CNN's Anderson Cooper mistakenly described TWA Flight 800, the plane that exploded over Long Island in 1996, as "shot down off the coast of Long Island", before hastily correcting himself:
"I apologize for misspeaking about that anniversary."
Thursday's crash of a Malaysian plane in Ukraine has been compared to TWA Flight 800, which crashed eighteen years ago on the same date--July 17. After a lengthy FBI investigation, a spark in the fuel tank was eventually found responsible for the explosion.