Catching up with Professor Scarry [AP-S Turnstile]

Readers of this column may remember Elaine Scarry, a Harvard English(!)professor, whose theory of how electromagnetic interference (EMI) might have caused the explosion and crash of TWA Flight 800 011 July 17, 1996, off Long Island, New York, was discussed in this space in August, 1998 [l]. After Professor Scarry published a long article, "The Fall of TWA 800: The Possibility of Electromagnetic Interference," in the April 9, 1998, issue of The New York Review of Books, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) "allocated several hundred thousand dollars for fresh research into EMI," and "Scarry's work was cited on the first page of a NASA study of EM1 commissioned by TWA 800 investigators."