Teams Battle Elements as Crash Probe Expands

Authorities on Friday widened their investigation into this week’s crash of Swissair Flight 111 despite impediments posed by pelting rain, dense fog, choppy seas and interfering sightseers, but they came no closer to pinning down the cause of the accident.

Vic Gerden, chief investigator for the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, said that more than 100 people had been assigned to the probe, including representatives of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration, but that their work had turned up no further explanation for the crash. He and other officials indicated that the investigation could go on for weeks or even months before reaching a conclusion.

“We are in data-gathering mode,” Gerden said.

The Long Beach-built MD-11, on a flight from New York to Geneva, smashed into the Atlantic Ocean within sight of this Nova Scotia fishing village late Wednesday, killing all 229 people aboard, including 132 Americans. Pilot Urs Zimmermann had radioed a distress call and told air traffic controllers that there was smoke in the cockpit. He was trying to maneuver for a landing at Halifax International Airport when the plane disappeared from radar.

Efforts to locate the aircraft’s flight data and cockpit voice recorders failed Friday, even after the Canadian navy deployed the submarine Okanagan to assist in the task. The recorders, which are built to withstand the impact of a crash, are programmed to emit an audio beacon for 30 days, Gerden said, but sonar on the sub and on surface ships had so far not picked up the signal.

Meanwhile, the first group of relatives of the victims of the crash arrived in Halifax, about a 45-minute drive away, on three special Swissair flights, two from New York and one from Switzerland. Officials declined to say how many had arrived but added that they expected 800 or more family members during the next several days.

Six members of one family did make the trip from Halifax on Friday to this village of clapboard houses and dirt roads, population 60, that is headquarters for the search and for the hundreds of journalists who have arrived to report on the crash, but they were kept away from the media.

Harold Bungay, a spokesman for the Salvation Army, which is arranging for local clergy members to provide support for the victims’ families, said a visit to the crash site often helps survivors overcome the trauma resulting from the loss of a loved one.

The family members officially are here to identify the dead. Remains recovered so far are being held at a nearby military base. Sgt. Andre Guertin of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, which is assisting the investigation, said normal immigration and customs regulations were waived for the family members and that they were met on their arrival in Halifax by counselors, clergy and interpreters. Murielle Probost, the Red Cross coordinator here, said paramedics also were present in case any relatives of the victims went into shock.

A heavy mist settled over Peggy’s Cove in the afternoon, blocking the view of the search from the shore. However, Guertin said the most significant find of the day was “upwards of 100 suitcases” that probably were in the cargo hold.

Guertin added that weather conditions hampered the search somewhat but that he and Sgt. Keith McGuire, who heads the police contingent here, were more concerned about an influx of sightseeing boats that arrived in the morning, before the fog set in. Police also apprehended divers in the debris field. McGuire said that such intrusions could contaminate evidence in the investigation and warned that a repetition could result in arrests.

The salvage operation was following some of the procedures developed after TWA Flight 800 crashed in the Atlantic off Long Island in July 1996, killing all 230 people aboard the Boeing 747 jet.

In that case too, sonar was used to find pieces of the plane. Divers were lowered into the sea to confirm the aircraft’s presence. And salvage vessels with cranes were summoned to lift heavy wreckage from the water.

The task off Long Island was so difficult that eventually the bottom of the ocean floor was raked and dredged in the search for tiny pieces of debris. It took months before virtually all of the TWA aircraft was hoisted from the ocean and transported to a giant hangar in Calverton, N.Y., where it was reassembled on scaffolding.

On Friday, authorities here did not change their estimate of the number of bodies recovered from the figure of 60 given Thursday, but searchers said privately that many of the bodies were so badly dismembered that it is hard to arrive at a total.

Another measure of the force with which the plane hit the water is the fact that of the debris recovered, the largest piece was about the size of a car roof, naval Lt. Cmdr. Glenn Chamberlain said.

A battalion of 100 Canadian soldiers and four officers searched the nearby shoreline, collecting wreckage and human remains. Body parts also were reported to have washed up on the beaches of nearby islands near private homes.

More than 60 naval divers were standing by to investigate any sonar soundings that might prove valuable to the investigation, Chamberlain said. The navy is creating a sonar map of the seabed and will compare it with existing maps, looking for anomalies that might turn out to be wreckage or the recorders.

The submarine Okanagan is part of that effort. The diesel-powered attack submarine, with a crew of 77, was scheduled to be retired this week after 32 years of service. The navy decided to put it to work one last time, however.

The sub arrived at 5 a.m. and remained on duty all day.

An unmanned submersible that can probe shallower waters than can the Okanagan was scheduled to arrive today, he added.

Chamberlain noted that the pattern of the wreckage did not suggest it broke up before hitting the surface of the water.

At an afternoon news conference, Gerden told reporters that he had listened to recordings of the pilot’s radio communications with air traffic controllers. Zimmermann first signaled for help with a call of “Pan! Pan! Pan!” which is an international distress signal that indicates trouble but is not as severe as a “mayday” or dire emergency call.

On the advice of the controllers, Zimmermann headed for Halifax, the nearest major airport, for an emergency landing. As he descended, he dumped excess fuel. Gerden discounted a report in a Canadian newspaper that Zimmermann wasted valuable time dumping fuel and mistakenly turning back toward Boston for a time.

“It seemed to me that they [the crew] were dealing with the situation in a professional manner,” he said. Transcripts of the conversation are expected to be made public today.

A Swissair spokesperson said Friday that a wiring problem that the FAA flagged in 1996 as a potential fire source on MD-11s had been corrected throughout its entire fleet by June 6, 1997.

“That should not have been a factor in the accident,” the spokesperson said on Long Island, commenting on news reports of the problem.

Among the passengers on the flight was Joe LaMotta, 49, president of LaMotta Foods Inc. and son of former boxer Jake LaMotta. In February, the onetime middleweight champion lost his older son, Jake Jr., to cancer.

“My only two sons died in the same year,” LaMotta said Thursday. “What is God trying to tell me?”

The dead also included Dr. Jonathan Mann, an American who formerly headed the World Health Organization’s anti-AIDS program, and Dr. Roger R. Williams of the University of Utah, an expert in cardiovascular genetics.

Times staff writers John J. Goldman in New York and Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar in Washington contributed to this report.

* TRADITION OF HELP: Halifax residents sprang into action after crash. A12

* SOUTHLAND VICTIMS: Five people from the region were among those killed. B1