Lotus 111
Swissair Flight 111 disaster – a plane crash, which took place on Sept. 2, 1998, around 22:31 hours local time near Nova Scotia, Canada. Died in her 215 passengers and 14 crew members.
The investigation carried out in this case by the Canadian Transportation Safety Board (TSB) took four years and cost 57 million CAD (at that time it was the equivalent of about 38 million USD).
Swissair Flight 111 was recognized as the "UN shuttle" due to the immense popularity among officials of the United Nations. Lotem this often traveling businessmen, scientists and researchers.
McDonnell Douglas MD-11 with serial number 48448, built in 1991 and registered as HB-IWF. Swissair was the only user. Vaud was named in honor of the Swiss canton of the same name. He’d had 36,041 hours of flight. Power unit accounted for 3 Pratt & Whitney 4462. The cabin was 241 seats (12 first class, 49 business and 180 economy). Place first class and business class were equipped with on-board system entertainment, very modern for its time.
The crew were machine Urs Zimmermann captain and the first officer – Stephan Loew. On board were also 11 flight attendants and 1 main steward. All of the staff that supports the passenger compartment was certified and trained by the Joint Aviation Authorities (JAA) in accordance with Swiss regulations.
Course of events "is given in the standard time of the Atlantic.
McDonnell Douglas MD-11 Swiss airline Swissair taking off from John F. Kennedy Airport in New York with 215 passengers and 14 crew members on board. Destination airport is Geneva-Cointrin.
About half an hour of take-off, the captain for the first time combines with the air traffic control tower. Lot runs normally.
Flying at FL330 (approximately 10,100 meters) pilots sense smoke in the cabin. Recognize that it comes with on-board air conditioning system and it is not anything dangerous (such situations are not unusual in passenger jets). The requested flight attendant also felt an unusual smell in the cockpit, but said that the cabin does not smoke and at the request of the pilots turned off the potentially faulty air conditioning system. The crew did not know that Smoke is the real source of electrical fire on the cockpit.
The smell of smoke intensified, so the pilots decided to emergency landing. Flying over the Atlantic gave the message "Pan-Pan" (talking about the failure of the machine) to the ATC station in Moncton (station that controls air traffic over North America). Captain Zimmerman going to land in Boston (560km from the aircraft), because he knew that the airport (he wanted to avoid the additional stress associated with a sneak landing in difficult conditions), but the flight controller ordered pilots landing in Halifax, because it was closer (104km from the aircraft).
Due to give the message "Pan-Pan", Swissair flight 111 received priority among other flights, and the controller gave him command the initial descent to FL290 level (about 8840 m). The captain, however, wanted to temporarily flatten an intermediate height to service the aircraft can collect trays when given a meal and prepare the cabin for landing passengers.
The plane is at an altitude of about 8500 m air traffic controller instructs pilots to lowering the ceiling to 1,000 m Zimmerman did not realize the seriousness of the situation and decides to go only 3000 m, because the service has not yet had time to prepare the cabin passengers.
A cloud of smoke in the cockpit was so intense that both pilots imposed oxygen masks. The captain began to lower the ceiling. Due to the condition of the aircraft, had landed in Halifax, unfortunately, did not know this airport, so he needed graphs approach for landing on him. These were, however, in his briefcase, which lay at the other end of the cabin. None of the pilots could not reach her (limited their wires, supplying oxygen to their masks), so Captain Zimmerman called the stewardess that this gave it to him.
Captain Zimmerman decides to dump fuel to lighten the aircraft before landing. Notify the air traffic control tower in Moncton. The controller was surprised that the pilot tells him that after all this time. The aircraft was then 56km from Halifax, over the land, so he had to turn over the nearby Gulf of St. Margaret, to shed excess fuel into the water.
According to the "List control to deal with the smoke of unknown origin" co-pilot switched bus cabin switch, thereby shutting off the power to the entire plane, outside the cockpit. This resulted in the exclusion of the recirculation fans, and also created a kind of "vacuum" which contributed to the intrusion into the cockpit fire that raged far too tight album.
