Main Article: Karl Laasner procured the
IFEN and forced its installation whilst at the same
time privately having invested in the company that
produced it. By Tim Van Beveren

Karl Laasner
has worked for Swissair for 38 years.The 56 year
old project manager in the marketing department is
responsible for the purchase of the IFEN
entertainment system which was installed in swissair planes of type
MD-11 and Boeing 747. This was a prestigious project
for Swissair and it was driven along by
Laasner with heart and soul. But now a dark shadow lies over
IFEN. But not only because the system was deactivated in
all planes after the Halifax accident. The
formerly prestigious project has become a big problem
for the company. Karl Laasner was not uninvolved
in this. This is because Laasner and three
other Swissair-employees hold a large amount of
stock in the manufacturer of the IFEN - IFT -
inflight technologoes, which Laasner reluctantly
admitted to FACTS. At this time Sair group was actually
already conducting an investigation against him. In
the meantime the investigation has been
completed. According to the communications director
Beatrice Tschantz "no illegal actions in this context" by
the airline employees have been proven. There was
no case of "insider-trading", which is forbidden
in Switzerland, since the purchase of the shares
took place after Swissair management had made the
decision to purchase the entertainment system April
29, 1996. However: such participation in
supplier companies is distasteful. In many companies
in Europe and the US such actions are viewed as
unethical and therefore are not permitted. Lufthansa
(the German airline) for example has fired
employees for similar actions. Such procedures are unknown
at Swissair.Since then Laasner has confirmed
in writing to his employer that on April 30, 1996
He purchased a total of 2700 IFEN shares. Apparently
he wanted to benefit from the success of the
entertainment system. Too bad for Laasner that the
system turned out to be such a flop - least because of the
crash of SR111. In the shredded remains of the
plane smoldered, burnt cables of the entertainment
system have been found.

The meaning of their presence has not been
explained yet. Irregardless of that, the consequences
for the manufacturer of the IFEN have been
catastrophic. The share price of IFT hovers around $1.
Already last year IFT had announced that they will
withdraw from the entertainment-system business. Market
analysts foresee not much of a future. Laasner
wrote in a August 1999 letter to his employer that he
"bought the shares because he was so very convinced of
the product and not because speculation". In
April 1996 Swissair contracted with IFT to have the
systems installed free of charge. The financing was supposed to
happen through shared revenue from the videos and
gambling on the machines. But the Swissair
passengers especially those in the economy-class proved to be
tight-wads. Very soon it became clear that the revenues
were falling short and that the deal had become
unprofitable. Therefore the contractually arranged delivery of the rest
of the systems was in danger.Again it was
shareholder and Swissair employee Karl Laasner, who in
Spring 1997 presented a solution to management: Swissair
should change the contract and outrightly purchase
the systems for 46 million swiss franks. Management
had no options but to agree. The financial risk in
case that IFT went bankrupt was too high - not
to mention the loss of prestige. Because Swissair never
missed a chance to rub in the fact that they had the
entertainment systems and that this was a good reason to
choose Swissair over other airlines. But Laasner's
participation as a shareholder was problematic for other
reasons. Due to the SR111 crash, the certification of
the IFEN became questionable. It was interesting
that the system was certified for installation within
a record-breaking 6 months, even though it was
manufactured by a company totally unknown in that line of
business, installed by Hollingsead International. As
"FACTS" was told confidentially by Swissair
mechanics, they were not very happy to have strangers do
the installation of the system anyway. It broke the
heart of some of the mechanics when in the Fall of
1996 the Hollingsead specialists moved into the
hangars in Zurich and in January 1997 installed the
first system in the MD-11 registration number: HB-IWG.

