Officials give conflicting reports on Flight 800;

By Fred Kaplan, Globe Staff and Pamela Ferdinand, Globe Correspondent

NEW YORK

Divers yesterday found a huge chunk of the jumbo jet that exploded over the ocean off Long Island, and saw dozens and dozens of bodies inside, Gov. George Pataki told reporters last night.

But Robert Francis, vice chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said at a news conference that he had no knowledge of that discovery.

"There are no bodies that we have discovered that have not been recovered," he said.

Francis did say that the 30-by-60 foot piece of the frame that Pataki mentioned comprises "a pretty high percentage of the aircraft wreckage."

Pataki said the piece might be raised to the surface as early as today when a Navy salvage ship - equipped with heavy chains, robotic recovery gear, video scanners and 23 additional divers - goes into full operation.

The divers who located the chunk of aircraft yesterday can stay in the water for 13 to 18 minutes at a time. However, the divers from the Navy salvage ship, connected with much larger oxygen pumps, can stay underwater for 90 minutes, officials said.

Meanwhile, investigators said they still do not know what caused the midair explosion of TWA Flight 800 last Wednesday night shortly after it took off from John F. Kennedy Airport enroute to Paris. Nor have the plane's "black boxes" - the cockpit voice and flight data recorders - been found.

And there continued to be conflicting reports about whether chemical traces of a bomb had been detected on a fragment of the plane. Late Monday night, two federal officials said special machines had detected such chemical traces. However, one of these officials and several others said yesterday that further tests revealed no such traces, after all.

One official said preliminary analysis of the debris is handled by portable machines that occasionally indicate positive signs of explosive chemicals when, in fact, none are present.

"It is only natural we will have conflicting reports," another official said.

The confusion spread to Washington yesterday. White House chief of staff Leon Panetta told reporters on Air Force One that "chemical leftovers" on parts of the wreckage had been shipped to the FBI lab. Later in the day, White House spokesman Mike McCurry denied any chemical traces had been found, noting that Panetta is "not an expert in forensic analysis."

President Clinton, on a campaign trip, said: "Finding various traces of things may indicate that something happened, and it may not. . . . Right now, the people who have been looking at this have not drawn any firm conclusion that's been relayed to any of us."

Officials said the piece of aircraft found yesterday could provide crucial clues to the mystery of the explosion. Pataki said an Air National Guard C-130 transport plane was flying another large piece of the wreck, recovered earlier, to Washington for more analysis. Panetta said that analysis should be completed in two or three days.

As of last night, the bodies of 108 of the 230 victims had been recovered from the sea. Medical examiners had positively identified 78 and tentatively identified another 10.

Robert Bontempi, a spokesman for the Suffolk County medical examiner, said his office is now working around the clock, with the assistance of French, Italian, Swiss and Norwegian doctors.

Bontempi said blood is being taken from relatives of victims so that they might be identified through DNA comparisons. He also asked relatives for more data - photos, dental and fingerprints records or child ID programs - to expedite the process.

The Associated Press reported that the medical examiners are giving material found on or in the bodies - plastic, wood, and metal - to the FBI as clues of what might have caused the explosion.

The FBI has conducted more than "1,300 interviews" in the course of investigating the crash, said James Kallstrom, the assistant FBI director in charge of the investigation.

Investigators continue to explore three possible sources of the explosion: a bomb inside the plane, a missile fired at the plane from a boat or a catastrophic mechanical failure. But a source familiar with the investigation said: "There is little doubt among anyone that this will turn out to be some kind of device."

Although many discount the possibility of a missile fired from the water, FBI agents have spent the last several days pursuing all leads in that direction.

For example, rumors circulated yesterday that a marina security guard in Center Moriches, Long Island, reported a stolen boat the night of the crash. It turned out to be untrue; the guard said he had not known the owner had loaned the boat to friends.

There were also rumors that a suspicious couple rented a boat the night of the crash and never returned. Robert Grant and Fred Byron, both of nearby Manorville, did pay a $ 66 deposit on a boat slip at the Center Yacht Club, but they decided to use another marina. The FBI checked out both rumors.

Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said radar tapes have shown no sign of anything that looked like a missile in the vicinity of the 747 jet before it exploded and crashed into the ocean. However, he also noted that missiles, such as shoulder-fired Stingers, would have been hard for radar to see.

MSNBC News reported last night that a US spy satellite detected the explosion of the airplane, but was unable to determine what might have caused the explosion.

John Pike, a military analyst for the Federation of American Scientists, said the satellite was probably the CIA's Satellite Data System II. There are three such satellites, orbiting at an altitude of 25,000 miles, in a pattern that allows the three, together, to cover virtually the entire area of the globe at any one time.

The satellites are equipped with a long-range, high-resolution TV camera with a sensor, known as the Heritage, that detects objects by the heat they emit. The data are transmitted to a ground station almost instantly. Pike said the Heritage would be able to see the "fireball" that eyewitnesses said engulfed the plane that night. It would also be able to distinguish an explosion from a fire by noting how rapidly the "heat signature" expanded.

On Monday, the FBI also asked the Massachusetts State Police to send bomb-sniffing dogs from Logan Airport to the Long Island hangar where pieces of the plane and luggage are being gathered and reassembled.

Joseph Lawless, director of public safety at the Massachusetts Port Authority, said the dogs can pick up the scent of nitrates in a wide variety of explosives. Three troopers and two dogs arrived yesterday.

The search effort will be coordinated, starting today, by the USS Oak Hill, a 609-foot Navy vessel that will serve as a floating command center, CNN reported yesterday.

President Clinton also dispatched James Lee Witt, director of the Federal Emergency Management Administration, to monitor the situation. Panetta said Clinton "will stay in touch . . . and try to decide on an appropriate forum . . . to share concerns with the families."

Some family members have expressed surprise that they have not yet heard from the president as they wait for the bodies of their relatives to be pulled from the sea.

Six days after friends and relatives began gathering at the Ramada Inn near the airport, about 45 families began packing their bags to go home. But at least 130 more families decided to stay.

Joseph Ortiz, of Clearwater, Fla., said he will not go home until his niece, Virginia Holst, is recovered and identified.

"I still have faith in God that we are going to find her soon," Ortiz said.