AS EFFORTS to find more bodies and wreckage from the downed TWA jet off Long Island continued, President Clinton's attempts to rush anti terrorist measures through Congress hit a snag.
Hopes that the salvage team would discover definitive evidence yesterday that the crash was a terrorist action were not realised. The investigators said, however that the arrival at the scene of an additional navy salvage vessel would mean that large parts of the wreckage would soon be brought to the surface.
Republican members who control both Houses appeared to balk at some of the security proposals by Mr Clinton while indicating readiness to adopt an anti terrorist package. Democrats warned that the Republicans are also taking the opportunity to add their own proposals to reduce the rights of suspects.
President Clinton yesterday praised the G7 meeting of security ministers in Paris for approving the US action plan for international co operation against terrorism.
Speaking at a White House press conference with the Egyptian President, Hosni Mubarak, Mr Clinton said that the US security authorities "will explore the creation of a forensic scientific data base" for terrorists.
He said that the fight against terrorism must take place on three fronts: closer co operation between allies giving investigators "the tools they need" and increased security at airports and on aircraft.
The President admitted that in spite of his meeting with Congressional leaders on Monday to rush through new security legislation, there could be disagreement over his proposal to "tag" powder explosives to make it possible to identify the source of those used in terrorist attacks.
This proposal had earlier been opposed by the powerful National Rifle Association lobby. Republicans also say that such tags could be dangerous and cause accidents.
Meanwhile, the efforts to retrieve sections of the TWA jumbo jet from the bed of the Atlantic Ocean which would provide evidence of a bomb or missile attack were reinforced yesterday. The USS Grapple took up position over the site where the forward sections of the aircraft have been located.
The National Transportation Safety Board experts and FBI agents involved in the investigation are reported to be virtually certain that a bomb in the forward luggage hold caused the break up of the jet seconds before it exploded in a fireball about 12 miles off Long Island.
Almost 170 bodies of the 230 passengers and crew who died in the crash have now been recovered including the two Irish victims, Mrs Feeney and her daughter, Deirdre. The rescue team said that 153 bodies have been returned to their families.
Reuter adds: Investigators were pinning their hopes on an examination of the jumbo jet's front cargo area and first class and business sections, which investigators hoped to recover late yesterday as divers search for the remaining 62 bodies of the 230 people who died.
Officials believe the front of the Paris bound Boeing 747 broke off first and its wreckage lies closer to Kennedy International Airport where the flight took off.
The rest apparently remained airborne for several seconds before falling into the water and debris from that section stretches north east from the plane's front section.
The location of debris in two distinct areas lends weight to the theory that a bomb exploded in a forward cargo hold. Investigators are interested in examining the plane's cockpit, which has not been found, and the front cargo hold, which could be retrieved soon.
The tape from Flight 800's cockpit recorder ends with a brief, unusual noise. Similar sounds can be heard at the close of tapes from Pan Am Flight 103, which blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, and from French airline UTA Flight 772 that exploded over Chad the following year. The blasts on both those flights have been linked to bombs.