In the Blink of an Eye: The FBI Investigation of TWA Flight 800

by Pat Milton

Random House, $26.95 hard

If the Waco debacle was the FBI’s darkest hour, then surely its investigation of the crash of TWA’s flight 800 was its finest. Associated Press reporter Pat Milton’s In the Blink of an Eye pulses with the urgency of a piece of detective pulp fiction. On July 17, 1996, TWA flight 800 took off from Kennedy airport bound for Paris. Thirty minutes later it blew up just off Long Island. What followed was the biggest, most exhaustive investigation in the FBI’s history.

The FBI was involved to determine whether the cause was criminal, and the popular consensus was overwhelmingly in favor of the likelihood of criminal activity. More than 200 eyewitnesses to the catastrophe reported seeing arcing, fire-cracker type objects in the sky just prior to the crash. Though not one of the eyewitnesses used the term “missile” to describe what they had seen, it didn’t take long for that term to be freely bounced around as the possible, or even probable, cause of the disaster, which killed all 230 of its passengers.

In the Blink of an Eye takes the reader inside the investigation and its profound effects on those working on it almost nonstop. Far from being a dry, ponderous account of a bureaucratic job, the book throbs as it reveals the commitment and passion of its head investigator, James Kallstrom, and the scores of people under his command. Further, the colossal human loss is achingly realized as some of the ordinary details of the lives of several of the passengers are revealed, and the crushing grief of their survivors is exposed.

Milton performs an extraordinary feat in conveying the heroic scope of the investigation. She also pulls off the remarkable task of taking herself completely out of the story. This is one reporter who doesn’t feel that the story of her getting the scoop is the story! And while the FBI’s conclusion that the cause of the crash was not criminal in nature is frustrating, the tight and careful account of their journey is thoroughly satisfying.

This article appears in October 8 • 1999.

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