Swissair Flight 111 (SR-111, SWR-111) was a Swissair McDonnell Douglas MD-11 on a scheduled airline flight from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City, United States to Cointrin International Airport in Geneva, Switzerland. This flight was also a codeshare flight with Delta Air Lines.
On 2 September 1998 the aircraft used for the flight, registered HB-IWF, crashed into the Atlantic Ocean southwest of Halifax International Airport at the entrance to St. Margarets Bay, Nova Scotia. The crash site was 8 kilometres (5 mi) from shore, roughly equidistant between the tiny fishing and tourist communities of Peggys Cove and Bayswater. All 229 people on board died. It was the highest-ever death toll of any aviation accident involving a McDonnell Douglas MD-11.
The resulting investigation by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) took over four years and cost CAD 57 million (at that time approximately USD 38 million). The organization concluded that flammable material used in the aircraft's structure allowed a fire to spread beyond the control of the crew, resulting in the loss of control and crash of the aircraft.
Swissair Flight 111 was known as the "U.N. shuttle" due to its popularity with United Nations officials; the flight often carried business executives, scientists, and researchers.
History
Aircraft and crew
The aircraft, a McDonnell Douglas MD-11, serial number 48448 registered HB-IWF, was manufactured in 1991 and Swissair was its only operator. The airframe had a total of 36,041 hours. The three engines were Pratt & Whitney 4462s. The cabin was configured with 241 seats (12 first-, 49 business-, and 180 economy-class). First- and business-class seats were equipped with an in-flight entertainment system.
An MD-11 has a standard flight crew consisting of a captain and a first officer, and a cabin crew made up of a maître de cabine (M/C - purser) supervising the work of 11 flight attendants. All personnel on board Swissair Flight 111 were qualified, certified and trained in accordance with Swiss regulations, under the Joint Aviation Authorities (JAA).
Flight and crash
Flight SR-111 departed JFK at 20:18 EDT (00:18 UTC) with 215 passengers, 2 pilots and 12 flight attendants, en route to Geneva.
Delta sold the tickets for 53 of the Swissair passengers as part of a codeshare arrangement. Because Air Canada was being struck at the time, some passengers who would have flown on Air Canada instead flew Swissair 111.
At 22:10 Atlantic Time (01:10 UTC), cruising at FL330, or 33,000 feet (10,100 m), the flight crew—Captain Urs Zimmermann and First Officer Stephan Loew—detected an odor in the cockpit and determined it to be benign smoke from the air conditioning system, a common situation on airplanes normally easily remedied by closing the air conditioning vent, which a flight attendant did on Zimmermann's request. Four minutes later, the odor returned and now smoke was visible, and the pilots began to consider diverting to a nearby airport for the purpose of a quick landing. At 22:14 AT (01:14 UTC) the flight crew made a "pan-pan" radio call to ATC Moncton (which handles trans-atlantic air traffic approaching or departing North American air space), indicating that there was an urgent problem but not an emergency which would imply immediate danger to the aircraft, and requested a diversion to Boston's Logan International Airport (300 nautical miles (560 km) away). ATC Moncton offered the crew a vector to the closer Halifax International Airport in Enfield, Nova Scotia, 66 nm (104 km) away, which Loew accepted. The crew then put on their oxygen masks and the aircraft began its descent—Zimmermann put Loew in charge of the descent while he personally ran through the two Swissair standard checklists for smoke in the cockpit.
At 22:19 AT (01:19 UTC) the plane was 30 nautical miles (56 km) away from Halifax International Airport, but required more time to descend from its altitude of 21,000 feet (6,400 m). At 22:20 AT (01:20 UTC) the crew informed ATC Moncton that they needed to dump fuel, which ATC Moncton controllers would say later was a surprise considering that the request came so late when dumping fuel is a fairly standard procedure early on in nearly any "heavy" aircraft urgent landing scenario; ATC Moncton subsequently diverted Swissair 111 toward St. Margaret's Bay, where they could more safely dump fuel but still be only around 30 nautical miles (56 km) from Halifax. In accordance with the checklist In case of smoke of unknown origin , the crew shut off the power supply in the cabin, which caused the recirculating fans to shut off. This caused a vacuum which induced the fire to spread back into the cockpit. At 22:24 AT (01:24 UTC), Loew declared an emergency to ATC. Shortly after emergency declaration, the captain left his seat to fight the fire, which was now spreading to the rear of the cockpit. The captain did not return to his seat, and whether he was killed from the fire or asphyxiated by the smoke is not known. The first officer continued trying to fly the now-crippled airplane, and data later indicated that he shut down engine two approximately one minute before impact, implying he was still alive and at the controls until the aircraft struck the ocean at 22:31 AT (01:31 UTC). The aircraft disintegrated on impact, killing all aboard instantly. The crash location was approximately 44°24′33″N 63°58′25″W / 44.40917°N 63.97361°W / 44.40917; -63.97361 Coordinates: 44°24′33″N 63°58′25″W / 44.40917°N 63.97361°W / 44.40917; -63.97361 , with 300 metres' uncertainty.
Nationalities of passengers
Most of the passengers were American, French, and Swiss.
Originally Swissair stated that 39 Swiss, 30 French, 137 Americans, 1 Canadian, and 22 other people were on the flight. The numbers were later revised to 132 Americans (including one Delta Air Lines flight attendant), 41 Swiss (including 13 crew members), 30 French, 6 Britons, 3 Germans, 2 Greeks, 2 Lebanese, 1 each from Afghanistan, India, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, St. Kitts and Nevis, Sweden, and Yugoslavia, and 4 others.Recovery and investigation
The aircraft broke up on impact with the water, and most of the debris sank to the ocean floor (a depth of 55 m or 180 ft). Some debris was found floating in the crash area, and over the following weeks debris washed up on the nearby shorelines.
The initial focus of the recovery was on finding and identifying human remains, and on recovering the flight recorders, but this proved difficult as the force of impact was "in the order of at least 350 g ", and the environmental conditions only allowed recovery along with wreckage. Only one of the victims was visually identifiable. 147 were identified by fingerprint, dental records, and X-ray comparisons. The remaining 81 were identified through DNA tests.
The cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and flight data recorder (FDR) were found by the submarine HMCS Okanagan using sonar to detect the underwater locator beacon signals, and quickly retrieved by Navy divers (the FDR on 6 September and the CVR on 11 September 1998). However, both had stopped recording when the aircraft lost electrical power at approximately 10,000 ft (3,000 m), 5 minutes and 37 seconds before impact.
The survey and recovery, dubbed Operation Persistence was TSB guided with resources from the military, CCG, RCMP, and many others. The area was surveyed using route survey sonar, laser line scanners, and remotely operated vehicles to locate items, then recovered (initially by divers and ROV's, later by dredging and trawling).
On 2 October 1998 the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) initiated a heavy lift operation to retrieve the major portion of the wreckage from the deep water before the expected winter storms began. By 21 October, an estimated 27% of the wreckage was recovered.
At that point in the investigation, the crash was generally believed to have been caused by faulty wiring in the cockpit, after the entertainment system in the plane started to overheat. Certain groups issued Aviation Safety Recommendations. The TSB released its preliminary report on 30 August 2000, but the final report was not completed until 2003.
The final phase of wreckage recovery employed the ship Queen of the Netherlands to dredge the remaining aircraft debris. It concluded in December 1999 with 98% of the aircraft retrieved: approximately 126,554 kg (279,000 lb) of aircraft debris and 18,144 kg (40,000 lb) of cargo.
Examination
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