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Swissair Flight 111

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Recent History

   CAPTION: Swissair Flight 111

                                Summary
       Date         1998- 09-02
       Type        In-flight fire, subsequent instrument failure
       Site        Atlantic Ocean near St. Margarets Bay, Nova Scotia
    Fatalities     229
     Injuries      0
                               Aircraft
   Aircraft type    McDonnell Douglas MD-11
     Operator       Swissair
    Tail number    HB-IWF
    Passengers     215
       Crew        14
     Survivors     0

   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 September 2, 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 km from shore, roughly equidistant between
   the tiny fishing and tourist communities of Peggys Cove and Bayswater.
   All 229 people on board were killed.

   The resulting investigation by the Transportation Safety Board of
   Canada (TSB) took over four years and cost US$39 million ( CAD$57
   million). Their main conclusion was 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.

History

The aircraft and its crew

   The aircraft, a McDonnell Douglas MD-11, serial number 48448, was
   manufactured in 1991 and Swissair was the 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.

   The standard crew of MD-11 is a flight crew of a captain and a first
   officer, and a cabin crew of a maître de cabine (M/C) and 11 flight
   attendants. All personnel were qualified, certified and trained in
   accordance with Swiss regulations, under the Joint Aviation Authorities
   (JAA).

The flight

   Flight profile. Click to expand.
   Enlarge
   Flight profile. Click to expand.

   Flight SR-111 departed JFK at 8:18 p.m. ( EDT) with 215 passengers, 2
   pilots and 12 flight attendants en route to Geneva. At 9:10 p.m.,
   cruising at FL330, or 33,000 feet (about 10,060 m), the flight crew
   smelled an odour in the cockpit and determined it to be smoke in the
   air conditioning system. Four minutes later, the smoke was visible and
   the pilots began considering a diversion to a nearby airport for the
   purpose of a quick landing. At 9:14 p.m. the flight crew made a "
   pan-pan" radio call, indicating that an emergency exists but there is
   no immediate danger to the aircraft, and requested a diversion to
   Boston's Logan International Airport (300 nautical miles away), but was
   instead directed to the closer Halifax International Airport in
   Enfield, Nova Scotia, 66 nm (104 km) away. The crew then put on their
   oxygen masks and began descending.

   At 9:19 p.m. the plane was 30 nautical miles away from Halifax airport,
   but required more time to descend from its current altitude of 21,000
   feet. At 9:20 p.m. the crew informed ATC that it needed to dump fuel,
   and was subsequently diverted away from the airport. At 9:24 p.m., the
   crew declared an emergency. Aircraft systems, such as lighting, flight
   instruments, and the autopilot began to fail and as a result the crew
   slowly lost any means of successfully flying the aircraft. According to
   readings from seismographic recorders in Halifax and Moncton, the
   aircraft struck the ocean at 9:31 pm EDT (10:31 local time). The crash
   location was approximately 44°24.55′N 63°58.4′W, with 500 metres'
   uncertainty.

Recovery and investigation

   The aircraft broke apart 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
   were 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 finding the flight recorders. But this proved difficult as
   the force of impact (approximately 350 G), and the environmental
   conditions, only allowed recovery along with wreckage.

   The cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and flight data recorder (FDR) were
   found by the submarine HMCS Okanagan and quickly retrieved by divers
   (FDR on September 6 and CVR on September 11, 1998). However, both had
   stopped recording at approximately 10,000 ft, six minutes before
   impact.
   Canadian Coast Guard Ship Henry Hudson searches for Swissair Flight 111
   debris
   Enlarge
   Canadian Coast Guard Ship Henry Hudson searches for Swissair Flight 111
   debris

   On October 2, 1998 the Canadian Transportation Safety Board (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 October 21, 27% of the wreckage was recovered.

   At this point in the investigation, the cause of the crash was
   generally believed to be due to 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 August 30, 2000, but the final report was not
   completed until 2003.

   The final phase of wreckage recovery by dredging ended 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.

   As each piece of wreckege was brought in, it was carefully cleaned,
   sorted, and weighed. All items not considered significant to the crash
   were stored with similar items in large boxes. If deemed significant to
   the investigation, the item was documented and photographed. Particular
   attention was paid to any item showing heat damage, burns, or other
   unusual marks.

Cockpit

   The front 10m (33 feet) of the aircraft, from the front of the cockpit
   to near the front of the first-class passenger cabin, was
   reconstructed. Information gained by this allowed investigators to
   determine the severity and limits of the fire damage, its possible
   origins and progression.

