Dear Barbara, Mark, Lyn and Dr. Hanyalioglu and all others who
suffered from these two tragedies:

Even for someone who did not lose a friend or a family member in
either crash, it is impossible not to pause and reflect on the
terrible loss --- for the living and the dead --- in these terrible
tragedies. The passage of time does not dim the pain that even those
of us who are on the periphery of the events feel, knowing that
family members are feeling so much more.

Sorry to have been silent for so long - my activism continues, albeit
under the ARFF banner. The fight continues, as it always must. The
price of complacency is simply too dear.

For those with the stomach for more heartache, read the recently
released Report on the Columbia (space shuttle)tragedy.  It's
available at www.caib.us  So many common themes . . . it's both
incredibly sad and unbelievably ironic.

Pax

--- In sr111@yahoogroups.com, "ehan" <ehan@y...> wrote:
> We are a group of families/friends victims of the Turkish Airlines
> THY-634 accident in Diyarbakir Turkey, at January 8, 2002. We are
> looking for the answer of the same questions you did ask and
having
> the same terrible experience you had before.
> Please accept our heartfelt condolences for your losses on the
> Swissair 111 an this fifth anniversary.
>
> best regards,
> E. Hanyalioglu, MD
>
>
> Our website is:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/thykaza/
>
> and e-mail address is:
> ehan@y...

Dr. Hanyalioglu,

Thank you so much for your very kind comments. I hope you and the
other family members of that terrible crash get some answers. I
personally feel that for the most part the families of swissair 111
did from the final report released in March. The implications are
very disturbing.

Thanks for your condolences and if you have a chance check out
swissair111.org.

Sincerely,
Barbara Fetherolf
Mother of Tara Fetherolf, age 16, killed in the swissair 111 crash

We are a group of families/friends victims of the Turkish Airlines
THY-634 accident in Diyarbakir Turkey, at January 8, 2002. We are
looking for the answer of the same questions you did ask and having
the same terrible experience you had before.
Please accept our heartfelt condolences for your losses on the
Swissair 111 an this fifth anniversary.

best regards,
E. Hanyalioglu, MD


Our website is:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/thykaza/

and e-mail address is:
ehan@...

Wednesday, August 27, 2003  The Halifax Herald Limited

---------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------
...

Families to observe fifth Swissair anniversary
May be last formal event marking crash
By Michael Lightstone / Staff Reporter

The fifth - and perhaps last - annual formal function honouring the
229 people killed in the Swissair disaster off Nova Scotia is set
for next week.

Organizer John O'Donnell said Tuesday some of the victims' relatives
are already in metro to mark the tragedy. Most are due to arrive
during the Labour Day weekend.

Swissair Flight 111 crashed into St. Margarets Bay on the night of
Sept. 2, 1998, after a fire onboard. The plane was en route to
Geneva from New York, and all passengers and crew died.

"My sense is this year is probably the last of the so-called formal
observances," said Mr. O'Donnell, a military reserves chaplain in
Halifax and member of an interfaith group handling the Swissair
anniversary. The interfaith group won't be involved next year, he
said.

Mr. O'Donnell said that for many relatives, the five-year milestone,
which follows a final accident report in March by Canada's
Transportation Safety Board, seems like a logical time to end the
planned ritual.

But he said family and others close to those who perished "will
always" come here to remember their loved ones.

Several families from other parts of North America and from Europe
are intending to attend the fifth anniversary events. Mr. O'Donnell
said others taking part will be Nova Scotians who helped with the
recovery operation and crash investigation.

On Tuesday, a public gathering and prayer service is scheduled for
11 a.m. at the Bayswater memorial. A reception will follow at the
Blandford community centre.

Mr. O'Donnell said that at 4 p.m., about 25 family members will
travel by boat to the crash site, 11 kilometres from Peggys Cove.

A brief prayer service will be held on the water.

According to Ottawa's crash report, wiring feeding the jet's
entertainment system likely contributed to the fire, which filled
the Boeing MD-11's cockpit with smoke.

The $57-million probe, which produced 23 recommendations, concluded
the pilots acted appropriately after smelling smoke 53 minutes into
the doomed flight.

http://www.herald.ns.ca/stories/2003/08/27/fNovaScotia125.raw.html
---------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------

I have posted the following message on several flight attendant
forums...

