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ASHBURN, Va. — A device to prevent airplane fuel tanks from exploding must be installed on certain passenger jets and cargo planes, federal officials said Wednesday, 12 years after such an explosion destroyed TWA Flight 800, killing all 230 people aboard.
The new safety requirement, announced by Transportation Secretary Mary Peters, applies to new passenger and cargo planes that have center fuel tanks like TWA 800, a Boeing 747, which exploded over the Atlantic Ocean off Long Island on July 17, 1996, after takeoff from New York’s Kennedy Airport.
The rule requires airlines to retrofit 2,730 existing Airbus and Boeing passenger planes built since 1991 with center wing fuel tanks with the changes in the next nine years.