At an altitude of 3,900 meters raging out of the sight of pilots fire reaches the autopilot, which crashes. Pilots go through the manual control of the machine. After a few seconds, one after another, cease to operate all aircraft systems and instruments.
The first officer reported Loew traffic control critical situation, giving the message "Mayday". Unfortunately, due to noise in the cabin and the other sounds in the control tower, the controller NOT HEAR currently. The fire is spreading more and more, so the captain leaves his seat and trying to control the situation a handy fire extinguisher. Unfortunately dies (do not know if the reason was fire, smoke or suffocation), desperately trying to rescue the machine. Frightened first officer still trying to fly the machine using the emergency systems, but half a minute later off the glass cockpit and the communication with the plane is broken.
As subsequent investigation revealed the co-pilot lived until the crash. From the flight recorder read that for about a minute before the collision with a sheet of water, shut off the engine No. 2
In the coastal village of Peggy’s Cove in Nova Scotia could hear the deafening sound of the explosion. MD-11 Swissair flight 111 flows into the Atlantic, 8km from the coast, killing all 229 passengers and crew members. The plane smashed into a million pieces, and among all the bodies found, only one was niepokaleczone.
Initially, Swissair said that during the flight on board were 39 Swiss, 30 French, 147 Americans, 1 Canadian and 22 people of other nationalities. Later, these data were verified and corrected. It turned out that the plane was 132 Americans (including 1 steward line of Delta Air Lines), 41 Swiss (including 13 crew members), 30 French, six Britons, three Germans, Italians and Canadians, 2 Greeks, 2 Lebanese and 1 person with: Afghanistan, India, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, St. Kitts and Nevis, Sweden, Yugoslavia and 4 people of other nationalities> you.
The crash killed several famous people, including Jonathan Mann (former head of the fight against AIDS, led by WHO), along with his wife – Mary Lou Clements-Mann (researcher dealing with AIDS); Pierce J. Gerety Jr.. (Member of the UNHCR, participating in the peacekeeping mission in the Great Lakes region, aimed at reducing the risk of civil war), and Joseph LaMotta (son Jake LaMotty – former world champion middleweight boxing).
Olympic tennis player Marc Rosset also planned to travel on that flight, but changed plans and flew another.
Patomorfologowie of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) have identified most of the bodies within 10 weeks of the disaster. Only one of them could be identified on the basis of visual inspection, about 100 bodies have been identified on the basis of DNA testing (it was the longest of this type of analysis in the history of Canada). About 90 bodies were diagnosed on the basis of dentition, and 30 on the basis of its death fingerprints or X-rays. A large number of collected premortal dental X-rays of the victims meant that about 90 bodies have been identified before the end of October. Investigators from the RCMP received x-rays, and blood samples necessary for comparative analysis of DNA from the relatives of the victims.
Determining the causes of the disaster was a big challenge for Canadian investigators. Just a few hours after the disaster began the arduous task of extracting parts of the plane from the ocean. September 13, 1998 were found the black boxes of the machine. Recent items Flight 111 were taken in December 1999.
On the basis of scientific evidence investigators found that the immediate cause of the disaster was a fire on board, due to the disadvantage of one of the wires that melted and then ignited insulation made of highly flammable material thermoacoustic. Fire wire was also indirectly caused by his excessive burden – as a result of buildings on the plane of additional electronic devices for first-class passengers – which was not provided for in the original design of the electrical system of the aircraft. Their work was driving to overload the electrical wiring. The fire quickly spread to the plastic parts in the cabin. The fire was already not practical to master. In addition, it was found that when the plane disappeared from radar, the fire got into the cab. Captain machine tried to put it out, but probably died of burns for a few seconds before crashing aircraft.
After the crash Flight No. 111 banned mounted in aircraft flammable materials and ordered the removal of the machines currently used for flying.
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