preceded the explosion of Flight 800's center fuel tank, the victims' families also had to come to terms with the tragedy. Their anguish was as much on Kallstrom's mind as the details of the mystery itself. In this vivid account, Pat Milton takes us inside the homes and lives of the victims' families as well as inside the investigation, and as close to the real cause of the crash as we'll ever come., In the wake of the terrifying explosion of TWA Flight 800 on July 17, 1996, which killed 230 passengers and crew, speculation ran rampant as to the cause of the tragedy. Was it a bomb? A terrorist's missile? Did "friendly fire" from the U.S. government play a role? Rumors spread like brush fire while investigators laboriously fished the pieces of the huge 747 out of the waters off Long Island and began putting the plane back together, piece by piece, to find out the truth. Pat Milton takes us into the world of the FBI agents responsible for investigating Flight 800's horrific last flight. As the days and weeks dragged on for the investigators, public clamor turned up the heat for a suspect, or at least a final determination, one that wouldn't come for months. Milton's protagonist, FBI assistant director James Kallstrom, took the heat and shouldered the blame for a string of false leads, working the public as much as he worked the case--either way, it was a full-time job--and Milton captures the noble spirit of a dedicated man way past his breaking point and then extended further. In the Blink of an Eye works both as an exhaustive, exhausting memoir of a terrifying disaster and an elegant tribute to the dedication of the FBI and all the men and women who helped sort through the pieces to try to put some of Flight 800 back together again. --Tjames Madison