Summary
- Swissair Flight 111 lost control and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean when arcing wires from the in-flight entertainment system came into contact with insulation, causing a fire in the cockpit.
- The crew followed the checklist but shutting off the fans caused the fire to spread and the captain was unable to put out the fire and eventually lost control of it.
- The Transportation Safety Board of Canada found that inadequate material flammability standards were the primary cause of the crash, with other contributing factors including rapid power loss and loss of control.
That was September 2, 1998. Swiss International Air Lines Flight 111 was preparing to take off from John F. Kennedy International Airport and was bound for Geneva Cointrin Airport in Switzerland. McDonnell Douglas MD-11 There were 215 passengers and 14 crew members on board. Crew As usual, a safety demonstration was conducted during taxi and ensuring the cabin was ready for takeoff.
crew
The captain was Urs Zimmerman and the co-pilot was Stefan Loew. The crew was led by cabin foreman Rene Oberhansli. His crew that day were: Irene Betrisey, Raphael Birkle, Patricia Eberhart, Jeannine Pompili, Seraina Pazeller, Colette Furter, Anne E. Castioni, Regula Reutemann, Peter Schwab, Brigit Wiprachtiger and Florence Zuber. Most of the crew were Swiss, with two Americans.
flight
Swissair Flight 111 took off at 20:18. Strangely, there was no communication with air traffic control (ATC) for 13 minutes after takeoff. Presumably, the radio was not tuned to the correct frequency. At 22:10, the crew smelled a strange odor in the cockpit. They thought it might be coming from the air conditioning system.
Four minutes later, they detected smoke again and smelled several fumes of smoke. They called a crew member working in first class to check if she smelled the odor. She confirmed that there was a smell and said it was not in the cabin. At this time, the crew should be providing meal service on the MD-11 and should be busy in the cabin.
Panpan and transfer
The pilot radioed “Pan-Pan” to Moncton ATC but did not declare an emergency. They requested to divert to Boston before accepting ATC’s advice to divert to Halifax, which was closer. They were handed off to Halifax ATC. The captain called the lead pilot, Rene, and told him they were diverting to Halifax.
Rene announced to the passengers that they would be diverting to Halifax and landing in 20 minutes. The crew would clear the cabin and begin preparations for landing. A crew member was called into the cockpit to get the captain’s flight bag so that he could get the charts for the flight to Halifax. There was no sign of smoke in the cabin.
No state of emergency declared?
The crew is now on oxygen. Air traffic control informs them that they are only 55 kilometers from the airport. They request to pull away so that they can descend from 21,000 feet and dump fuel to lighten the aircraft for landing. They follow the “unidentified smoke” checklist. There is no sign of an emergency in the cockpit.
Little did they know, electrical wiring from the newly installed in-flight entertainment (IFE) system had arced, igniting the insulation above the cockpit. The smell was coming from the ceiling through the air conditioning vents.
What happened next?
Following the checklist, the crew shut off the cabin power, stopping the ceiling fan from circulating. The cabin was completely dark. Ironically, due to a design flaw, the in-flight entertainment system was still on. The crew returned to their respective stations to collect flashlights. Rene announced that the lights were off, but they should remain calm.
Unfortunately, turning off the fans caused the fire to spread in the cockpit. The fans directed the fire from the cockpit to the galley. The power to the autopilot was also cut and they now had to fly the plane manually. Inside the cabin, the crew used flashlights to secure the cabin for landing. They still did not realize that this was an emergency.
Declaration of a state of emergency
Ten minutes later, they would declare an emergency, and that would be the last communication. The fire destroyed system after system, but they kept flying for another six minutes. There was flames in the cockpit, the radio was dead, and the black box stopped recording. The co-pilot continued to fly the plane despite having no instruments and no outside visibility.
The captain left his seat to put out the fire, engulfed by smoke and flames. The cockpit ceiling was melting, and hot aluminum dripped onto the observer’s folding seat. The co-pilot was probably seriously injured or dead by this time. The passengers probably had no idea what was happening in the cockpit.
The crew should have been aware of the problem and may have started preparing for the planned emergency landing, but due to time constraints, with less than 20 minutes to land, they could only plan to change the route. They were unaware that a fire had already broken out in the cockpit.
Aftermath
At 22:31, the MD-11 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean at 345 mph in Margaret Bay, Nova Scotia, Canada, killing all 229 people on board. Due to the huge impact force and deceleration, the people on board died instantly. The aircraft and all its components disintegrated, and most of them fell to the seabed. Some debris floated on the sea surface, and some debris was washed up on the local coast.
A search and rescue operation codenamed “Operation Endurance” was immediately launched, and ambulances and helicopters were also dispatched. The search and rescue efforts continued until the afternoon of the next day, but it was clear that no one had survived. Only one body could be visually identified. 147 people were identified through fingerprints, dental records and X-rays. The remaining 81 people were identified through DNA testing.
- A submarine that detected the underwater beacon signal found the CVR and FDR black boxes.
- On October 2, the Transportation Safety Board initiated a heavy-lift operation to recover the largest pieces of the wreckage from the seafloor.
- As of October 21, 27% of the wreckage had been recovered. In the final stage, a ship recovered the remaining wreckage.
- As of December 1999, 98% of the wreckage had been recovered for investigation.
The inquiry was the largest and most expensive in Canadian history, costing $57 million over five years.
Additional Notes
It is unclear whether the crew prepared for the forced landing, but a licensed pilot was found flying as a passenger wearing a life jacket. Swissair was in financial trouble in the 1990s and introduced a new IFE system (the first of its kind) to attract more passengers on long-haul routes. The system was newly installed on the MD-11. On board the plane was a Picasso painting, two kilograms of diamonds and 50 kilograms of cash from Swiss banks.
Cause of the accident
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada’s investigation identified 11 causes and factors that contributed to the crash. summary report.The main reason is:
“Inadequate certification standards for the flammability of aircraft materials allowed the use of flammable materials that could sustain or propagate a fire. As a result, the flammable materials caused the fire to spread, starting above the right side of the cockpit ceiling near the rear wall of the cockpit. The fire spread and intensified rapidly, damaging the aircraft systems and cockpit environment, ultimately causing the aircraft to lose control.”
Influencing factors
After the crew cut off the power supply to the cabin system, the reverse flow in the cockpit ventilation duct caused an increase in the amount of smoke entering the cockpit. By the time the crew realized the severity of the fire, the fire had spread to an uncontrollable level.
The electrical failure spread quickly, causing critical avionics systems to fail, and the crew soon lost control of the aircraft. After the instrument lights failed, the crew had no light to see the controls and were forced to fly manually. The fully fueled aircraft exceeded its maximum landing weight, so the crew began dumping fuel. The pilot completely lost control, and the doomed aircraft plunged into the sea without anyone at the controls.
After the accident, the crew received additional firefighting training and the smoke detectors on board were upgraded. Swissair declared bankruptcy in 2002. The Nova Scotia government established two memorials, one near Peggy’s Cove and one on Bayswater Beach.
