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Article overview Published shortly after the accident, this is a compilation of the recent facts (at the time) about the Swissair flight 111 crash. Originally published in September 1998. Re-edited in December 1999. |
 t's Wednesday, September 2, 1998. On a nice evening, Swissair flight SR111, an MD-11, takes off from John F. Kennedy International Airport at New York, bound for Geneva's Cointrin Airport in Switzerland. It is nearly 8:15pm, EDT. On the plane, absolutely no one among the 229 passengers and crew thought that their 7-hour flight would be a little shorter than usual. Quite short, actually.
At nearly 9:14pm, Captain Urs Zimmermann sends an emergency message to the Boston ATC Center. There is smoke in the cabin and the cockpit. The Captain immediately anticipates an emergency landing in Boston. But it seems Halifax is a little closer, at 70 miles of distance. A little too close actually. The MD-11 has to turn around otherwise it will overshoot the runway. And it is too heavy to land, with 30 tons of fuel. So fuel must be jettisoned, to prevent any damage on landing. 
The Halifax International Airport received a call at 9:25pm from the Captain, announcing that he was dumping fuel in preparation for an emergency landing. He took the jet from 33,000 feet to less than 10,000 feet. The pilots then issued the ultimate distress call -- "Pan, pan, pan!" and indicate they must land immediately.
At 9:26pm, after the plane turns and turns and descends to 10,000 feet, nothing. The plane dissapears from the ATC Screens at Halifax and Moncton. 6 minutes later, flight 111 crashes near the village of Peggy's Cove, killing its 229 occupants, becoming the worst air disaster in the history of Swissair and commercial aviation in Switzerland. At that moment, two names will be frequently repeated in the news bulletins to come: "Peggy's Cove" and "Swissair". Two names that are bound to an ill-fated fame.  The airline and the aircraftSwissair has been advantaged in the last years by a very favorable reputation of good service and good safety record. The last accident goes back 19 years earlier, when a DC-8 overshot the runway in Athens. The MD-11 is a relatively safe aircraft too, with no major deadly accidents during its 8-year history. However, one detail is getting the attention: the plane's manufacturer, Boeing, says that most of the electrical wiring on the MD-11 was insulated with Kapton. It is an aromatic polymide tape banned from the U.S. Navy Planes, because of poor performance. The aircraft involved in the accident was introduced in August 1991. Shock and grief
On Friday, September 4, two chartered Swissair flights fly to Halifax, one from Geneva and Zurich, the other from New York. As one Canadian news reporter said, not only do the families have to experience the pain of losing a love one, but they also have to get there by airplane. The very hard and moving task of identifying the bodies is one of the "duties" of the mourners.
For some people, it's a relief. The sister of one victim says she is happy she died in a place so beautiful like Peggy's Cove, "as beautiful as Switzerland". Ironically, the image of the lighthouse in Peggy's Cove, that used to be a quality postcard and trademark of Nova Scotia, loses all its beauty with the accident. On Sunday, a memorial service is held at Peggy's Cove for the friends and relatives of the victims. Up to now, only 6 bodies have been identified. And the investigators and rescuers hesitate to talk about "bodies", as their condition is very poor. The "black boxes"
The very complex investigation, conducted by the Canadian Transportation Safety Board starts the day after the crash. On Sunday, September 6, the Flight Data Recorder, the first of the "black boxes", is found intact. The hope fades as one big deception emerges: the information recorded stops after the plane descended below 10,000 feet. According to the Chief Investigator of the CTSB, Vic Gerden, there could be a possibility that the MD-11 suffered an electrical failure.
However, on Saturday, September 12, the second "black box" is found. This time it is the Cockpit Voice Recorder. The CVR tapes the last 30 minutes prior to the crash, and tapes thanks to 4 microphones located at different points in the cockpit. It tapes everything, from the pilot's reactions (even if they do not speak to the Air Traffic Control) to the external sounds. The investigators affirm that they have a full 30 minutes of recording. The investigation and analysis will however take many weeks. Another flight 800?It is with a lot of sadness that we notice in this terrible accident many similarities with the previous crash of TWA flight 800. Let's take a look at them carefully.
More attention to air safety incidentsIt's with crashes like Swissair flight 111 that the eyes of the world are more and more turned to aviation safety. If this accident would have not happened, possibly no one would have known about two other emergency landings happening a few days later.
As a conclusion...airodyssey.net expresses its deepest sympathies to the friends and relatives of the tragedy of Swissair flight 111. This is the only precise amount of information available at the time this article was published. Probably the best source is Swissair's website itself, with very recent information on special press releases. We would like to affirm that one plane crash doesn't compromise the excellent safety record of the aviation industry, comparing with the higher danger of other means of transportation, such as the automobile, the train and the ferry. If you have to fly in the next couple of days, especially for the people travelling on the scheduled Swissair flight 111 to Geneva: DO NOT WORRY and enjoy your flight. Editor's note (Dec. 1999): We now know that the wiring insulation, Kapton, was banned by the U.S. Navy because of its lack of resistance to humidity and its flammability. We also know that the inflight entertainment system might have overheated, causing corrosion and eventually a spark in the wiring. Since then, Swissair has deactivated the inflight entertainment system from all its MD-11 flights, as a precaution. Also, flight 111, the scheduled New York-Geneva route, has been re-numbered, as most ill-fated flight numbers. Update (Oct. 2000): Two years after the air disaster, a Canadian made-for-TV movie portrays with much sensitivity the air disaster as seen by the families of the victims and the fishing community of Peggy's Cove. The story of one of the victim's mother and a fisherman is fictional, but the background is real. Its name is Blessed Stranger: After Flight 111 and was released on October 17, 2000 on CTV. Update (Apr. 2002): Swissair is gone forever. Swissair.Com displayed a very touching goodbye message. The new national airline of Helvetia, Crossair, changed its name to Swiss International Air Lines  , or simply "Swiss". In despite of its already critical financial situation, it is believed by many, including this author, that the tragedy of flight 111 contributed to the demise of this once proud airline.
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Both aircraft departed from the New York JFK Airport in the evening, bound for a trans-Atlantic flight. And both aircraft left around 8:15 - 8:20pm.