"The whole IFEN circus was suspect to us" said
one SR employee, but every time they voiced their
reservations Laasner appeared and told them not to worry. It
is very interesting that it was always Laasner
who assuaged the concerns about IFEN. Soon he
got the nickname : "Mr. IFEN". All this happened after
Laasner had purchased stock in IFT. Was he trying to
influence business for his own enrichment? The fact is that
other than Swissair nobody else wanted to purchase
entertainment systems from IFT. If the systems had been a
huge success for Swissair, possibly other airlines
would have been interested in them. And Laasner
would have profited handsomely. This had already
happened when Swissair announced the deal in 1996. The
share-price climbed from $11 to 17. This, Laasner only
discovered "significantly later" according to his Statement.

Translation of sidebar:

Loose ends and
sloppiness

Forms were missing or filled out incorrectly. The
validation of the in-flight entertainment system was done
in a questionable way.The
installation of the IFEN into the Swissair planes was done
in the hangars of the SA subsidiary SR Technics
at the time the planes were in for maintenance.
At that time things were hectic by Swiss
standards in the showcase company. Project manager Adolf
Siegenthaler told the "SAirGroup News": The time pressure
was enormous. The development of the in-flight
entertainment system was not quite completed and right up
to the end we were not sure if we'd receive the
right parts in time. This statement proves that
at the time of the Swissair installation the
IFEN was neither completely assembled, tested, nor
certified by any regulatory agency.At the basis for
the installation and operation of the IFEN was a
so-called Supplemental Type Certificate (STC), from the
U.S company Santa Barbara Aerospace (SBA) in
California.

Questionable Certification

Santa Barbara Aerospace
even
issued the document in the place of the FAA, taking
the place as it's right arm. This is a normal
procedure in the U.S. since the FAA has delegated the
certification of such systems to private companies. But
taking that into account there are things that make no
sense. FACTS magazine had the whole certification
process investigated by experts. This
investigation brought out the fact that the airworthiness
forms were filled out wrong and stated that the
"components are not meant for installation in an
airplane". A remark which is absurd according to US
experts. Because this form would normally only be used
to facilitate the installation of components in an
airplane. The nearly 900 page file (on the whole subject)
is very questionable in other aspects. Some
forms are completely missing - e.g. the form which
certifies the first properly done installation of an IFEN
in a Swissair airplane. Without that form Santa
Barbara Aerospace should not even have issued the
certificate. They did it anyway.Checks only
after crash.This document, which carried the
official stamp of the FAA was enough for the Swiss
Federal Office of Civilian Aviation (Bazl) to allow
the operation of the IFEN. The
Bazl-office certified the legitimacy and legality of the
document without checking the process at all. The basis for the
STC certificate was not interesting to anybody
until after the crash of SR111. In the course of
the investigation of the crash, the Swiss Bazl office
awoke from its slumber. On November 13, 1998 they
revoked the validation of the certificate. On October 28
Swissair already turned off the IFEN and disconnected the
cables. Since then the Bazl office has stated that in
the future such validations "will be looked at
more closely".

Other translated Swiss articles regarding IFEN:

Did swissair pressure BAZL??????

Source : NLZ-F; Neue Luzerner Zeitung (Swissnewspaper)Publication Date : 24 November 1998;Language :German Author : Unknown Translation Date : 30 January2000

