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But there is another way that a terrorist might have been able to breach security and get a bomb on board. Security experts call it the "Ramzi Yousef method," even though other terrorists have used it in the past. Yousef was arrested by U.S. agents in Pakistan in February 1995 for allegedly plotting an attack on U.S. airliners in the Pacific, as well as an assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II. Federal prosecutors allege that on Dec. 11, 1994, Yousef tested his larger plan for attacking the U.S. carriers by boarding a Philippine Airlines flight on the first leg from the Philippines to Japan. He carried with him the components for a bomb, unassembled in his carry-on bag. The X-ray operators never detected the components. On board the plane, Yousef allegedly went to the lavatory and assembled the bomb, which was made up of gun cotton, a nitroglycerin solution, an explosive detonator and a timer all packed into a contact-lens bottle. He then went back to his seat and tucked the bomb under the cushion. He left the plane after its first stop in the central Philippine city of Cebu with the device still under the seat. Two hours later, the device exploded, killing a passenger and forcing the plane to make an emergency landing in Okinawa.
U.S. counterterrorism officials are investigating whether such a scenario might have been played out on the TWA flight. The terrorist could have boarded the airliner in Athens with the unassembled bomb parts in a carry-on bag. At J.F.K., where maintenance and cleaning crews had only three hours to service the plane, all the baggage would have been cleared from the luggage compartments and underneath the seats. But crews probably would not have checked underneath all the seat cushions or opened up panels in the bathroom.
A relatively simple timer on the bomb could have been set to detonate after the airliner was airborne again. If this was the case, U.S. counterterrorism officials suspect the bomber wanted the device to go off much later in the flight, so the incriminating debris would be lost farther out in the Atlantic. The device could have malfunctioned and exploded early. That gives investigators a lucky break. With the crash occurring in 120-ft. water, "there will be a lot of stuff we can collect," says a U.S. intelligence official. "We'll find out what went on here. And if it was a bomb, we'll find out who made it."
SIFTING THROUGH THE WRECKAGE
Theory after theory flickered across the news last week, with reports of suspicious cargo that might have slipped onto the plane or of manifestos claiming responsibility for the deed. But any case for a bomb--and against bombers--begins with hard evidence from the crash site itself. And so last week the U.S. Coast Guard methodically raked up the debris off Long Island, 16 miles south of Moriches Inlet. Searchers ranged over an area of 240 square miles, neatly subdivided into nine grids. Each grid was systematically combed in a zigzag pattern; every piece of debris, of trash, every personal item and body part was picked up. More than 400 Coast Guard personnel aboard four helicopters, nine cutters and a C-130 plane are taking part in the recovery process. After everything has been scooped and strained out of the sea, the material will be examined by forensics specialists supervised by Tom Thurman, chief of the FBI laboratory's explosives unit.