Swissair Flight 111

**Swissair Flight 111** was a scheduled international passenger 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 McDonnell Douglas MD-11 performing this flight, registration HB-IWF, crashed into the Atlantic Ocean southwest of Halifax Stanfield International Airport at the entrance to St. Margarets Bay, Nova Scotia. The crash site was 8 kilometers (5 mi; 4 nmi) from shore, roughly equidistant from the tiny fishing and tourist communities of Peggy's Cove and Bayswater. All 229 passengers and crew on board the MD-11 were killed, making the crash the deadliest McDonnell Douglas MD-11 accident in aviation history.

The search and rescue response, crash recovery operation, and investigation by the Government of Canada took more than four years and cost CA$57 million. The investigation carried out by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) concluded that flammable material used in the aircraft's structure allowed a fire to spread beyond the control of the crew, resulting in the crash of the aircraft. Several wide-ranging recommendations were made which have been incorporated into new US Federal Aviation Administration standards.

Swissair Flight 111 was known as the "UN shuttle" because of its popularity with United Nations officials traveling between the organization's two biggest centers. The flight also carried business executives, scientists, and researchers.

## Aircraft and crew

The aircraft, a seven-year-old McDonnell Douglas MD-11, serial number 48448, registration HB-IWF, was manufactured in 1991, and Swissair was its only operator. It bore the title of *Vaud*, in honor of the Swiss canton of the same name. The cabin was configured with 241 passenger seats. First and business class seats were equipped with in-seat in-flight entertainment (IFE) systems from Interactive Flight Technologies. The aircraft was powered by three Pratt & Whitney 4462 turbofan engines and had logged over 36,000 hours before the crash.

The in-flight entertainment system was the first of its kind equipped on the plane. It allowed the first and business class passengers to browse the web, select their own movies and games, and gamble. The system was installed in business class one year before the incident, between 21 August and 9 September 1997. It was installed in first class five months later, in February 1998, due to delivery delays.

The pilot-in-command was 50-year-old Urs Zimmermann. At the time of the accident, he had approximately 10,800 hours of total flying time, of which 900 hours were in an MD-11. He was also an instructor pilot for the MD-11. Before his career with Swissair, he was a fighter pilot in the Swiss Air Force. Zimmermann was described as a friendly person with professional skills, who always worked with exactness and precision.

The first officer, 36-year-old Stefan Löw, had approximately 4,800 hours of total flying time, including 230 hours on the MD-11. He was an instructor on the MD-80 and A320. From 1982 to 1990, he had been a pilot in the Swiss Air Force. The cabin crew comprised a maître de cabine (purser) and eleven flight attendants. All crew members on board Swissair Flight 111 were qualified, certified, and trained in accordance with Swiss regulations under the Joint Aviation Authorities (JAA).

## Flight timeline

Swissair Flight 111 crashed 8 km (5.0 mi) off the coast of Peggy's Cove. Pictured is the community's iconic Peggys Point Lighthouse in 2005, with St. Margarets Bay seen below the lighthouse on the right.
The flight took off from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport at 20:18 EDT (00:18 UTC) on 2 September. From 20:33 – 20:47 EDT (00:33 to 00:47 UTC), the aircraft experienced a radio blackout for approximately thirteen minutes, which was later found to be caused by communication radio tuning errors.

At 22:10 AT (01:10 UTC, 52 minutes after takeoff), the flight crew detected an odor in the cockpit and determined it to be smoke from the air conditioning system. Four minutes later, the odor returned and smoke became visible, prompting the pilots to make a "pan-pan" radio call to Moncton air traffic control, the area control center (ACC) station in charge of air traffic over the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. The pan-pan call indicated that there was an urgency due to smoke in the cockpit but did not declare an emergency as denoted by a "mayday" call. The crew requested a diversion to Logan International Airport in Boston (234 nautical miles (433 km; 269 mi) away) before accepting Moncton ATC's offer of radar vectors to the closer Halifax International Airport in Enfield, Nova Scotia, 66 nautical miles (122 km; 76 mi) away.

