Electrical Failure Possibly Tipped Jet Into Plunge

Radio communication between the crew of Swissair Flight 111 and air traffic controllers ended abruptly in the midst of preparations for an emergency landing, and the aircraft plunged into the Atlantic Ocean six minutes later, air safety investigators said Saturday.

“We have to land immediately” were the last words transmitted by the crew, who apparently had put on oxygen masks to protect against smoke filling the cockpit.

The cutoff of radio contact, the reported smoke and other indicators suggest the MD-11 wide-body jet may have experienced a massive electrical failure that tipped the plane into its fatal dive, but that is far from certain at this point, said Vic Gerden, chief investigator of the crash for the Canadian Transportation Safety Board.

There are still too many unanswered questions to enable investigators to reach a conclusion about the cause of the crash, Gerden said. But it is clear, he added, that events spiraled out of the crew’s control during a period of about 16 minutes.

“The crew was in some difficulty, and that difficulty then escalated into an emergency,” he said.

Gerden’s comments came at a news conference here that revealed new details about the plane’s final moments drawn from a partial transcript of discussions between the crew and air traffic controllers in Moncton, Canada.

The New York-to-Geneva flight crashed just off the Nova Scotia coast late Wednesday, killing all 229 passengers and crew members, including 132 Americans.

On Saturday, more than a hundred bereaved relatives of the crash victims made a pilgrimage to the town of Peggy’s Cove, which crowns the granite point closest to the crash site. There, on a gleaming morning as sunlight dappled the ocean and a brisk wind kicked up whitecaps, they stood next to the village lighthouse, gazing out to a sea where recovery ships and bright red helicopters of the Canadian coast guard continued to search for wreckage and human remains.

The mourners were shielded from journalists by authorities, but according to witnesses, many laid floral displays on the rocks or in the water, captured ocean water in small bottles and prayed. One woman handed a baby to a companion and rushed past barricades toward the sea. She was caught and restrained by counselors. An elderly man collapsed and was treated by paramedics and recovered.

Teams May Be Close to One ‘Black Box’

Meanwhile, investigators stepped up their search for wreckage in what has been dubbed “Operation Perseverance” by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Navy divers entered the search for the first time, and naval Capt. Phil Webster said they appeared to be closing in on one of the “black boxes” that safety experts believe will provide valuable information about the crash.

The Canadian naval submarine Okanagan picked up an audio signal from either the flight data recorder or the cockpit voice recorder, and divers equipped with sonar were dispatched to further track down the source of the signal. They did not locate it Saturday, but Webster indicated that they will be back in the ocean today.

“It is now a process of going back down when the weather gets better and just carrying on down the bearing of the frequency until we find that transponder,” he said.

A data recorder carries information on the performance of an airplane’s systems. The voice recorder would have copied everything said in the cockpit, including conversations that did not go out over the radio to air traffic controllers.

As previously disclosed, the crew of Swissair 111 were at 33,000 feet when they first declared “Pan Pan Pan”--a distress call just below the level of an acute emergency. In the same transmission, they reported smoke in the cockpit and requested an emergency landing. After settling on Halifax International Airport, which was closer than Boston, pilot Urs Zimmermann turned inland.

Advised by the controller that the jetliner was 30 miles from Halifax airport, the crew replied “We need more than 30 miles” and agreed to turn back out to sea.

Gerden suggested that Zimmermann had concluded the airplane could not descend rapidly enough to avoid overshooting the airport. Moreover, the plane was carrying 230 metric tons of fuel, 30 tons over the maximum weight for safe landing.

The crew advised that they would dump fuel and leveled off at about 9,700 feet, Gerden said. He added that he believes, from having heard the tape recording, that the crew had put on oxygen masks because of the smoke.

The last transmission from the crew advised, “We are declaring an emergency at time zero-one-two-four. . . . We are starting vent now. We have to land immediately.”

Gerden said the reference to venting may have been confirmation that they were dumping fuel or perhaps indicated that they were trying to clear smoke from the crew compartment. He said it is not known if smoke entered the passenger cabin. The passengers, however, may have been told to prepare for a water landing. Some bodies have been found wearing life jackets.