Swissair: Administrative investigation in the BAZL Still high focus on entertainment system Swissair should have exercised pressure on the BAZL to get the entertainment system in its aircraft installed. Swissair ChiefPhilippe Bruggisser denied this reproach. Nevertheless,federal counselor Moritz Leuenberger ordered an administrative investigation in the BAZL. Yesterday,SAirGroup Chief Philippe Bruggisser stated at a press conference in Glattbrugg ZH that the acquisition, installation and operation of the on board entertainment systemin MD-11 and jumbo jets had been certificated by the US authorities FAA on 24 January 1997. The BAZL validated the certification. The system of the company In Flight Technologies was built into the accident aircraft in the period from 21 August up to and including 11 September 1997. "Swissair never flew its aircraft with activated system without certification,"exclaimed the SAirGroup Chief. Bruggisser also said that the BAZL informed Swissair on 13 November that it had withdrawn the certificate�s validity. Swissair had deactivated the system on 28 October for precautionary reasons. Of late there have been speculations that the wiring could be related to the accident in the night of 3 September, causing the death of 229 people. Right or wrong? Bruggisser decisively declined that Swissair exercised pressure on the BAZL in regard to the on board entertainment system. "Wrong information," according to Bruggisser. In contradiction to this, BAZL spokesman Hans Aebersold in an interview in the SFDRS program �10 vor 10� had said that Swissair had commenced with the installation prior to the presentation of the official US certificate; and that the BAZL because of Swissair�s pressure issued a time limited,provisional certificate. the US certification was received after the system had been installed in seven aircraft. Aebersold declared yesterday, however, that all had been handled correctly. Federal counselor Moritz Leuenberger ordered an administrative inquiry in the BAZL yesterday. The inquiry deals with the reproach that Swissair should have exercised pressure. Basically, it concerns the clarification ofthe procedures in regard to the introduction of the on board entertainment system in Swissair aircraft.\\\

Source : NZZ-F; Neue Z�rcher Zeitung (Swissnewspaper)Publication Date : 24 November 1998 Language :German Author : M. Baumann Translation Date : 30 January2000

Correct certification of entertainment system Swissair�s management about the rumors in the Sunday press Philippe Bruggisser, SAirGroup�s chief, has responded to various rumors in the Sunday press, at a press conference in Glattbrugg. First of all, the cause of the Swissair aircraft type MD-11 accident near the coast of Eastern Canada, is still unclear. The only thing that is factualon basis of the most recent explorations is that the cockpit separation shield indicated traces of heat. If there is any relationship between this and the Inflight Entertainment System�s wires that are routed there, is nothing more than just one of the many other possibilities.Until now, the Canadian investigators have not identified the system as being the cause of the accident.Bruggisser exclaimed further that the acquisition,installation, operation and certification of the publicly criticized on board entertainment system in the First and Business Class had been correctly conducted. The American aviation authorities (FAA) as well as later the BAZL had accepted and certified the system. Santa Barbara Aerospace had certified the system as ordered by the FAA; Swissair was in the possession of the corresponding documents on 24 January 1996. The BAZL then customarily took over the<br>certification. Bruggisser stated that the BAZL did not have the experts to verify suchcomplex systems. Because of this the FAA certificates were accepted. There was never a Swissair aircraft in the air without certification. Opposite statements by BAZL employees quoted by the ŒSonntags-Zeitung�, Swissair neither excercised any pressure on the BAZL in order to obtain a provisional certificateas quickly as possible. According to Bruggisser,this must be classified as false information. After the arrival of the certificate for the entertainment system, a test flight was conducted that very same day. After this point the system was activated on a commercial flight. As a precautionary measure after SR 111 crash, Swissair deactivated the system on 28 October (1998) until further notice.Bruggisser is still convinced that the entertainment system on Swissair aircraft is still the best in the market. When it would be determined that the system has nothing to do with the crash, Swissair will keep on to it, and operate the entertainment system after new certification on the MD-11 fleet and on three jumbo jets.
_______________________________________________
(I don't think so considering the FAA no longer allows this system on any aircraft). Remember Mr. Bruggisser was the CEO when the Enron-like scandal occurred to swissair which resulted in the airline going out of business.

Here is one other article by van Beveren regarding the IFEN. Strange- I thought I had another that he wrote earlier but I couldn't find it unfortunately. As you can see from this one (and I believe his most recent) the FAA is no longer (though they did along with SBA approve the IFEN)allowing this kind of system aboard aircraft today particularly the way it was installed.

