World

Electrical Fire Doomed Flight 111

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

October 1, 1998 / 7:21 PM EDT / CBS

Navy divers have reported finding damaged wires in the wreckage of Swissair Flight 111 and a senior crash investigator tells CBS News that it is now certain an electrical problem doomed the aircraft.

CBS News Correspondent Russ Mitchell reports that investigators are zeroing in on a smoky fire near the cockpit as the likely cause of the crash. All 229 people aboard the aircraft were killed.

Now there's concern that insulation installed on the jet may have helped spread the fire.

Blankets are placed throughout the plane to insulate it from heat and noise. Last year, the plane's manufacturer, McDonnell-Douglas, citing "ground fire incidents involving insulation blankets covered with metallized mylar material" urged airlines to replace them "at the earliest practical maintenance period."

Swissair tells CBS News that the airline had not yet changed the insulation.

"You're always concerned about anything that will propagate fire, and if the insulation would do that, and there is indication that it might, then you want to change that," said Vernon Grose, a former investigator for the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board.

In fact, the blankets have been cited in fires on four other jets, but Canadian crash investigators say the few insulation pieces found have not shown any evidence of heat or smoke damage.

Boeing, which now makes the MD-11, says the blankets meet FAA standards. But at the same time, the company spent the day holding meetings with airlines to discuss the blankets and other safety concerns that deal with instances of smoke in MD-11s.

Another mystery to investigators is why the pilots of Swissair 111 waited more than 10 minutes after smelling smoke to declare an emergency. Last week, two major users of the MD-11, Federal Express and Delta, instructed their pilots to land immediately if they smell smoke.