A government-industry task force has found that it would be too expensive to eliminate explosive vapors from airplane fuel tanks and that effective technology does not yet exist to do so.In 2002, people were fighting the FAA who said it was too costly to make fuel and tanks to avoid explosions, but your quote suggests that they had already DONE this before the TWA accident. If so, why are people still fighting about it?
This is the second time since the fatal 1996 explosion of a Trans World Airlines [TWA] B747 that inerting has been deemed cost-ineffective and that more research is needed. An ARAC-led study came to the same conclusion in 1998 (see ASW, July 20, 1998). This second effort, the outcome of which was anticipated, has come to the same conclusion.Two studies funded to conclude that it would be too expensive to make tanks that didn't explode, when Ray says that wouldn't explode?
Since the dawn of the jet age, 14 fuel tank explosions have occurred on commercial aircraft, killing more than 530 passengers and crew. The late Will Rogers, who lost his daughter in the TWA explosion, remarked during the course of the TWA accident investigation that the toll is a grim monument to a failed design practice.The industry has taken an approach that recognizes the presence of flammable vapors and minimizes the hazard by eliminating all potential ignition sources. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has challenged this philosophy, arguing that the hazard posed by explosive vapors in fuel tanks needs to be mitigated as the hunt for potential ignition sources has not succeeded.
Of course, I don't know how many of those explosions were caused by a "spark". Ray did qualify his statement, which suggests that this is the only time we had a spark which blew up a fuel tank.
Of course, you would hope there would be no chance of a spark in the fuel tank to begin with. While it's normal for tanks to become empty, it's not normal for sparks to be generated in the tanks. It's wouldn't be surprising if it only happened one time.
Of course, it DID happen before, with Apollo 13, but not in a fuel tank, but rather in an oxygen tank. Before Apollo 13, no spark had EVER caused an explosion in-flight (although there was a spark that caused a fire on the pad which killed three astronauts -- that was also the first and only time for that type of event).
In your quote's last sentence, it says "Until the Flight 800 tragedy, the only listed "fuel-tank explosion" in the 80-year-history" was a 737 in 1990. But my source says there have been 14. Maybe your source was still restricting to "spark-generated" explosions, otherwise they seem very far off (2 vs 14).
Of course, Ray doesn't believe TWA 800 had a fuel-tank explosion due to a spark, as he states categorically in your quote. That aside, not having any other wouldn't prove it didn't happen once, or that it couldn't happen again.
Obviously a lot of people are concerned enough to study the problem and suggest solutions.