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