Posted on 05/21/2007 6:23:27 PM PDT by Clive
OTTAWA (CP) - After years of legal skirmishes, Canadians can finally hear the gripping soundtrack for one of the country's worst aviation disasters.
The Swissair Flight 111 air traffic control tapes, kept under lock and key since the 1998 tragedy, have been released to The Canadian Press following a tortuous court battle that went all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada.
The hours of recordings include 12 critical minutes, starting as the aircrew reports smoke in the cockpit and ending with a last desperate transmission as the aircraft nose dives at high speed into St. Margaret's Bay, N.S., near Halifax.
"Swissair one eleven heavy is declaring emergency," says one of the pilots in a heavy Swiss-German accent, as the second pilot makes a nearly simultaneous transmission in the cockpit confusion: "We are declaring emergency now."
"Heavy" refers to the aircraft's nearly full fuel tanks as it began its transatlantic flight from New York to Geneva on Sept. 2, 1998.
The voices of the Swiss pilots - Urs Zimmermann, 50, and co-pilot Stephan Loew, 36 - become slightly muffled in the recordings when they don their oxygen masks. The official transcripts do not indicate which pilot is speaking at any time.
Ten minutes later, as smoke billows through the cockpit and a massive electrical failure disables all flight controls, including the lights, there's another harrowing transmission: "Eleven heavy we starting to dump (fuel) now we have to land immediate."
There's a slight urgency in his voice as the pilot makes a final, repetitive transmission: "And we are declaring emergency now Swissair one eleven."
The MD-11 aircraft, with 229 people aboard, flew for about six more minutes before it slammed nose first and almost upside down into the dark, choppy sea off Peggy's Cove at 10:31 p.m. Atlantic time.
Hitting the water at about 550 kilometres an hour, everyone aboard died instantly and the fuselage shattered into several million pieces. The tremendous impact caused seismographic needles to flutter in Halifax and Moncton, as if an earthquake had hit.
The recordings add a human dimension to otherwise sterile transcripts, as air traffic controllers and the pilots betray hints of taut emotion while the high-altitude tragedy unfolds.
As the Halifax airport controller attempts to contact the aircraft there's a final brief radio burst, sounding like someone shouting. Investigators could not determine the source, but the electronic squeal provides a eerie coda to the drama.
Vic Gerden, chief investigator into the crash, said families of the victims were briefed frequently at the time of the disaster but have not previously heard the audio.
"I don't recall them having the opportunity to listen to the tapes," Gerden, who retired last year, said in an interview from Winnipeg.
Miles Gerety, who lost his brother Pierce in the crash, predicted that hearing the tapes will be painful for families.
"These things bring an event back to people, the family members, who've put a lot of time and distance between the crash ... and their losses," he said in an interview from his home in Redding, Conn.
"I think it would be hard to hear."
A four-year, $57-million investigation by the Transportation Safety Board blamed flammable insulation that allowed a small electrical arc fire to spread uncontrolled, melting the cockpit ceiling, shorting out all power and leaving the aircrew helpless.
Within days of the tragedy, the safety board released transcripts of the air traffic control recordings but steadfastly refused to release the audio itself, saying it contained personal information.
John Reid, then Canada's information commissioner, initially supported the refusal. "In my view, the voices, along with the tonal and emotive characteristics constitute personal information of three air traffic controllers and the two pilots," he ruled in 1999.
But after receiving complaints about the board's refusal to release ATC recordings for four other air disasters, Reid changed his mind and went to court. He lost at federal court in 2005, but won on appeal in 2006 when three justices dismissed the claim that ATC audio recordings by their very nature contain personal information.
The Federal Court of Appeal also dismissed a claim by Nav Canada, responsible for air traffic control, that such recordings are "commercial" and should therefore be withheld to protect the business interests of the organization.
The safety board and Nav Canada then went to the Supreme Court of Canada but were rebuffed last month when the high court refused leave to appeal. The board was therefore compelled to turn over the Swissair tapes after an Access to Information Act request from The Canadian Press, which was a complainant in the court action over the four other air disasters.
The high court ruling brings Canada into line with the United States, where ATC recordings have been available to the public for years. Even in Canada, radio enthusiasts have long been able to freely monitor ATC transmissions because open, unencrypted communication among aircraft and ground controllers has been seen as an essential safety measure.
At least one U.S.-based website (www.liveatc.net) broadcasts live ATC transmissions from airports around the world, including Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver.
In Canada, cockpit voice recordings of conversations between pilots remain legally unavailable because of privacy rules. The Swissair investigation was hobbled in part because cockpit recording equipment failed in the last few minutes of the flight, apparently due to electrical failures.
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Another "journalist". Heavy means it's a widebody.
I thought it was something like that - - a jumbo or something.
Seperately, do you really think they "flammable insulation?" I mean, that strikes me as very '60's.
That’s what I thought!
“Heavy” means weight over 10K lbs.
My cousin was on this flight. The loss of my cousin, the search efforts, the investigation all remain a painful subject matter for my family. Now I'm wondering whether anyone from Swiss Airlines will contact my cousin's surviving family about this news, and whether or not I should.
Everyone within my family still believes that it was an act of terrorism which brought the plane down. I've read the investigation reports and also have doubts about the cause of the crash.
Why terrorism?
Let’s have the EgyptAir tapes, too.
“Allah Akbar”.
Just a co-incidence, nothing to do with Al Queda.
Seperately, do you really think they "flammable insulation?" I mean, that strikes me as very '60's.
Actually the term "heavy" refers to the MGTOW (Maximum Gross Takeoff Weight) of the aircraft. According to FAA regs, anything over 255,000lbs MGTOW is considered "heavy". This was reduced from 300,000 recently to include the 757.
Government and quasi-government bodies like to keep things secret for no particular reason other than that it makes them feel important to know things that other people don’t.
Did any terrorist groups claim responsibility?
Al Qaeda didn’t claim responsibility for the WTC for a long time.
In air traffic controller lingo “Heavy” means any big jet. Nothing about fuel load.
As much as I hate to recommend productions of our Public Broadcasting System
(often just a tax-supported mouthpiece for the Democratic Party),
their series NOVA did have a good episode on the SwissAir 111 investigation.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/aircrash/
I’ve read extensive reports on this accident, and viewed photographs of the debris. Investigators were able to determine the exact wires which caused the problem, as well as the sequence of events, and how the fire progressed. The insulation mentioned in the article was also used on other aircraft, including the 747, and has since been removed from all aircraft. The exact sequence of events was a bit freakish, in that, absent an air duct which fed the fire, it probably would have extinguished itself. It was determined, that in the last two minutes of flight, there was a considerable amount of fire and flames in the cockpit itself. The passengers probably weren’t aware of the extent of the problem until the very end.
Kapton wire insulation.
Commonly known as Krapton.
Who needs fact-checking when you're dancing on the graves of the crash victims celebrating the fact that you get to hear a few minutes of cockpit/control dialogue?
Heavy = An aircraft with a maximum gross takeoff weight of greater than 300,000 pounds, regardless of the actual weight at the time. Heavy is determined by the max TO weight of the aircraft type and has nothing to do with body width, engines etc.
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