Relatives fight for look at Swissair draft report
Safety officials might send copy to families after distributing it to 'involved parties' for comment
By Michael Lightstone

Days before the fourth anniversary of the Swissair disaster, families of those killed were stunned to learn Ottawa has distributed a draft report on the crash investigation's findings.

But relatives of 229 people who died in the accident may also get copies of the confidential document, a Transportation Safety Board spokesman said Friday.

John Cottreau said board policy "doesn't exclude the families" but didn't know how or when they might find out the details.

Earlier this month, the board sent the report to "involved parties" for comment. A senior official with the Swiss Federal Office for Civil Aviation confirmed the agency got a copy.

Miles Gerety, an American whose brother died in the Sept. 2, 1998, plane crash off Peggys Cove, said that means government regulators and aviation manufacturers will review the draft report before families do.

The board has said a final report will be released early in 2003.

Mr. Gerety said Canadian investigators "have been very good to the families" since the probe began, showing compassion and "bending over backwards" to share information with them.

"But I'd like to know what killed my brother," Mr. Gerety said.

Now that a draft report on the crash of Swissair Flight 111 is circulating, he said the victims' relatives may hear leaked details that could be sensationalized in media reports.

Mr. Gerety, head of an international association of Swissair families, recently sent letters to relatives of those killed and to the board, saying investigators should brief the families now.

"The news of why a loved one died is still a sensitive topic that opens an old wound," he wrote.

"Thus it is particularly important for the well-being of air-crash families that bad news be broken gently and not through news headlines or the calls of aggressive reporters seeking family reaction."

Mr. Cottreau refused comment on Mr. Gerety's letter but said Swissair families might be eligible to read the draft report.

He said board policy stipulates that those allowed to review the document are people "who might see themselves as being adversely affected by the report."

This may include next of kin."

But Mr. Cottreau couldn't say whether any copies have been sent to victims' relatives.

New Jersey resident Hans Ephraimson-Abt, chairman of a group of air-crash families, was buoyed by Ottawa's policy of possibly releasing a draft report to Swissair families.

He said only French investigators provided families with their draft on the first anniversary of the July 2000 Concorde crash.

"If we could create a second precedent after the Concorde, then maybe we can institutionalize it in other countries," said Mr. Ephraimson-Apt, whose daughter died in 1983 on Korean Airlines Flight 007 when it was shot down over Russia.

Swissair's Boeing MD-11 plunged into St. Margarets Bay en route to Geneva from New York City. The pilot reported smoke in the cockpit and was dumping fuel over the Atlantic Ocean when the plane went down, killing everyone aboard.

Investigators have determined there was a fire in the ceiling at the front of the plane but haven't made public the fire's cause.

The recovery operation and crash probe cost $54.8 million.

Mr. Gerety, a lawyer in Bridgeport, Conn., lost his 56-year-old brother, Pierce, in the disaster. Four years later, he and others are still waiting to find out what went wrong on Flight 111.

"The families have been told we will have a briefing shortly before the final report is released in 2003," Mr. Gerety said.

"We think we should be briefed now or at least receive a summary" of the draft document.

On Monday, public and private anniversary events are planned for Peggys Cove, Bayswater and Blandford.

Mr. Gerety said a number of Swissair victims' relatives will be in Nova Scotia for the anniversary, but he couldn't say how many.

http://www.herald.ns.ca/stories/2002/08/31/f202.raw.html


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I just hope that the TSB will remember that not all of us are represented by this association and will make sure that we ALL get the opportunity to see this draft.

I think its interesting that Mr. Gerety would say that families are stunned because we've been told by the TSB all along that this was the protocol. It was made clear to us quite a while ago that this was the Canadian procedure following an investigation.

Not to try to read too much into this but this is an interesting remark:

'But Mr. Cottreau couldn't say whether any copies have been sent to victims' relatives.'

I think the answer is that no family member has yet received a copy but I almost hope they have because I would like to believe that someone other than those responsible would have the opportunity to read it. My hope is that family members do get to look at the draft before the involved parties have made their comments.

I just thought of something. I guess (and this is just conjecture on my part), that the pilots' wives *may* be eligable to see the reports as they would fit the criteria set forth by the TSB. Maybe that was why Mr. Cottreau ' couldn't say whether any copies have been sent to victims' relatives.'