MD-11: A System Shutdown

The American FAA
requires the re-development of on-board systems with a
dangerous deficiency

By TIM VAN BEVEREN

Washington/Zurich

Two and a half years after the crash of the Swissair
111 MD-11, the disputed on-board inflight
entertainment systems (IFEN) are to be withdrawn from service.
The American air regulatory authority (the FAA) will
issue 14 obligatory safety directives, their so-called
AD Notices, in the next few weeks. They are
obligatory on all US airlines, in addition, on foreign
airlines, which operate flights to the USA. New
investigations resulted in a finding that add-on IFEN systems
contain dangerous faults, in particular in Boeings of the
type 737, 747, 757, 767, DC-9, MD-83, DC-10 as well as
the Airbus A340. The FAA requires that the aircraft
be modified within 18 months - or the systems are to
be completely shut down. This FAA operation
is a damage limitation exercise- and in its own
interests. In the future an IFEN system must be able to be
switched off locally, without requiring access to a
remotely located (and hard to identify) cockpit
circuit-breaker. No longer permitted are any installations in
which a maintenance system can only be powered down by
pulling the electrical circuit-breakers, as was the case
with the downed Swissair 111 jet. The authority claims
" that this measure is not connected to the
continuing TSB (of Canada) investigation into the Swissair
111 accident". American flight safety experts are of
a contrary opinion. The FAA is evidently in damage
limitation mode in view of its own, dubious role during the
certification of that infamous on-board inflight entertainments
and gambling system. It had been built into the SR111
accident airplane as a hasty add-on customer
"draw-card". Obviously the FAA wants to get in ahead of an anticipated
identical safety recommendation by the Canadian accident
authority (the TSB) for "image" reasons. Swissair had
already voluntarily shut down the maintenance systems on
its MD 11 and Boeing-747 Fleets after the 2 September
1998 accident. In November of the same year, the Swiss
Federal Office for civil aviation (BAZL) withdrew the
operating permit from the system (its Supplementary Type
Certificate - or STC). During the accident investigation,
Canadian specialists had discovered, in the wreckage,
sections of the IFEN system's cabling which indicated
electrical arc-tracking had occurred. To what extent this
phenomenon may have "caused" the tragic crash off the coast
of Halifax is not yet completely clear. The firm
that manufactured the IFEN system built into Flight
111, the American enterprise known as Inflight
Technologies (or IFT), no longer exists. The IFEN system
itself is nevertheless still in use; it is now to be
installed in British express trains.

Here were Patrick Price's words concerning the IFEN:

Wed Sep 29, 1999 6:50 pm
Subject: Patrick Price's remarks/IFEN




The FAA is up to it's OLD TRICKS. Appearing to be
acting to what happened on SR 111 they are saying to the
world, we have recognized that the IFEN system should
NOT be installed on any US registered airplanes. But
someone in the FAA signed off the STC to allow it to be
used on SR111. Someone, who did NOT check out the
power requirements against the MD-11 design
requirements. Did NOT check out the airplane drawings to see
how the wiring would be installed and where it could
be connected to a power source to insure the safety
of the system. Boeing engineering went on record as
saying that they would NOT have allowed the installation
of the IFEN system. So who in the FAA are the
wheels going to take action against for allowing the STC
to be signed off? As I have said previously, after
seeing the workmanship of the wire installation, it
appeared to have been installed in a HURRY (sloppy
workmanship). The FAA acknowledges that the system was
NOT installed on any US airplanes. But since the FAA
did sign off the STC, then they are just as guilty
and the company that installed it and the airline
that applied pressure to hurry up the installation.
Boeing wasn't any party to the IFEN system being
installed but they owning (MD and all the MD-11s) and had
previous knowledge of the dangers of KAPTON wire must take
part responsibility for the crash. Isn't it
ironic that MD was in the process of changing the wiring
from KAPTON to TKT on the last few MD-11s, and yet
Boeing insists on NOT using TKT wire on many of their
models. Patrick

Stephen Thorne of the Canadian Press:

