Swissair Flight 111 Totally Explained

Everything about Swissair Flight 111 totally explained

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 kilometres (5 mi) 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 CAD$57 million (at that time approximately US$39 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.
   Prior to the crash, Swissair 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

The aircraft and its crew

The aircraft, a McDonnell Douglas MD-11, serial number 48448 registered HB-IWF, 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 - purser) 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 SR-111 departed JFK at 20:18 (EDT) with 215 passengers, 2 pilots and 12 flight attendants en route to Geneva.
   Delta sold the tickets of 53 of the Swissair passengers as part of a codeshare arrangement. Since Air Canada was on strike at the time, some passengers who would have flown on Air Canada instead flew Swissair 111.
   At 22:10 Atlantic Time, cruising at FL330, or, the flight crew Captain Urs Zimmermann and First Officer Stephan Loew, 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 22:14 AT the flight crew made a "pan-pan" radio call, indicating that an emergency exists but there's 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 22:19 AT the plane was away from Halifax airport, but required more time to descend from its current altitude of . At 22:20 AT the crew informed ATC that it needed to dump fuel, and was subsequently diverted away from the airport. According to 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 induced the fire, by a vacuum phenomenon, to spread back into the cockpit. At 22:24 AT, 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 22:31 AT. The crash location was approximately, with 300 metres' uncertainty.

Nationalities of passengers

Most of the passengers were American, French, and Swiss.

Further Information

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