Swissair report brings closure

By CP


HALIFAX -- Margie Topf touched the small, heart-shaped piece of Peggy's Cove granite dangling from a gold chain around her neck and placed it over the left side of her chest.

"Now she's closer to my heart than ever," remarked the Boston woman whose older sister, Nancy Topf-Gibson, died 4 1/2 years ago in the crash of Swissair Flight 111 off Nova Scotia.

Topf was one of a handful of relatives of the 229 victims to come to Halifax yesterday for the release of the Transportation Safety Board report into the Sept. 2, 1998, crash near Peggy's Cove.

Wiring that powered a controversial entertainment system combined with highly flammable insulation to feed a deadly fire that brought down the plane, investigators said yesterday.

In releasing its final report into the country's longest and costliest accident investigation, the TSB didn't identify the exact source of a fire that caused a massive electrical failure on the MD-11, but concluded it was linked to the improperly installed gaming system.

The 338-page document outlined a fateful sequence of events that started when wire began arcing in a hidden area above the cockpit ceiling.

"This particular arc site was found on one of the wires that supplied power to the in-flight entertainment network," lead investigator Vic Gerden said at the release of the report into the crash.

The arcing - a phenomenon in which a wire's coating is corroded and can lead to sparking - ignited a flammable insulation covering, allowing the fire to race through the plane's wiring system.

"It is important to emphasize that without the presence of this and other flammable materials, this accident would not have happened," Gerden said, holding up a pillow-sized piece of the metallic insulation.

The board recovered 20 pieces of wire from the plane that showed melted copper, indicative of arcing damage. At least one of the damaged wires was from the entertainment unit, but others were retrieved from the wreckage, leading investigators to believe it was likely not the only wire involved in the arcing.

For Topf, the long-awaited release of the 338-page report brings "as much closure as you can have when you still have this major hole in your heart."

Her sister was heading to Switzerland to teach dance when sparking wires in the ceiling over the plane's cockpit triggered a deadly chain of events that sent the MD-11 plunging into the Atlantic Ocean. Topf said her reasons for coming to Halifax were twofold: to learn more about the cause of the crash and to find out if her sister suffered.

"What was clear to me today is that she was killed on impact and it all happened very, very quickly in terms of the passengers knowing about a crisis," she said.

For Mark Fetherolf, the report does nothing to ease the pain of losing his 16-year-old daughter.

"The wound of losing Tara will never heal," the Palm Beach, Florida, resident said during a news conference. "It's something we'll always have to live with."

Fetherolf left little doubt after the report's release that he believes the entertainment unit caused the tragedy.

"I think there's clearly enough evidence of wrongdoing to warrant an investigation of the certification process of the in-flight entertainment system," he said.

Lyn Romano, whose husband Ray died in the crash, called for an immediate investigation into "the criminally negligent homicide" of the 229 victims.

"This was not an accident, as so many in the aviation community have referred to it, but an accident waiting to happen," she said.

Miles Gerety, whose older brother Pierce died in the crash, said safety board officials showed the families a disturbing video of flammability tests on insulation similar to that found in the downed Swiss jet.

"What's shocking to me is that the insulation for the attic and interior walls of an airplane isn't fireproof ... it's worse than not fireproof, it's extremely flammable," said the Bridgeport, Connecticut, lawyer.

Gerety, Fetherolf and Topf praised the work of the safety board, which spent $57 million on the investigation, including the recovery of two million pieces of the shattered plane from the ocean floor.

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