I am asking any flight attendants who read these open letters to Mr.
Ward and Ms. Friend to forward it again to them at the following
email addresses and ask them why they will not talk with us. Your
unions have known about these problems for years and have refused to
get involved while they know your lives are in imminent danger.

If you die in a future crash, will your family believe the lie the
NTSB tells them about your passing?

apfa-president@...,apfa-vice-president@..., apfa-
secretary@...,apfa-treasurer@...,afatalk@...

John Ward
President
Association of Professional Flight Attendants

Mr. Ward,

Please read the enclosed letter to Patricia Friend, President of the
Association of Flight Attendants, and contact me. I would like to
discuss this issue which is putting your membership in imminent
danger. I have CC'd this to APFA's Vice President, Secretary, and
Treasurer.

James Bergquist

Ms. Friend,

My name is James Bergquist, former FAA air traffic controller and
head of our union, NATCA, in San Diego. I am concerned about the
lives of your membership and felt compelled to contact you again.

From the press release on your site at...

www.afanet.org/april8_let...a_sars.asp

I see Mr. Witkowski, your Director of air safety, is in communication
with the FAA and others in high places in our government.

Please read my open letter to President Bush which I posted on the
VJ592 memorial site at...

http://www.flight592.com/Flight592Discussion-
Current/_disc10/00000373.htm

and contact me. I would like to talk with you again. If you no longer
have my home phone number, email me and I'll send it to you again.

I am asking that you send the letter to him again at

president@...

You should know that I contacted Mr. Witkowski some ten years ago
when he worked at Ralph Nader's organization, the Aviation Consumer
Action Project (ACAP), with this information and he did nothing.

Maybe we can clean up the system and save the lives of a few of your
flight attendants.

On a lighter note, you might enjoy the cartoon on my website at...

users.sdccu.net/chickenlittle


Best Regards,


James Bergquist
air safety activist
chickenlittle92071@...

Beyond Conflict Of Interest

More than conflict of interest is involved in the designated
engineering representative/designated alteration station (DER/DAS)
system criticized recently by Ray Hudson (see ASW, April 28). There
also is a failure of accountability, asserts Mark Fetherolf, an
experienced software developer who has managed a number of large
projects, some of them critical systems (oil refinery process
monitoring and military weapons systems).

Fetherolf believes that Hudson "correctly identifies a loophole in
the federal aviation regulations [FARs] and suggests eminently
sensible design requirements."

Hudson was discussing the process by which a supplemental type
certificate (STC) was granted for the in-flight entertainment (IFE)
system installed in the Swissair MD-11 that crashed in 1998. The
Transportation Safety Board (TSB) of Canada found significant
shortcomings in the STC process by which the installation was
approved, as did a special certification review (SCR) conducted by
the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) after the crash (see ASW,
Sept. 13, 1999, and April 7, 2003).

Briefly, the TSB said the safety analysis for the IFE, described by
the STC applicant as a non-essential system, could be based on "a
qualitative analysis to be based on prior engineering judgement and
past experience."

So, in light of Hudson's question about what sort of safety analysis
was done, Fetherolf said the answer appears to be "none."

It gets worse. According to Fetherolf, both the TSB and the FAA's
scathing SCR of the IFE installation involve a formality of
discussion that "obfuscates accountability in the process."

Fetherolf argued as follows:

"Regulations require the approval of the STC by an appointed
designee, which was, in this case, Santa Barbara Aerospace (SBA)."
(SBA supplied the IFE and obtained the STC for its installation.)
"The TSB report indicates that the design associated with the STC,
as approved by SBA and its associated DER's call for powering the
IFE from the cabin bus, was modified by Hollingshead International
(HI) when it was discovered that the cabin bus lacked adequate
capacity." (HI installed the system.)
"It is unknown if this change was communicated to SBA. Therefore,
there must be no documentation to support that it was communicated."
"The installed system varied materially from the approved design.
There is no documentation to support that the modification was
approved."
"And so, therefore, the system as installed was effectively not
certified."
Fetherolf went on to say, "I don't believe it is proper for all
parties to avoid accountability by effectively stating that, in the
absence of a rigorously defined process, we follow the (obviously
incomplete) regulations (most of the time) and when we didn't it was
because we lacked the training or expertise."

