Canadian Press
HALIFAX — Investigators
who have pored over the wreckage of Swissair Flight 111 for
more than four years aren't expected to produce a definitive
cause of the crash, but will likely zero in on critical flaws
that set off a devastating chain of events, experts say.
Among them is a controversial inflight entertainment system
said to be a part of findings by the Transportation Safety
Board, which will release its final report into the 1998 crash
on Thursday.
Aviation experts who have followed the lengthy
investigation say they'll be surprised if the program is not
found to be a main contributor to the massive electrical
failure that brought the jetliner down off Nova Scotia,
killing all 229 people on board.
"The entertainment system, from an engineering background,
was a power-hungry monster and it gobbled up a lot of energy,
creating so much heat that they required a rebalancing of the
air conditioners,'' Gerry Einarsson, a former Transport Canada
engineer who specializes in avionics, said from Ottawa.
"I can't with any degree of evidence say it caused it, but
there's a great deal of reason to suspect it.''
Investigators know a fire that raced along wires crippled
the jetliner by disabling its electrical system, but they have
yet to clearly state its source and likely won't.
Einarsson, who has lobbied Ottawa to improve aviation
safety, believes the entertainment unit is key to the fire. He
says the system was so hastily installed on the MD-11 that the
proper inspections weren't done to ensure it could operate
safely in the air.
He and others blame the powerful American Federal Aviation
Administration in part for allegedly shirking its duties in
certifying the system _ something they say the safety board
should address in its report.
"I seriously doubt that the Canadians will go as far as I
think they should, because of political reasons,'' says
Bernard Loeb, the former head of the U.S. National
Transportation Safety Board.
"If I was the Canadians, I'd be a little cautious about
suggesting an FAA process has significant holes in it.''
Critics allege the agency didn't pay close enough attention
to the devices, the installers and the manufacturers even
though concerns had been expressed about them.
The system, which allowed passengers to gamble, play video
games and watch movies, was found on test flights to raise
cabin temperatures and cause hard drives in the seats to
fail.
Despite that, Swissair ordered the system to be installed
on 21 of its planes _ including the jetliner that would plunge
into waters off Peggy's Cove just over an hour after leaving
New York.
The system came into sharp focus in the days after the
crash, when investigators recovered 21 short-circuited
electrical wires, including at least seven that came from the
system. A wire that shorts can cause a spark or fire that
could ignite other materials.
Swissair, once one of the world's most elite carriers and
now bankrupt, voluntarily disconnected the system three weeks
after the crash as a "precautionary measure.''
Myles Gerety, who lost his brother in the accident, said he
doesn't expect the report to produce a single cause, but hopes
it isn't linked to the gaming unit.
"If it started with that entertainment system, I'm going to
be really upset because it just seems like such a frivolous
thing to bring down a plane,'' he said from Connecticut before
heading to Halifax for the report's release. The TSB would not
comment on its forthcoming report.
The report is also expected to mention Kapton wiring, a
disputed insulation that has been banned in some U.S. military
aircraft because of its propensity to chafe, crack or break
down.
The safety board, which has spent more than $60 million on
the investigation, recovered pieces of the charred wire near
where the fire was thought to have started just behind the
pilots in the ceiling.
The Kapton wire had arced, a phenomenon in which the outer
insulation is cracked or chafed and the wire is exposed to
another surface. Electrical sparks can escape and set off a
chain reaction, burning along the wire almost like a fuse.
Even though the discovery helped narrow the possibilities,
the difficulty for investigators was trying to determine which
came first.
"We are attempting to assess whether the arcing was the
cause of the fire or whether it resulted from the existing
fire that then damaged the insulation on the wire,'' lead
investigator Vic Gerden said in the months after the
crash.
Ed Block, a wiring expert, is convinced it was the
source.
"I have seen this wiring-cancer attack the military, the
commercial fleet and the general aviation fleet,'' Block, a
former U.S. Department of Defence employee, said Friday.
"I am hoping the TSB sends a clear message to the world
about this hidden danger.''
The FAA responded to the Swissair probe by ordering
operators to inspect cockpit wiring on all MD-11s. But Block
says manufacturers are still lining planes with faulty wiring
and not closely inspecting existing wiring.
Others are hoping the safety board demands changes to the
cumbersome checklist pilots go through when they encounter
smoke in the cockpit.
The Swissair pilots spent close to 10 minutes going through
a 208-step checklist after they detected smoke, eating up
valuable time some say should have been spent in diverting the
plane to the nearest airport.
The TSB issued a recommendation in 2000 that planes land
quickly in the event of smoke and that checklists be
streamlined. The board also recommended that metallized Mylar
blanket insulation be reduced or eliminated after finding it
helped feed the fire.
Einarsson doesn't think the report will find a sole cause
because of the complexity of the investigation and the
devastation to the plane, most of which was recovered from the
ocean floor.
"I would love a smoking gun, but I don't think that will
happen,'' he said.
"What they're being asked to do almost is to see a whole
bunch of wires that have melted at the ends and discern which
one failed first or why it failed.''
