Between the High School & Broad Street in Montoursville stands an area with 21 trees, and a circular brick walkway. In the center stands a statue of an angel, facing west. Around the base of the statue are inscriptions, including bible verses in English, and in French.
On the evening of July 17 1996, 16 members of the french club at Montoursville High School, along with 5 chaperones, boarded a plane at Kennedy airport, for the French Club trip to Paris. The plane left at 8:02pm, but just twelve miles off the coast of Long Island, it exploded in midair, killing all of those on board. Including the 21 residents of Montoursville.
“Flight 800 had just received clearance to initiate a climb to cruise altitude when it exploded without warning. Because the plane was loaded with fuel for the long transatlantic journey, it vaporized within moments, creating a fireball seen almost all along the coastline of Long Island." -history.com
To this day, theories persist that it was a bomb, or an accidental missile fire that destroyed the plane. The NTSB officially ruled that the cause of the explosion was likely a mechanical failure - a short circuit that ignited fuel vapors as the pilots were shifting fuel to better balance the airplane.
The TWA Flight 800 International Memorial is located at Smith Point County Park in Shirley, Long Island, New York. It opened on July 17, 2002. The memorial, which also includes gardens, has flags from the 13 countries of the victims, a curved black granite memorial with the names of the victims engraved on one side and a wave releasing 230 seagulls on the other
The Memorial in Montoursville was built and dedicated in 1999.
In 2011 a room in the General John Burrows Historical Society was also dedicated to the memory of those who perished on TWA flight 800.
But a larger memorial is in the tradition of Twenty One Random Acts Of Kindness, performed each year on the anniversary of the crash. Citizens over the years have taken 21 flowers to distribute at a local hospital or nursing home, delivered
bakery treats. One woman passes out money each year, another, candy.
More than 20 years have passed since the crash, but in the town of Montoursville, population 5,500, there's no need to explain why you are passing out 21 sunflowers on July 17th. It's a loss that will be felt greatly for still many years to come.
Steve Bagwell's Photos Of the Flight 800 Memorial In Montoursville can be seen here:
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Nelson Demille's Book Night Fall (fiction, book 3 in his John Corey series)
is based on the Flight 800 Crash
There were quite a few books written about the crash, and the cover up.
In 2013 a Documentary about the "Flight 800 Cover Up"
An independent scientist and members of the official investigative team, explain why they do not believe mechanical failure caused this crash.
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