"Contemporary engineering practices embody the view that poor
quality is the result of flawed processes [which must be corrected].
It is assumed that workers have the best of intentions and that
processes must embody a tolerance of inherent human imperfection.
Where the assumption of best intention is correct, the result is the
miracle of continuous product improvement. But the benefit is undone
if the intentional compromise of quality can be concealed behind
letter-of-the-law compliance with regulations.

"It is a huge red flag when a project follows a circuitous path for
no apparent reason other than threading its way through loophole
after loophole - exactly the behavior described in the SCR report.
As one example, the SCR determined that the IFE system's electrical
power switching arrangement was 'not compatible with the design
concept of the MD- 11.' The proposition that type-compatibility for
a supplemental system is not a requirement - or not a requirement
unless explicitly stated - strikes me as absurd.

"The perpetrators deliberately compromised quality and safety.

"Some specific reforms that might be considered include:

"An independent body to review the qualifications, the certification
and the performance of designees, and of the FAA's overall
regulatory performance. The Department of Transportation Inspector
General (DOT/IG) should undertake a one-time special review of this
process as an absolute minimum."
"The FAA should be more active in imposing judicial and disciplinary
consequences to egregious breaches of regulations and of DER/DAS
responsibilities."
"Independent DERs should be indemnified to the same extent as FAA
employees."
"These are Band-Aid actions. They do not go to the heart of the
matter: intentional circumvention of the regulatory system is
laughably easy. And to further compound the problem, there seems to
be pervasive industry-wide denial that this could ever happen
again." >> Fetherolf, e-mail mark@... <<

An Incompatible Installation
"The IFE was connected to a flight-essential bus, not a cabin bus,
and the only way it could be turned off was by pulling circuit
breakers. In other words, shutting off the cabin bus, one of the
first steps in the emergency checklist for troubleshooting smoke and
fire of unknown origin (the Swissair case) would not disconnect IFE
power.

"And since the IFE was a 'passenger convenience' item, there was no
requirement for changes in the pilot's operating manual to inform
the crew about the system's functioning. [An FAA official] explained
that because there were no requirements, the arrangement 'wasn't
inherently unsafe, although it wasn't understandable to the flight
crew - it wasn't clear to them in an emergency situation.'

"In operation, the system generated so much heat that ... engineers
had to vary the range of air-conditioning temperature controllers.
This gambit was a tip-off that this system was a voracious energy
parasite and a possible source of real grief."

Source: Avionics Magazine, May 2001, p. 53

Here's an open letter to President Bush which I posted on the VJ592
wbsite...

http://www.flight592.com/Flight592Discussion-
Current/_disc10/00000373.htm

James A. Bergquist
Air Safety Activist
chickenlittle92071@...

With the AA587 crash in N.Y. , it was also revealed that the
experimentaion with human lives failed desperately.

For years, it had been acknowledged that wake turbulence was a treat
to aircrafts - but still, too short horisontal separation between the
jets was utilized. Until a fin was broken and 260+ lifes were lost.

Greed ("compression" within the available airspace) eventually
proving wrong, then also disclosing non-existing safety-analyzis...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3008385.stm

Disgusting....

len

It is not only in the O´Hare airspace that deliberate risk-exposure
takes place these days - here is an event that sends chilly
remembrances to a tragic event off the coast of California,US ;

SAS-flight in dramatic incident at ARN.

A SAS´flight on it´s way from ARN to London (UK) was forced to turn
back to ARN at lunch time on May 1, one hour into the flt.

The pilot reported that chafing in the controls for the
aircraft´s "steering and rudder" occured.
There were 147 pax and 5 crew on board.
- The descision was made to return to the place of departure, since
this is where there are good perspectives on investigating and
repairing the aircraft, as the stetment o Ulf Thorne, media contact
in SAS.
According to Thorne, there never was any risk for the flight.
Emergency vehicles and police was standing by at the landing, which
was un-eventful.


len

http://www.usatoday.com/money/biztravel/2003-03-09-swissair_x.htm

Officials to probe use of aviation contractors
By Gary Stoller, USA TODAY

The General Accounting Office is launching an investigation into the
federal government's use of thousands of private companies to inspect
and certify airlines' planes and aircraft alterations.

