FATE OF FLIGHT 800: THE INTERNET
Many Hits, Some Misses: The Post-Crash Web Rush
In the quest for information about the crash of Trans World Airlines Flight 800, computer users have turned in record numbers to the global computer network, in particular, the World Wide Web.
Several major news organizations, which had expected a surge in activity because of the Olympics, report that activity at their Web sites rose sharply immediately after the July 17 crash.
Individuals' sites devoted to the crash are reporting thousands of daily ''hits.'' That is an enormous number for such sites, which are usually uncatalogued and found through Web surfing.
The number of hits is not the same as the number of visits. Hits relate to the number of images on a Web page. The more complicated the page, the higher the number of hits when a visitor downloads, or views, it. Still, the operators say, these increases are so large that they are clearly caused by additional visitors.
CNN says traffic at its site quadrupled after the crash, to 3.9 million hits a day. The New York Times said the number of visitors increased by nearly half the day after the crash, with a total of one and a half million hits. That represents more than 500,000 pages downloaded.
USA Today, which has a section of its site devoted to the crash, said its site also broke records.
''When the T.W.A. crash occurred, the traffic in the news section surged,'' said Lorraine Cichowski, vice president and general manager of the USA Today Information Network in Arlington, Va. ''For the first time, we exceeded one million hits.''
What the visitors are seeing varies widely. Sites related to the crash range from the comprehensive to the cursory.
Among the most sophisticated are those created by news organizations like ABC News, CNN, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, Newsday and USA Today. The sites offer articles, sound clips and video recordings of news conferences and maps about Flight 800.
Although it would seem logical to go directly to sites created by institutions directly involved in the crash investigation, visitors often find little of interest. The site at Boeing, which manufactured the 747-100 jumbo jet, has no information about the flight. A site about Kennedy International Airport is also unrelated to the crash.
A T.W.A. site has a news release dated July 21 about memorial services.
The site of the National Transportation Safety Board has a table that lists nearly all airplane accidents in the United States since 1983, noting the type of aircraft, the number of fatalities and the locales of the accidents. The board has a listing for Flight 800, but little more.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation site offers a press release dated July 19 and an appeal for information, with an E-mail address and a toll-free telephone number.
Few Government sites are updated daily. The Navy site is a fascinating exception. It runs new articles on the findings almost daily, and it has details on who the Navy divers are, equipment and photos of wreckage.
A few indviduals' sites are strictly informational. Harro Ranter, working in the Netherlands, created a site called Civil Aviation Safety Documentation Archive. That site, in English, includes a link to the latest news about the investigation and a history of 747 jetliner accidents. Mr. Ranter said he had 1,400 hits by Saturday.
''Every time there's a catastrophe in the U.S., the on-line services are the new way to communicate,'' said Joshua Harris, president of Pseudo Programs Inc., a Web service in New York. ''There are the official sites, and then there's the quarterback theorists. That's what makes the Internet interesting. You can get at what people think.''
The most impressive -- and unusual -- sites memorialize the victims. Residents of Montoursville, Pa., which lost 21 people including 16 youths on a trip by the high school French Club, have established a variety of sites. One resident, Steve Bonnell, created Point de Repere, for point of reference, with photographs and diary entries.
''After a week or so, most of the newspaper articles will be gone,'' Mr. Bonnell said. ''But I wanted something a little more permanent. To us they were real people. This site just personalizes their names.''
Another site was created by a local Internet provider, Pennet.
Some sites commemorate friendships that existed only on the Net. Ryan Freebern, 16, a high school junior in Hudson Falls, N.Y., created a page as a tribute to a victim from Montoursville, Ana Duarte-Coiner, 12, who was traveling to Paris with her mother, Constance, an associate professor of English at the State University at Binghamton.
Ryan and Ana were members of an Internet news group and had E-mailed each other several times but had never met or talked by telephone. After learning of her death, Ryan, an adept programmer, obtained free Web space from his user group and posted text and color photographs of Ana as she played the piano and worked at her computer.
''Ana was known by all as an energetic, clear-headed, smart, talented, creative girl within whom the spark of genius glowed,'' Ryan wrote on his page, which had 2,500 hits from July 27 to Saturday. ''All the people who wrote anything for this page, including myself, met Ana through the Internet. This page is devoted to her memory.''
WHERE TO GO
HTTP://WWW.NYTIMES.COM/
The New York Times
https://ift.tt/2TlL6XZ
Los Angeles Times
https://ift.tt/38oie5o
USA TODAY
https://ift.tt/2TlCHnq
CNN
https://ift.tt/38oieCq
Newsday
https://ift.tt/2TlO1jc
ABC Radionet
HTTP://WWW.TWA.COM
T.W.A. Website
HTTP://WWW.NTSB.GOV
National Trasportation Safety Board
https://ift.tt/2InggHP
Federal Bureau of Investigation
https://ift.tt/2x8q4TW
Navy
https://ift.tt/38eMXSw
Point de Repere
HTTP://WWW.PENNET.NET/
Pennet, local service provider
https://ift.tt/2Ik0a1Y
Civil Aviation Safety Documentation Archives
https://ift.tt/32Nvcsg
''Ana: A Tribute and Memorial to Ana Duarte-Coiner''
from Hacker News https://ift.tt/2v0dZ2A
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