AS EXPERTS examined the flight recorders from last week's TWA plane crash President Bill Clinton announced new, tighter airline safety measures yesterday.
The flight recorders detected a brief, unexplained sound prior to the crash, an investigator said.
The cockpit voice recorder, which divers found late on Wednesday along with the flight data recorder in the waters off the coast of Long Island, New York, captured a "brief fraction of a second sound just prior to end of the tape," the National Transportation Safety Board Vice Chairman, Mr Robert Francis, told reporters.
Mr Francis said investigators, who were examining the tapes in Washington, did not yet know what the sound was. He said the recording ended abruptly 11-1/2 minutes after take off.
The 31 minute tape recorded the crew conducting a normal preflight check procedure and a normal departure from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport on July 17th as it took off for Paris.
Mr Francis reported that 12 more bodies were recovered yesterday, bringing the number of dead recovered to 126.
The FBI's Assistant Director, Mr James Kallstrom, said the crash had yet to be classified as a criminal investigation, but that the FBI was treating it as if were at this point.
The measures announced by Mr Clinton include hand searches of more carry on luggage, more intense screening of checked bags and pre flight inspections on all international flights. "From now on we will hand search more luggage and screen more bags," Mr Clinton said.
"And we will require pre flight inspections for any plane flying to or from the United States - every plane, every cabin, every cargo hold, every time.
The president also announced he had directed Vice President Al Gore to head a commission to study air safety, security and the "pace of modernisation" of the nation's air traffic control system.
The President earlier met the investigators of the TWA flight 800 crash, just as the inquiry moved a step forward with the discovery of black boxes.
Mr Clinton first had a briefing with the lead investigators, then went to the Ramada hotel near New York's John F. Kennedy airport to meet families of some of the victims.
The grieving friends and relatives gave President Clinton a standing ovation after he addressed them, a diplomatic source said. The president told the crowd authorities were doing everything in their power to find the bodies and determine the cause of the mid air explosion. He greeted the families individually.
The families have been angry at the slow pace of the recovery and identification of bodies.
"It is a very good thing that the [President Clinton] is doing, said the New York Republican, Senator Al D'Amato, who sat in on the briefing. "It is very important for the families."
Mr Clinton was accompanied on his New York trip by the French ambassador, Mr Francois Bujon, and the Italian ambassador, Mr Ferdinando Salleo. There were more than 40 French nationals and an estimated 11 Italians on the flight.
President Jacques Chirac yesterday sent Ms Anne Marie Idrac, Minister for Transport, to New York to meet the French families.
. In London, the Home Secretary, Mr Michael Howard, proposed a three point plan for international co operation against terrorism, including changes in UN policies on extradition and granting asylum.
The proposals include a framework for sharing expertise in dealing with and preventing attacks, a UN resolution against the planning, incitement or funding of terrorist acts, and a strengthening of anti terrorist legislation around the world.