GAO officials say the new probe was triggered by a Feb. 17 USA TODAY
article and a letter Friday from Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore. He said
that the Federal Aviation Administration's use of private companies
has been criticized and that the newspaper story suggested "the
aviation industry was supervising itself without adequate controls
and oversight by FAA." (Related story: Doomed plane's gaming system
exposes holes in FAA oversight)

The article documented how a faulty interactive entertainment system
on a Swissair jet that crashed in September 1998 was incorrectly
installed and improperly certified by private companies. All 229
people aboard Flight 111, which left New York and plunged into the
Atlantic Ocean near Nova Scotia, were killed.

Canada's Transportation Safety Board will announce the findings of
its investigation on March 27. The board, which has been assisted by
the FAA, found early on that wires in the system and other wires
short-circuited and could have led to a fire.

The system was made by a small Las Vegas company, Interactive Flight
Technologies.

An FAA-approved contractor, Santa Barbara Aerospace, was hired to
certify that the system met FAA safety standards and oversee its
installation on Swissair jets. SBA's certification violated FAA
procedures, according to the FAA's post-crash review.

The FAA did not oversee SBA's work on the project aggressively, even
though it had criticized the company's work in the past, USA TODAY
reported, based on a review of FAA documents.

After the Swissair crash, the FAA found problems with the design,
installation and certification of IFT's systems and banned them. SBA
lost operating authority and went bankrupt.

Unknown to much of the traveling public, thousands of individuals and
companies like SBA have been increasingly used in the past few
decades to do the FAA's inspection and certification work. The FAA
relies on designees because it doesn't have enough staff or expertise
to monitor the large number of planes flying today. Critics charge
that designees may not be impartial certifiers, because they are
hired and paid by the companies that want their products certified.

The GAO has not yet set a timetable for completing its investigation
of the designee program, says Gerald Dillingham, the agency's
director of civil aviation issues.

The program and other issues raised by USA TODAY's article also
concern the Department of Transportation's Office of Inspector
General. Deputy IG Todd Zinser says the office is "evaluating the
information to determine whether further investigation is warranted."

FAA spokesman Paul Takemoto says the agency is "ready to assist in
any review" of its programs. He wouldn't comment further.

It was just reported from Zurich, that new-old Swissair is about to
cut down in staffing by 700 heads and with 20 Alu tubes in their
fleet.

len

It was a MD81.
Problem was in a fan in one of the galleys.
Noticeable is that it took a long time to locate the source of the
smoke.

len
'--- In sr111@yahoogroups.com, lenkarl <no_reply@y...> wrote:
> SAS plane made emergency landing in Denmark (Source:TT Gothenburg)
>
> A passenger jet from SAS , enroute from London UK to Gothenburg
made
> an emergency landing in Aaalborg, Denmark, after that a dense smoke
> odeur had spread in the cabin.
>
> The landing at the Aalborg airport was uneventful and the
passengers
> were expected to be provided with another aircraft, for proceeding
to
> their dest. (Gothenburg).
>
> The plane , with 101 pax on board, was expected to arrive in Goth.
at
> 10.10 pm local time, but was instead forced to execute a so-called
> precautionary landing in Aalborg. The airport´s fire brigade and
> ambulances were standing by, there.
>
> The situation was very uncomfortable, but none of the people on
board
> panic´d , says passenger Anneli Young.
>
> -It started to smell from melted plastics inside the cabin. It was
an
> intense odeur. The cabin crew was seen running forth and back in
the
> aisles with fire extinguishers.
>
> Acc. to Ulf Thorné, media spokes man within SAS, the safety landing
> was fully according to the protocol.
> -In a situation like this, it is mandatory to land as soon as
> possible. It is not possible to make a risk assessment, while still
> being air borne, he stated.
>
> The plane was held at the airport, where a full technical
inspection
> now will be carried out.
>
>
>
>
> /len

SAS plane made emergency landing in Denmark (Source:TT Gothenburg)

A passenger jet from SAS , enroute from London UK to Gothenburg made
an emergency landing in Aaalborg, Denmark, after that a dense smoke
odeur had spread in the cabin.

