Chapter 9 Summary

The man walking towards John and Kate is Sidney R. Siben, an investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board and one of the authors of the final report on the crash. Sidney tells John and Kate that there was no residue from an exploded missile found anywhere in the pieces of the center fuel tank, nor was there any evidence of a high-velocity explosion. Sidney explains that there was also no evidence that a missile went through the plane. He tells them that there is a very low probability that entry and exit holes could have been made by a kinetic missile without the researchers finding any evidence of them in the reconstructed center fuel tank. Sidney says that the explosion was most likely caused by a short circuit somewhere that mixed with fuel vapors and ignited a spark, and there is no...