Its strongest asset, a name known throughout the world, might indirectly but no less ironically push TWA closer to the financial brink on which it has been teetering for four decades, experts said Thursday.

With a logo that, to international air travelers, is as recognizable a symbol of America as the Washington Monument, TWA is a logical target for terrorists seeking to strike against the United States -- if indeed that proves to be the case.

By frightening prospective customers more than a mechanically caused crash, industry observers say, a bombing could do what airline deregulation, fare wars, two bankruptcies, labor trouble, crushing debt and an aged fleet could not do -- destroy TWA. The bombing of a Pan American World Airways plane over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 was one of the final blows that contributed to the death of that airline, another American icon.

"It is, of course, going to hurt them," said Lee Howard, president of Airline Economics International Inc., a consultancy based near Atlanta, noting that TWA already is in a weakened condition, as was Pan Am.

He predicted the disaster would severely affect international flying, particularly pleasure trips. And TWA's low fares make it heavily dependent on leisure travel, particularly international travel, which normally is the most lucrative for an airline.

But, Howard noted, experts have been wrong before about TWA; some predicted it would not survive last winter. And, despite one of the airline industry's more tumultuous histories, the airline that traces its roots almost to the industry's beginnings in the 1920s remains the United States' seventh largest.

And, at least until Wednesday night, its financial health had been improving.

The St. Louis-based airline remains a major employer in the New York area, where it once was based. While up-to-date figures were unavailable Thursday, the airline had about 6,200 of its 23,000 employees based in the New York area a year ago.

Whatever its effects, the crash will at least be another bump for the airline whose name has been at one time or another preceded by the descriptives "troubled" and "struggling" since the 1950s, when reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes, who controlled it, ordered 76 new planes and saddled it with huge debt. But it was deregulation in the late 1970s and the new competition and fare wars that brought trouble.

It was ripe for takeover in the 1980s and corporate raider Carl Icahn took control of it in 1986. Icahn transferred control of the considerably shrunken airline back to employees and creditors. In return for their 45 percent stake, employees gave the second round of givebacks in six years. In 1994, they gave more -- and reduced their stake to 30 percent in return for debt forgiveness from creditors. In the midst of all that, there were two Chapter 11 bankruptcy filings.

But in February, it announced plans to buy 20 new 757s to replace some of its 186 aircraft. On Wednesday, hours before the crash, it had reported a $25 million profit for the second quarter, more than quadruple the level a year earlier. TWA seemed on its way to making its first yearly profit since 1991, says Aaron Taylor, market research manager for Avitas Aviation, a consulting firm in Reston, Va. The current quarter, the third, normally is its most profitable. "They were not out of the woods," he said, "but they were definitely getting their house in order for the first time in a long time."

But, he said, given its dependence on leisure travel across the Atlantic to Europe, which is heaviest in the summer, the disaster Wednesday night could not have come at a worse time for TWA.