The landing at the Aalborg airport was uneventful and the passengers
were expected to be provided with another aircraft, for proceeding to
their dest. (Gothenburg).

The plane , with 101 pax on board, was expected to arrive in Goth. at
10.10 pm local time, but was instead forced to execute a so-called
precautionary landing in Aalborg. The airport´s fire brigade and
ambulances were standing by, there.

The situation was very uncomfortable, but none of the people on board
panic´d , says passenger Anneli Young.

-It started to smell from melted plastics inside the cabin. It was an
intense odeur. The cabin crew was seen running forth and back in the
aisles with fire extinguishers.

Acc. to Ulf Thorné, media spokes man within SAS, the safety landing
was fully according to the protocol.
-In a situation like this, it is mandatory to land as soon as
possible. It is not possible to make a risk assessment, while still
being air borne, he stated.

The plane was held at the airport, where a full technical inspection
now will be carried out.




/len

http://usatoday.com/usatonline/20030217/4871800s.htm

Service limited to fixing leaks!

We have become aware recently, based on direct information confirmed
by reliable sources, that it is highly likely that the RCMP, and
possibly other authorities, are conducting an investigation to
determine the identity of the source of the information reported on
this board and on the SR111 Yahoo Group by beanspiller_ca. We
apologize for being cryptic. We never expected to have much of
anything in common with the CIA, but like them we can't say much more
without compromising the sources.

Of course the obvious question is: If the information "leaked" is not
factually correct, why bother looking for the source? I'm quite sure
that if we reported that we had learned from a highly placed source
in the TSB that the crash had been caused by faulty lavatory smoke
detectors, there would be no investigation. The report would be
dismissed on the assumption that either we were lying or misinformed.
What other than a distinct ring of truth or the presence of factual
information not known outside the investigative inner circle would
motivate such an inquiry?

If the fact of this inquiry, in combination with the other evidence
reported here, leads one to presume that the IFEN was indeed a
significant contributor, if not the root cause, of the fire and
resultant crash, then why not investigate its finance, design,
engineering, approval, purchase and installation, aspects of every
one of which give rise to reasonable cause to investigate further? To
be specific,

- Financed by a investment banker who was subsequently indicted for
securities fraud (IFT's IPO is named in the indictment)
- *Led by individuals with little or no experience in the development
of aviation products
- Guided through the approval process by a company whose FAA
designations were "surrendered" along with the IFEN certification
after an extensive investigation
- Assisted in governmental and regulatory affairs by the same
consultants who helped American Home Products gain FDA approval for
Fen-Phen
- Purchased for Swissair by one or more individual(s) who held IFT
company stock
- *Installation rushed based on incomplete specifications
- *Wiring practices questioned
- Electrical design found to be fundamentally incompatible with the
architecture of the MD11
- Rejected after being tested by other major air carriers, sold only
to Swissair
- Sold based on the promise of huge profits from in-flight gambling
(that never materialized)
- *Overheated, failed frequently

(*reported or suggested strongly by credible sources; all other items
are, to the best of our knowledge, unchallenged on factual basis)

The TSB takes the position, ostensibly on the basis of Canadian law,
that the information gathered in the course of its investigations
shall not be used for the purpose of civil litigation or criminal
prosecution. The stated rationale behind this is that any other
policy would diminish the TSB's investigative effectiveness. And
there is undoubtedly some truth to this. To the extent that the TSB
is credible in its assurance of complete confidentiality and
protection from prosecution, backed by the full weight of the law,
one would reasonably expect witnesses to be more forthcoming than
they might be otherwise. Leaks undermine the credibility of such
assurances and are therefore are, we suggest, an anathema to the TSB.
This all hangs together logically given the assumption that accidents
are just that and nothing more. Ever. Ah, but therein lies the rub.
What of the case, however rare, when there is true criminal conduct
that leads directly to loss of life? Does the end (better future
safety) then justify the means (letting the guilty go)? One inclined
toward forgiveness (to a fault IMHO) might assert that indeed it
does. Nothing can be done to bring back the dead. Better to
concentrate on averting future tragedy. But the obvious flaw in this
logic is that criminals repeat their offenses. We don't just punish
criminals to satisfy an abstract sense of justice. We do so to deter
future crimes. If reckless disregard for human life (especially in
the pursuit of personal gain) is unpunished, it is encouraged. The
prospect of consequences is removed. The prospect of gain remains.

