Seventeen years ago today, the lives of 230 men, women and children were snuffed out and the lives of their families and friends were forever changed. At 8:31 p.m. ET on July 17, 1996, TWA Flight 800 fell from the sky in a sickening fireball of debris and human carnage, plunging into the Atlantic Ocean about 8 miles off the southern coast of Long Island, New York. It was only twelve minutes into its flight from John F. Kennedy International Airport en route to Rome, Italy, with a scheduled stopover in Paris when the flight, like the lives of those aboard, was abruptly and prematurely terminated.