http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=1909398

Hit on the Day to Day audio to get the interview.

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Why swissair 111 wasn't an 'accident' but an avoidable tragedy:

1. The mylar insulation was known prior to the swissair tragedy to be potentially volatile. The Chinese contacted the FAA to let them know years before that they had a problem with this insulation catching on fire but the FAA true to form did nothing to act on it.

2. The entertainment system that sparked the ensuing fire was installed by some inexperienced group of people out in Arizona (Interactive Flight Technologies- CEO Michail Itkis) that wanted to make a quick buck off of the gambling feature, as did the airline, and the Swiss government that would receive a part of the profits. According to USA Today's reporter Gary Stoller, IFT workers warned the CEO and he chose to ignore the fact that the system was running way too hot. Of course swissair despite the fact that they constantly had to up the air conditionning to compensate for the heat generated by this system also chose to ignore the obvious danger. There was a fire in one of the seats prior to the crash in another swissair aircraft that had this system installed on it. Also according to the article, following the crash, the IFT officials told the workers who were concerned that the IFEN may have caused the crash, to keep quiet. Hollingsead (still in business) hired people that were not qualified to install an entertainment system on an aircraft and the result was a very sloppy, dangerous, installation that probably caused the crash. In fact probably isn't even a strong enough word. So in my book swissair was anything but an accident. It was a terrible tragedy that was caused by greed and indifference.

From the Gary Stoller USA Today article regarding the entertainment system:


Dean Lilja, a former IFT mechanical engineer, says that he and other engineers repeatedly expressed their concern that the system generated too much heat.

"It was always an issue, and it was never dealt with," he says.

Lilja, who worked for IFT from December 1994 to August 1996, says he raised the issue with IFT's then-chief executive officer Michail Itkis. "Michail would say, 'It's not a big deal,' " Lilja says.

When one of the system's components caught fire during a test flight, Lilja says, a manager told him not to say anything.

Neither Itkis nor his father, IFT founder Yuri Itkis, returned phone calls seeking comment. IFT is no longer operating.

Fred Barber, who began working as IFT's quality assurance manager in fall 1995, says that each entertainment system box located under a passenger seat was excessively hot. He feared passengers would burn themselves.

The boxes "got so hot, you could fry an egg on them," he says. "I complained about the heat problem in several meetings but was told not to worry."

After the Swissair crash, Lilja says that some IFT employees were concerned that the entertainment system was responsible. One former IFT official, he says, told them to keep quiet.


BTW, though the FAA ordered the mylar blankets to be replaced by safer materials, there are many aircraft flying around today that still have this dangerous insulation.

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