He said that none of the passengers survived the crash.The number of passengers from each country was announced as follows: U.K., 6; Swiss, 28; France, 30; Saudi Arabia, 1; Germany, 3; Yugoslavia, 1; Afghanistan, 1; Greece, 2; Iran, 1; Spain, 1; St. Kitts, 1; Italy, 3; Russia, 1; U.S.A., 136.Seven U.N. staffers, including one American, are also believed to have been on the plane. These recommendations have led to widespread changes in Federal Aviation Administration standards, principally impacting wiring and fire hardening. Some debris was found floating in the crash area and over the following weeks debris washed up on the nearby shorelines.The initial focus of the recovery was on finding and identifying human remains and on recovering the The recovery operation was guided by the TSB with resources from the On 2 October 1998, the TSB initiated a heavy lift operation to retrieve the major portion of the wreckage from the deep water before the expected winter storms began. By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff It therefore retained only that half-hour of the flight before the recorders failed, six minutes before the crash.Aircraft certification standards for material flammability were inadequate in that they allowed the use of materials that could be ignited and sustain or propagate fire. On 2 September 1998, the McDonnell Douglas MD-11 performing this flight, registration HB-IWF, crashed into the Atlantic Ocean southwest of Halifax International Airport at the entrance to St. Margarets Bay, Nova Scotia. His wife, Mary-Lou Clements-Mann, was with him on the plane when it went down Wednesday night. This allowed the fire to spread to the cockpit, eventually shutting off power to the aircraft's At 22:31:18 AT (01:31:18 UTC), the aircraft struck the ocean at an estimated speed of 345 miles per hour (555 km/h; 154 m/s; 300 kn). Swissair did not provide hometowns or nationalities. The pilot-in-command was forced to fly manually because he had no light by which to see his controls after the instrument lighting failed. He was an instructor on the MD-80 and A320. The recovered The TSB made nine recommendations relating to changes in aircraft materials (testing, certification, inspection, and maintenance), electrical systems, and flight data capture, as both flight recorders had stopped when they lost power six minutes before impact. Consequently, flammable material propagated a fire that started above the ceiling on the right side of the cockpit near the cockpit rear wall. When a box was full, it was weighed and moved to a custom-built temporary structure (J-Hangar) on a discontinued runway for long-term storage. It says all U.N. flags in Geneva will fly at half-staff Friday as a sign of mourning.Be in the know. She was an AIDS vaccine researcher and a professor in the department of international health and the director of Johns Hopkins' Center for Immunization Research.Jonathan Mann resigned in December from Harvard University's School of Public Health, where he was a professor of internationl health and epidemiology. This flight was also a codeshare flight with Delta Air Lines.
A memorial observance was scheduled for Thursday, Leclair said.The U.N. issued a statement offering condolences to the victims' relatives.
He was a visiting professor at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health at the time of his death. The TSB team had to reconstruct the last six minutes of flight entirely from the physical evidence. The fire spread and intensified rapidly to the extent that it degraded aircraft systems and the cockpit environment, and ultimately led to the loss of control of the aircraft.The rapid spread of electrical power failures led to the breakdown of key avionics systems, and the crew was soon rendered unable to control the aircraft. If deemed significant to the investigation, the item was documented, photographed, and kept in the active examination hangar.The lack of flight recorder data for the last six minutes of the flight added significant complexity to the investigation and was a major factor in its lengthy duration. Two of the victims were infants. The fuel-laden plane was above maximum landing weight; as the flight crew dumped fuel as per procedure, they lost all control, and the doomed plane flew into the ocean uncommanded. The collision with the water decelerated the aircraft with approximately 350 The first rescue resources to approach the crash site were CCGA volunteer units, which were mostly privately owned fishing boats operating from The crash site's proximity to Halifax placed it within one hour's sailing time of ships docked at Canada's largest naval base, The land search, including shoreline searching, was the responsibility of The ships were assisted by several CCG helicopters (model By the afternoon of 3 September, it was apparent that there were no survivors from the crash and JRCC Halifax de-tasked dedicated SAR assets (CCGS The aircraft broke up on impact with the water and most of the debris sank to the ocean floor (a depth of 55 m, 180 ft). He switched to the state's public health department, where he stayed for 10 years and was credited with helping control bubonic plague. All items not considered significant to the crash were stored with similar items in large boxes. One man had been bumped off two other flights. Click here for the names of the crash victims. Before his career with Swissair, he was a fighter pilot in the The first officer, 36-year-old Stefan Löw, had approximately 4,800 hours of total flying time, including 230 hours on the MD-11. The American is identified as Pierce Gerety of the U.N.'s High Commission on Refugees, based in Geneva.Two other Americans on the plane were Paul and Joan Hammond of Edmonds, Washington. Air disasters rarely excuse anyone. After that, Mann said he needed a change and took an offer to spend a year in Zaire setting up an AIDS research facility under the auspices of the WHO.