AS bad weather caused the suspension of the search for the flight recorders and more bodies crash off Long Island, there was increasing speculation that it was due to a terrorist act.
But the head of the anti terrorism task force, Mr Jim Kallstrom, said the FBI was not ready to declare the crash was an act of terrorism and take over the investigation. Up to now the FBI is assisting the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which is treating the crash as if it were an accident.
Mr Kallstrom was confident the investigation would discover what happened "whether in 24 hours or a week". If it turned out to be a terrorist act, "we will find the cowards who did this", he said.
Governor George Pataki of New York told reporters they could know by the weekend whether the crash was a terrorist act, but he refused to speculate on what the decision would be.
President Clinton's address at the opening of the Olympic Games was modified to strike a more sombre note than planned because of the crash and the shock it has caused.
The Director of the FBI, Mr Freeh, and the NTSB gave a secret briefing to selected senior politicians in Washington yesterday on the state of the investigation.
Reports from the briefing said the FBI claimed it would soon be in a position to declare that the crash was due to criminal or terrorist action and would be taking over the investigation.
Evidence that the crash was caused by an explosive device on the plan& is said to be coming from the wreckage of the aircraft rather than from the 104 bodies so far recovered.
The Suffolk County medical examiner, Mr Charles Wetli, said yesterday that some victims showed evidence of drowning which means that they could have been alive when they hit the water.
But they would have been unconscious or near death from the blast, he said.
Most victims died instantly from "the massive blunt force" of the explosion. "Death literally occurred in a heartbeat," Mr Wetli said.
The theory that the crash could have been caused by a missile based on a blip on the radar which was tracking the airliner until it crashed has now been discredited.
The Pentagon has said the blip was a false signal and not an indication a missile struck the aircraft. It would also have been well outside the range of a hand held heat seeking missile.
Meanwhile, the attacks by the Mayor of New York, Mr Rudolph Giuliani, on the TWA treatment of the relatives of the victims continued yesterday when he said he was given "false information and the runaround" by senior air line executives.
He rejected their excuses for the delay in releasing the passenger list because of NTSB and New York Police procedures as "not true".