STEPHEN THORNE OTTAWA (CP) - The
world's top aviation regulator has banned the use of an
inflight entertainment system that may be implicated in
last year's crash of Swissair Flight 111 off the Nova
Scotia coast. The U.S. Federal Aviation
Administration said the system, already disconnected on Swissair
planes and not used anywhere else, is "not compatible
with the design concept of the MD-11 airplane."
All 229 aboard the Swissair MD-11 were killed
Sept. 2, 1998 after its captain reported cockpit smoke,
then crashed off Peggy's Cove, N.S. Lack of
immediate crew control over power to the system, built by
U.S.-based Interactive Flight Technologies, "limits the
flight crew's ability to respond to a smoke or fumes
emergency," the FAA said in an airworthiness directive
Wednesday. The agency, whose dictums are usually
followed industry-wide, said such emergencies demand
removal of electrical power from all non-essential
systems in the passenger cabin, including the inflight
entertainment system. "Although the electrical power
for the system would eventually be removed as the
flight crew proceeds down the checklist, the
installation could be confusing and could possibly cause a
delay in identifying the source of smoke or fumes." Pulling the entertainment system's circuit
breakers is the only way to cut electrical power to it,
the FAA noted. The system was installed
under the authority of an FAA approval known as a
Supplemental Type Certificate (STC) issued by Santa Barbara
Aerospace, a former FAA-sanctioned representative that has
since gone out of business. The Swissair crash
and a subsequent FAA investigation of its own
procedures highlighted a major flaw in the approvals
process, a source said. "They have been doing a
rather extensive review of their system of issuing STCs
and they found a problem," said the source, who spoke
on condition of anonymity. "They're in the process
of doing something about it." Canadian
investigators found arced and burned wiring from both the
inflight entertainment system and the jet's general
electrical systems. They are currently testing the
wires to determine whether they burned from the outside
in or inside out, which will indicate whether they
were the source of the fire that brought down Flight
111. Inspections based on information from
the Canadian investigation showed damaged and poorly
installed wires aboard at least a dozen other MD-11s and
spawned several other airworthiness directives from the
FAA. The Swissair system offered high-paying
passengers video on demand, as well as gambling and video
games. At least two other airlines, Alitalia and Qantas,
tested the system and deemed it unsuitable.
"There have never been any U.S.-registered airplanes
that had this particular inflight entertainment
network installed," said FAA spokesman Les Dorr. "This is
a pre-emptive move on our part."

Dorr said authorities reviewed the service
history of many of the world's fleet of about 178 MD-11s
and further inspected Swissair's fleet. Wiring
"discrepancies" were found, he added. "It's a
culmination of everything that's come out of the
investigation so far," he said. "You cannot infer that
this in any way targets this inflight entertainment
network as contributing to the accident. We simply don't
know." Swissair bought the system after at
least one of its senior officials bought shares in the
company that built it. The $80-million US deal
came shortly after Karl Laasner, the Swissair official
in charge of the project, bought 2,700 shares in
Interactive Flight Technologies for $30,000 US in April 1996. During the next few months the value of the
company more than doubled to $120 million US amid
speculation that Australia's Qantas would follow Swissair's
lead and install the system on its 48 long-haul jets. Swissair confirmed Laasner's share transactions,
first reported in a Swiss magazine article, but said it
concluded after an internal investigation that he had not
broken any rules. IFT lost $51 million in 1997
as Qantas and other airlines cancelled orders. Court documents obtained by The Canadian Press
also suggest a longstanding relationship between
Swissair's CEO Jeffrey Katz and the head of IFT, Thomas
Meltzer. Both men worked for American Airlines in
the Dallas area in the early- to mid-1990s.
Since the crash, IFT sued Swissair, contending it had
relied on Swissair's maintenance arm, SR Technics, to
ensure the system was properly integrated with
Swissair's MD-11s. Swissair in turn sued IFT, Santa
Barbara Aerospace, and Hollingshead International, the
U.S. company that installed the system.

I finally found the other FACTS article written by Tim van Beveren:

This is an
article that appeared in FACTS in '98.