At 22:18 AT (01:18 UTC), Moncton Centre handed over traffic control of the plane to Halifax terminal air traffic control, the ATC station in charge of controlling traffic in and out of Halifax International Airport. Upon being advised by Halifax ATC that they were 30 nautical miles (56 km) from the airport, the crew requested more flight distance to allow the aircraft to descend safely from its altitude of 21,000 feet (6,400 m) at the time. The crew then requested to dump fuel to reduce their weight for landing. Halifax thus vectored the plane south toward St. Margaret's Bay where it was safe for the aircraft to dump fuel while remaining within 40 nautical miles of the airport.

In accordance with the Swissair checklist 'In case of smoke of unknown origin', the crew shut off power to the cabin, which also turned off the recirculating fans in the cabin's ceiling. This allowed the fire to spread to the cockpit, eventually shutting off power to the aircraft's autopilot. At 22:24:28 AT (01:24:28 UTC), the crew informed Halifax that "we now must fly manually", followed by declaring an emergency. Ten seconds later, the crew declared an emergency again, saying "...and we are declaring emergency now, Swissair one eleven"; this was the last transmission received from Flight 111.

The aircraft flight data recorder stopped operating at 22:25:40 AT (01:25:40 UTC), followed one second later by the cockpit voice recorder. The aircraft's transponder briefly resumed transmission of secondary radar returns from 22:25:50 to 22:26:04 AT (01:25:50 to 01:26:04 UTC), at which time the aircraft's altitude was 9,700 feet. After this, the aircraft could only be tracked through primary radar, which does not provide altitude information.

At 22:31:18 AT (01:31:18 UTC), the aircraft struck the ocean at an estimated speed of 345 miles per hour (555 km/h; 154 m/s; 300 kn). The collision with the water decelerated the aircraft with approximately 350 *g*, causing it to disintegrate instantly. The location of the crash was identified as approximately 44°24′33″N 63°58′25″W.

## Victims

There were 132 American (including one Delta Air Lines flight attendant and one United Airlines flight attendant), 41 Swiss (including the 13 crew members), 30 French, three British, three Canadian, three Italian, two Greek, two Lebanese, one each from Afghanistan, China, Germany, India, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, St. Kitts and Nevis, Mexico, Sweden, and Yugoslavia, and four other passengers on board.

Jonathan Mann, former head of the World Health Organization's AIDS program, and his wife, AIDS researcher Mary Lou Clements-Mann, died in the crash.

The Saudi victim was a member of the royal family.

## Post-crash response

### Search and rescue operation

The search and rescue (SAR) operation was code-named *Operation Persistence* and was launched immediately by Joint Rescue Coordination Centre Halifax (JRCC Halifax), which tasked the Air Command, Maritime Command and Land Force Command of the Canadian Forces (CF), Canadian Coast Guard (CCG) and Canadian Coast Guard Auxiliary (CCGA) resources.

The first rescue resources to approach the crash site were CCGA volunteer units, which were mostly privately owned fishing boats operating from Peggy's Cove and Bayswater, as well as other harbours on St. Margaret's Bay and the Aspotogan Peninsula. They were soon joined by the dedicated CCG SAR vessel, CCGS *Sambro*; CH-124 Sea King helicopters, flown from CFB Shearwater by crews from 423 Maritime Helicopter Squadron (MHS) and 406 Maritime Operational Training Squadron (MOTS); and CH-113 Labrador SAR helicopters flown from CFB Greenwood by the 413 Transport and Rescue Squadron (TRS).[*citation needed*] and CP-140 Aurora aircraft from CFB Greenwood from 405 Long Range Patrol Squadron.

The crash site's proximity to Halifax placed it within one hour's sailing time of ships docked at Canada's largest naval base, CFB Halifax, and one of the largest CCG bases in Canada, the CCG Regional Headquarters in Dartmouth. Calls went out immediately and ships sailed directly to St. Margaret's Bay.

The provincial ambulance service, Emergency Health Services (EHS), received word of the crash at 22:39 AT, and ordered 21 emergency units from Halifax, the South Shore, and the Annapolis Valley to respond. An EHS helicopter was also sent to the crash site, and the Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences Centre in Halifax was put on emergency alert. The emergency health services were stood down around 3:30 AT the next morning, as expectations of finding survivors diminished.

The land search, including shoreline searching, was the responsibility of Halifax Regional Search and Rescue. The organization was responsible for all ground operations including military operations and other ground search and rescue teams.