Meanwhile, Sanders says that, partly as a result of learning about the holes in the wing debris, he has changed his mind to some degree about the accident. Around midafternoon he saw a naval warship about three miles offshore. Seward thought nothing of it at the time, but when Pierre Salinger came out with his allegation that TWA 800 had been shot down by a U S. Navy missile, Seward wondered if the ship he saw might have played a role in the mystery. The NTSB and FBI refused comment on Seward's sighting, and the navy, although it has admitted that three of its submarines were within 150 miles from the crash site, reiterated that none of its warships was in the vicinity. Naval destroyers and cruisers capable of 30 knots or more rarely travel at that speed because it is so expensive.
Commercial shipping goes much slower as a rule.
Thirty knots may be in the range of some small speedboats and private yachts, but then consider that this was quite a way out in the Atlantic. Neither the navy nor the Coast Guard has made any comment on the 30-knot track, or any of the other unidentified tracks, which were moving more slowly, all within six nautical miles of the crash site. We assume it was a pleasure craft of some size. The FBI's James Kallstrom said last November that the FBI made an exhaustive investigation of 371 vessels in the waters off Long Island that day.