RISKY
CABLING

Facts magazine, 1998 month unknown
By Von
Tim van Beveren

investigation
of the crash of SR 111 the entertainment system
takes center stage. Was Swissair careless?The
two gentlemen were curious and persistent. At
the end of last week the Swissair headquarters in
Zuerich was visited by the Canadian
aviation-accident-investigators from the TSB. (Transportation Safety
Board) The interest of the airplane detectives focused on
the sister-ships of the Swissair MD-11, which had crashed 2
months previously. The Canadian investigators
looked very closely at a particular bundle of cables
required for the operation of the Inflight
Entertainment System (IFEN) in the Business- and First
Class. Behind the acronym IFEN hides the modern
on-board- entertainment-system for the MD-11 and the Boeing-747 fleet,
which
was purchased by Swissair in April 1996 for 46
million Swiss Francs. It showed movies and served as
console for gambling (patrons would have to pay for
the gambling). The information thus far released by the Canadian
investigators is plenty of reason to worry. The experts were
baffled that the system was connected directly into
the AC Bus No. 2, the main power supply of the
plane. The power cable recovered from the Swissair
111 wreck ran from the cockpit to the
passenger cabin underneath the ceiling cover. This cable (from
the crashed Swissair plane), which consisted of
4 separate, isolated wires, showed signs “of extreme heat and fire”
according to the Canadian TSB. Additionally, the investigators
found traces of molten plastic on the seat cover of
the rear seat in the cockpit. A connection of
the crash with the IFEN is becoming ever
more likely. The entertainment system, once in operation
proved to be an extremely greedy user of
electricity. Underneath each seat is a computer with a Pentium
processor, installed to control the interactive gambling. The
Australian airline Quantas had also been interested in the IFEN
system, but declined to purchase due to the high consumption
of electricity and the ensuing production of heat.The
last transmissions from the doomed MD-11 on
the Canadian coastline proved that heat and smoke played a
role in the crash of the plane. Therefore the
investigators are now searching for mostly for the trigger of a
possible cable fire. The manufacturer of the IFEN, a company
named Interactive Flight Technologies based in Arizona,
declines comment on newest developments. Last week the
company announced surprisingly that they will give up the
entertainment system business. For Swissair the entertainment system
gradually developed into a fiasco. The Swiss were the only buyers for
the system in the world and it did not even fulfill
commercial expectations. Now it has been disconnected in all planes
for safety reasons. The fact that the IFEN was
connected to the main power of the Swissair planes also
caused concerns with the plane’s manufacturer,
Boeing/McDonnell Douglas.