It is generally culpable act to: Do something one shouldn't do; or
not do something one should do, that creates substantial and
unjustifiable risk. Statutes lay out degrees of culpability. One who:
should be aware of an unjustifiable risk is negligent ; is aware of
an unjustifiable risk, but takes it anyway, is reckless; knows that a
harmful outcome is nearly certain to occur is knowing; has the
conscious object of achieving a harmful result is purposeful. A drunk
driver who causes a fatal car crash is criminally liable. To the
extent he knows the risk involved but takes it anyway, he may be
guilty of reckless homicide. If he was able to convince the court
that he was unaware of the risk (not likely these days), he might be
found guilty of negligent homicide. So, one can be liable if he
reasonably should have known that his action or inaction created
substantial risk. Furthermore, criminal liability is not limited to
actively and knowingly doing something that endangers another, but
can be the result of failure to take actions that one should have
known were necessary to avoid the unjustifiable risk.

So we ask:
- Should people who built add-on systems for aircraft be aware of
issues such as "compatibility with the design philosophy" of the
aircraft.
- Doesn't skirting the mandated certification process pose a risk
(even if "no regulations were violated", technically)?
- Doesn't hasty installation of a complex system introduce the risk
of mistakes?
- Does solving an add-in systems "heat problem" by simply cranking up
the air conditioning sound like the safe solution or a risky one?

As we see it, there is a more than ample basis to suspect that the
actions of various parties did indeed constitute criminal behavior.
Yet the TSB insists that confidentiality is the more important
matter. This goes well beyond just giving the parties the benefit of
the doubt. No, we don't have the smoking gun in hand. If the TSB
encountered a memo from a senior engineer to the CEO of one of the
companies involved that said, "This system is unsafe and will cause
in-flight fires!" would they keep it a secret according to the
mandate of Canadian law? The evidence is mounting. In our opinion,
there is already "probably cause" to conduct a criminal
investigation. The TSB might well take the position that this is not
their concern, but all other authorities are waiting with bated
breath for the pronouncement of cause by the TSB. We already know
that their conclusion will be that that crash was the result of a
number of coincident factors. Even if they report that the IFEN was a
substantial contributing factor, they will not disclose the details
from which that conclusion was drawn. In fact, one can only suppose
that, if a particular item of information is incriminating, they are
bound by law to withhold it!

So the criminal is protected and the citizen who has the courage to
tell the truth to the families of the victims becomes the object of a
police investigation. A system, no matter how well-intentioned that
could have this as its outcome is broken and needs to be repaired.

Mark

http://www.swissair111.org

Commission Criticizes Swissair Management



ZURICH, Switzerland - The leadership of the now defunct Swiss flag
carrier Swissair made serious mistakes prior to the airline's
collapse, but it is unclear whether this will have any legal
consequences, an official report said Friday.


In a long-awaited 3,300 page report, the management consultancy firm
Ernst & Young said the sudden grounding of the carrier on Oct. 2,
2001 — leaving thousands of passengers stranded — was unnecessary
because Swissair had 123 million Swiss francs (then worth $76.9
million) at its disposal, and not just the 14.5 million francs it
claimed.

Swissair's parent company SAirGroup was heavily indebted at the end
of 2000. But the company's accounting practices masked the gravity of
the financial crisis, the report said. It criticized Swissair's board
and its auditors for being negligent.

It also said that Swissair, by taking sizable stakes in troubled
European carriers, failed to comply with its own strategy calling for
minority holdings of 10 percent to 30 percent.

The law firm overseeing Swissair's liquidation, Wenger Plattner, said
the report would be studied in depth before any decision was taken on
possible legal action against Swissair's former management. A
decision would not be made until the second half of the year, it
said.

