Swiss Air Flight 111: A Wire Tragedy

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Have you ever thought, a small object like Wire can also bring down an Aircraft and can cause a huge number of fatalities.

Today's case is a classic case of the late 1990's, On September 2nd 1998, A Swiss Air flight operated from J.F. Kennedy to Geneva, Switzerland, departed from New York at late dawn, Everything was fine for the first two hours in the flight, suddenly Inside the cockpit, the pilots noticed a strange smell, coming from its air conditioner. The pilots thought that it was just from the faulty air conditioner, so they shut down its vents after few minutes they again noticed the strange smell, the first officer looked back towards the air conditioner and saw the smoke coming from it.He informed the captain who decided to call the air hostess in the cockpit to ensure that they were noticing the same thing as her. Moments later their doubt got cleared it was the smoke coming from the air conditioner. The captain decides to get the aircraft checked at the nearest airport. so he contacts the ATC tower which gives them the instructions to land at the nearest airport( Halifax). The pilots start the landing procedures and shortly after a major fire breaks down inside the cockpit.The first officer decides to step ahead and extinguish the fire. He tries his best but couldn't succeed the fire engulfs the entire cockpit resulting in crash of the aircraft.

Soon after the recovery process starts, every major area of sea is monitored and smallest to the small parts of the Aircraft gets recovered. Its a long and hectic process and takes the Investigators almost 2 years to extract each and every part of the aircraft. Soon after they start testing it for the major assumptions that have have formulated. Every assumption gets struck off from the list as they have no match. One day, an investigator notices something strange with the wires, he checks for it and finds it damaged from various places. Apart from this the insulation within the wires were prone to catch fire quickly(Analysis done by the test).

This was perhaps the most fatal disaster in the History of MD11.

*Most of the information was taken from the documentary.