Normally on-board-entertainment systems are
connected from the factory to a secondary power supply, which in
turn is responsible only for the power supply of very
secondary or non-essential systems. In the case of a
malfunction, this can be turned off right away. This
shutting off of secondary systems was also the
first item on the checklist of SR111, which captain Urs
Zimmerman and co-pilot Stephan L�w followed in that fateful
night. Except for the ”little blemish” that the entertainment
system was not connected to a secondary system and
therefore could not be shut off with the first prescribed
switch. It continued to be connected to the main power bus,
which supplied all important systems of the plane with
power. The cable isolation material used in the installation
for the IFEN also stirs the curiosity of the
American experts. Tefzel, a teflon compound mixed with
polyethylene (type MIL 22759-16-12) is used only in civil
planes. It was invented for the Air Force fighter F-5, but
already discontinued by it’s manufacturer, Gruman 1982. The reason:
Gruman was concerned about toxic fumes in case
of fire. Furthermore it showed a heat resistance of
only approximately 150 degrees Celsius (approx. 330
Farenheit). Other open questions make it clear that Swissair
deviated from their normally so pedantic testing procedures in
the case of the launch of the hi-tech prestige
object. Each component which is installed in a
passenger aircraft has to be approved for that purpose.
And each subsequent later change needs to
be approved by the appropriate oversight agency – in the case
of the MD-11 and Boeing-747 a certification by the FAA
(Federal Aviation Administration).Swissair testified in
FACTS magazine that such a certification had been
done according to all the rules. Indeed a so called
Supplemental Type Certificate (STC) with registration
number ST 00236LA-D exists. However, the certificate
is not issued to Swissair, but to Santa Barbara
Aerospace Incorporated in California. It was signed by
the coordinator for certification issues within a
Californian company, whose task it is to execute the
certification of such systems for and in the name of the
FAA. In the relevant documents another Californian
company, Hollingsead International, received permission to install
such Systems in MD-11 airplanes.A strange manner of
operation indeed: Company A issues itself a certificate
so that company B can install a system
manufactured by company C into the planes of company D. Why
all that roundabout operation? Why did Hollingsead
not certify the installation themselves? And what
was the role of the Swiss Federal Office for
Civilian Aviation (Bazl)? Were compromises in safety made in
the installation of the IFEN? Swissair always maintained
that they had nothing to do with the Installation
of the entertainment system. This is only
partially true. On the Swissair Bulletin Board of April 14, 1997,
it says that “during to maintenance related
downtimes SR technics would prepare the cabling in the
Y-class of the plane as far as possible. It is also
documented that work proceeded under extreme
time pressure. The responsible project manager at the time, a
Adolf Siegenthaler wrote in the SAirGroup News of January
1997, that “the time pressure was enormous. The
Inflight-Entertainment- System was not even fully developed and we were not
sure
right up to the end if we would receive all required
parts in time. At the same time 55 employees of
the American company, which was to install
the system were standing around in our hangars and wanted to
get to work on the planes, right at the same time
as our mechanics were trying to do the required
maintenance of the planes.”

Swissair permitted another risky practice when
the after-market installation of the entertainment system
created an additional danger source: the concurrent use of
different isolation materials. It has been known already since the
end of the 1970s that different isolation
materials should not be mixed in airplane manufacturing.
The mixing of materials results especially in
the case of Swissair –in the usage of cabling made
of Kapton along with other isolation materials lead
to the chafing of the softer material Tefzel
(used by Swissair). This is confirmed by the
American expert Edward Block. In the mid 1980s, Block
had problems when he investigated the use
of Kapton cabling in fighter jest type F-14, which he
investigated as an expert for the Department of Defense.
“The mixture of such very different isolation
materials enables the much rougher Kapton to act like
sandpaper on the softer Tefzel. This can be observed in
very soft vibrations, which happen in airplanes all
the time. At some point the isolation of the
softer cable is damaged or may even lie completely
open. A small spark is enough to then cause an
inferno.”It is even more perplexing that Swissair allowed
the Entertainment system to be connected to the main power bus
and with the use of a different cabling type then
was used in the plane otherwise. It is also disturbing
that the maintenance companies and the airline
could issue a certificate of safety for aviation in
the name of a national aviation governmental
agency. This is a direct result of a well intentioned
elimination of bureaucracy both in the US and in Europe.
The governmental agencies are
severely understaffed and therefore delegate such time
sensitive investigations to third parties. In many cases this leads
this leads to a definite conflict of interest, as mechanics
who are installing a system certify it at the same time.
The problem is exacerbated by the fact that the
governmental agencies almost never have experts in these
matters on staff. Such experts are more likely to work
for the airlines or the manufacturers of such
systems – especially since the pay is much
better.Normally especially the smaller governmental agencies
rely on the “exemplary” agency, the FAA – as is the case
with the Swiss Bazl. The Bazl is only informed about such
certifications as the one for the Inflight Entertainment System and
accepts them without questions.

However, in the United States, the FAA is in the
crossfire of criticism, especially since the advent of
discussions about airplane cabling. Thomas
McSweeny, the FAA director responsible for Certification
issues said recently in a TV program: “Cable is
cable. We don’t have a problem.”