CVR and FDR

   The cockpit voice recorder has only 30 minutes of tape, automatically
   recording on a loop. It also operated off the aircraft power, and
   stopped recording when the aircraft lost electrical power.

TSB Findings

   The investigation identified eleven causes and contributing factors of
   the crash in their final report. The first and most important was:

     Aircraft certification standards for material flammability were
     inadequate in that they allowed the use of materials that could be
     ignited and sustain or propagate fire. Consequently, flammable
     material propagated a fire that started above the ceiling on the
     right side of the cockpit near the cockpit rear wall. The fire
     spread and intensified rapidly to the extent that it degraded
     aircraft systems and the cockpit environment, and ultimately led to
     the loss of control of the aircraft.

   Arcing from wiring of the in-flight entertainment network did not trip
   the circuit breakers but ignited flammable covering on insulation
   blankets and quickly spread across other flammable materials. The crew
   did not recognize that a fire had started and were not warned by
   instruments. Once they became aware of the fire, the uncertainty of the
   problem made it difficult to address. The rapid spread of the fire led
   to the failure of key display systems, and the crew's ability to
   control the aircraft was soon overcome. Because he had no light by
   which to see his controls after the displays failed, the pilot was
   forced to steer the plane blindly; as a result, the plane swerved off
   course and headed back out into the Atlantic. Recovered fragments of
   the plane show that the heat inside the cockpit became so great that
   the ceiling started to melt.

   The recovered standby attitude indicator and airspeed indicator showed
   that the aircraft struck the water at 300 knots in a 20 degrees nose
   down and 110 degree bank turn, or almost upside down . Upon impact, the
   nose of the plane slowed down considerably: in less than a second, the
   tail of the plane, still moving at its original velocity, would have
   reached the nose, crushing the plane in between and killing all aboard
   almost instantly.
   Reconstructed cockpit during investigation
   Enlarge
   Reconstructed cockpit during investigation

   The TSB concluded that even if they had been aware of the nature of the
   problem, the rate of spread of the fire would have precluded a safe
   landing at Halifax even if an approach had begun as soon as the "
   pan-pan" was declared.

   The TSB made nine recommendations relating to changes in aircraft
   materials, electrical systems, and flight data capture. (Both flight
   recorders failed, along with main power, six minutes before impact.)
   General recommendations were also made regarding improvements in
   checklists and in fire-detection and fire-fighting equipment.

   The lack of flight recorder data for the last six minutes of the flight
   added significant complexity to the investigation and was a major
   factor in its duration. The Transportation Safety Board team had to
   reconstruct the last six minutes of flight entirely from the physical
   evidence. The plane was broken into millions of small pieces by the
   impact, making this process time-consuming and tedious. The
   investigation became the longest (five years) and most expensive (57
   million CAD) transport accident investigation in Canadian history.

Legacy

   Bayswater, Nova Scotia memorial.
   Enlarge
   Bayswater, Nova Scotia memorial.

   Two memorials to the victims have been established by the government of
   Nova Scotia. One is located east of the crash site at The Whalesback, a
   promontory 1 km north of Peggys Cove. The second memorial is a more
   private but much larger commemoration located west of the crash site
   near Bayswater Beach Provincial Park on the Aspotogan Peninsula. Here,
   the unidentified remains of the victims are interred.

   In September 1999 Swissair and Boeing offered the families of the
   passengers full compensatory damages. This was rejected in favour of a
   $19.8 billion suit against Swissair and DuPont, the supplier of Mylar
   insulation sheathing. The claim was rejected in a US federal court in
   February 2002.

   A number of famous or notable people died in this accident, including
   Joseph LaMotta, son of former boxing world champion Jake LaMotta, and
   Jonathan Mann, a well-known former head of the WHO's AIDS program. A
   number of works of art, including a piece by Pablo Picasso, were lost
   in the crash.

   After the crash, the flight route designator for Swissair's New
   York-Geneva route was changed to Flight 139.

   Since the crash there have been many television documentaries on Flight
   111, including episodes of disaster shows like History Channel's
   Disasters Of the Century and National Geographic's Air Crash
   Investigation.
   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swissair_Flight_111"
   This reference article is mainly selected from the English Wikipedia
   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
   of authors and sources) and is available under the GNU Free
   Documentation License. See also our Disclaimer.