DNA Will Be Used to Identify Victims

The plane hit the water with such force that identification mainly will be through DNA testing, authorities here said. Relatives who have arrived to visit the scene have been advised by the Mounties to bring medical histories and X-rays of the victims and have been asked to submit blood for DNA matches. Dr. John Butt, chief medical examiner for Nova Scotia, said one body, that of a French national, had been identified. He did not elaborate or name the person.

Families apparently will not be asked to view the remains.

“The information we have is that there are not remains that are identifiable,” said Claire Mortimer, 45, a nurse practitioner from Berkeley who lost her father, John, 75, and stepmother, Hilda, 69, in the crash.

Mortimer was among the more than 300 family members flown here through Saturday by Swissair and Delta Air Lines, which had 53 passengers on the flight as a result of a code-sharing agreement with Swissair.

Poignant Display of Grief at Lighthouse

Arriving throughout the day in a fleet of buses after a 45-minute drive from Halifax, the relatives were taken to army-issue olive green tents for a briefing by officials on the status of the search and investigation, then emerged singly, in pairs and in family groups.

They were accompanied by counselors, clergy, Salvation Army volunteers, Red Cross workers and airline escorts and watched over by the Mounties, Halifax firefighters and Canadian soldiers.

Mainly in silence, the family members followed a path trod by millions of tourists to the red and white lighthouse topped by an emerald lantern, the place closest to where the airliner fell.

The display of grief contrasted poignantly with the setting. After days of overcast skies and rain, the weather lifted Saturday to reveal the surpassing beauty of Peggy’s Cove and the surrounding bay.

“In an odd way, this is very comforting to me to come here and see this beautiful place,” said Mortimer, one of the few survivors willing to talk to reporters. “He [her father] would have loved this place. . . . He has died in the ocean that he loved.”

She paid tribute to her father, a retired vice president of the New York Times, as “a very, very principled, honest person.”

Ted Larson, 39, of East Hartford, Conn., expressed gratitude on behalf of a number of families to authorities, the airlines and the people of Halifax and Canada.

His wife’s uncle, Victor Rizza, 58, and Rizza’s 14-year-old son, Antonino, died in the crash. They were returning to Europe, where Rizza was a professor at the University of Catania in Sicily, after a visit to Connecticut.

“You read about this stuff, you see it, and it’s never supposed to happen to you,” Larson said. “And when it does . . . ,” he added, before being overcome by emotion.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Last Minutes’ Transcript

Here are excerpts released Saturday by the Canadian Transportation Safety Board, or CTSB, of conversations between air traffic controllers in Moncton, Canada, and the flight crew of Swissair Flight 111. Material in parentheses is explanatory.

Flight 111: Swissair Flight 111, Swissair 111 heavy (wide-bodied aircraft) is declaring Pan Pan Pan (an urgent message but not a distress call). We have smoke in the cockpit, request deviate immediate right turn to a convenient place, I guess Boston.

Controller: Would you prefer to go into Halifax?

Flight 111: Affirmative for Swissair 111. . . . Prefer Halifax from our position. (According to the CTSB, Swissair Flight 111 was 70 nautical miles from Halifax and 300 nautical miles from Boston at this juncture. Aircraft starts a descent from 33,000 feet.)

Controller: OK. Active runway at Halifax is zero-six. Should I start you a vector (directional instructions) for six?

Flight 111: Yes, vector for six will be fine, Swissair 111 heavy.

Controller: . . . Turn left heading zero-three-zero. . . . You’ve got 30 miles to fly to the runway threshold (start of runway).

Flight 111: We need more than 30 miles. . . .

Controller: . . . Turn left . . . lose some altitude. . . .

Flight 111: . . . Roger, we are turning left. . . . We must dump some fuel. We may do that in this area during descent.

Controller: OK. . . .

Flight 111: OK, we are able for a left or right turn toward the south to dump.

Controller: Roger, turn left heading of 200 degrees and advise me when you are ready to dump. . . .

Flight 111: We are declaring an emergency at time zero-one-two-four (01:24 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time, 6:24 p.m. PDT) We are starting vent now. We have to land immediately.

Controller: Swissair 111, you are cleared to commence your fuel dump on that track and advise me when the dump is completed. . . . Swissair 111, you are cleared to start fuel dump.

(There were no further communications from Flight 111, the CTSB says. About six minutes later, the aircraft struck the water.)

Source: Associated Press