Nevada scientists helping with TWA crash investigation

Friday, July 18, 1997 | 11:39 a.m.

Federal safety regulators asked scientists from the Desert Research Institute and University of Nevada, Reno, to help study vapors from fuels in a test plane.

A UNR scientist is analyzing fuel obtained from the Athens, Greece, airport where the flight took on fuel before flying to New York, according to a statement from the institute.

Investigators are trying to recreate the exact conditions to determine if the heating of the fuel by air conditioners located under the nearly empty center tank may have created a fatally explosive vapor inside the tank.

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