Swissair Crash Recordings Revive Drama of One of Canada's Worst Aviation Disasters

OTTAWA_After years of legal skirmishes, the public can finally hear the gripping soundtrack for one of Canada's worst aviation disasters - the 1998 crash of a Swissair plane that killed all 229 people on board.

The Swissair Flight 111 air traffic control tapes, which had been kept sealed since the crash, were released to The Canadian Press on Monday following a court battle that went all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada.

The hours of recordings for the flight, which was headed from New York to Geneva, include the 12 critical minutes, starting as the plane's crew reports smoke in the cockpit and ending with a last desperate transmission as the aircraft makes a high-speed nose dives into St. Margaret's Bay, Nova Scotia, near Halifax.

"Swissair one eleven heavy is declaring emergency," says one of the pilots in a heavy Swiss-German accent, as the second pilot makes a nearly simultaneous transmission in the cockpit confusion: "We are declaring emergency now."

"Heavy" refers to any large aircraft, such as the Swissair flight, which went down on Sept. 2, 1998.

The voices of the Swiss pilots - Urs Zimmermann, 50, and co-pilot Stephan Loew, 36 - become slightly muffled in the recordings when they don their oxygen masks. The official transcripts do not indicate which pilot is speaking at any time.

Ten minutes later, as smoke billows through the cockpit and a massive electrical failure disables all flight controls, including the lights, there is another harrowing transmission: "Eleven heavy we starting to dump (fuel) now we have to land immediate."

There is a slight urgency in his voice as one pilot makes a final, repetitive transmission: "And we are declaring emergency now Swissair one eleven."

The MD-11 aircraft flew for about six more minutes before it slammed into the dark, choppy sea off Nova Scotia at 10:31 p.m. local time.

Hitting the water at about 350 mph (563 kph) everyone aboard died instantly and the fuselage shattered into millions of pieces. The tremendous impact caused seismographic needles to flutter in Halifax and Moncton, as if an earthquake had hit.

Vic Gerden, chief investigator into the crash, said families of the victims were briefed frequently at the time of the disaster but have not previously heard the audio.

Within days of the tragedy, the safety board released transcripts of the air traffic control recordings but steadfastly refused to release the audio itself, saying it contained personal information.

An investigation by Canada's Transportation Safety Board blamed flammable insulation that allowed a small electrical fire to spread uncontrolled, melting the cockpit ceiling, shorting out all power and leaving the crew helpless to avert the disaster.

Miles Gerety, who lost his brother Pierce in the crash, predicted that hearing the tapes will be painful for the victims' families.

"These things bring an event back to people, the family members, who've put a lot of time and distance between the crash ... and their losses," he said in an interview from his home in Redding, Connectictut. "I think it would be hard to hear."