Swissair was long a symbol of reliability and quality. After its
abrupt demise, the Swiss government and big banks were forced to
inject billions of dollars into a new airline, called Swiss.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?
tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030124/ap_on_bi_ge/swissair_1
----------------------------------------------------------------------
----------

Swissair souvenir sale 'boggles' widow's mind

By RICHARD DOOLEY
The Daily News


The widow of a man killed in the 1998 crash of Swissair Flight 111
says the sale of souvenirs purporting to be from the crash site is
tantamount to trampling a cemetery.

"That is the only graveyard we have," said Lyn Romano, a New York
state woman who also has a home in Hants County. Her husband, Ray,
was one of 229 people who died when Swissair Flight 111 crashed into
St. Margarets Bay on Sept. 2, 1998.

A small advertisement in the latest Bargain Hunter offered "sand,
rock and water wrapped in ribbon and lace. From the location where
Swissair plunged into the Atlantic Ocean."

"I really didn't expect to see something like this," said Romano. The
fourth anniversary of her husband's funeral was Saturday, the day Lyn
Romano read The Daily News story about the souvenirs.

Had to respond

"It just boggles my mind," she said. "I had to make a response to it."

The phone number in the advertisement has been disconnected, but not
until after a Hants County man called the woman offering the
souvenirs. He expressed his outrage and asked her to consider the
victims' families.

Glenn Nelson told The Daily News he considers the ad one of the
crudest things he's read.

Romano wants to thank him personally.

"I am so glad he spoke out about it," she said. "Our loved ones
deserve the dignity they were robbed of."

Romano said Nelson's kindness is more typical of the connection she
feels with many of her Nova Scotian friends and Hants County
neighbours.

Lost electricity

Romano spent Christmas at her Nova Scotia home, but lost electricity
one bitterly cold night. A stranger stopped at her door to invite
Romano and her family to his home because he had a generator and heat.

"We had a wood stove, so we were fine, but that is they type of
connection I've made with so many people here," she said. "That's why
I have to speak out against this."

rdooley@...

http://www.canada.com/halifax/story.asp?id={07E49FF3-F081-4F83-91F8-
2A1A84540A3E}

More information at http://www.swissair111.org

--- In sr111@yahoogroups.com, maillet_isabelle <no_reply@y...> wrote:
> Best wishes for this christmas,
> again an either christmas
> all my simpathy for all members
> With all my love,
> Isabelle

Isabelle I just want to wish you best wishes this holiday season also
and let you know that your family will always be in my heart.

Love,
Barbara

Best wishes for this christmas,
again an either christmas
all my simpathy for all members
With all my love,
Isabelle

It's posted in a PDF file on Swissair111.org for anyone interested in
the FAA's 2 yr. study of the IFEN (entertainment system)following the
sr111 crash.

Shape of Swissair memorial a shame, NDP says

By David Jackson / Provincial Reporter

Finding which branch of government handles what issues can be a
headache even for an MLA, New Democrat Bill Estabrooks discovered
this week.

Mr. Estabrooks said Tuesday he wants someone to fix the pathway from
the parking lot to the Swissair memorial site at Whalesback near
Peggys Cove, established three years ago.

The path winds around rocks for about 100 metres to the memorial, and
Mr. Estabrooks said it's worn away enough that the drainage system is
visible in some places and it's possible someone could roll an ankle.

"To allow it to deteriorate so quickly is just embarrassing," said
Mr. Estabrooks, MLA for Timberlea-Prospect.

Mr. Estabrooks said he spent hours on the phone Monday afternoon,
calling a Peggys Cove community organization, Halifax Regional
Municipality and provincial departments of Public Works, Natural
Resources and Tourism trying to find who's responsible for the path's
upkeep.

He said a Public Works official told him a committee of senior
bureaucrats is responsible for the site, but the committee hasn't
held any meetings yet.

Mr. Estabrooks said the runaround irritated him, and he issued a news
release Tuesday calling on the Hamm government to come up with a plan
for maintaining the site.

A Public Works spokesman referred this newspaper's call to a Natural
Resources spokeswoman, who didn't return the call Tuesday afternoon.

http://www.herald.ns.ca/stories/2002/10/30/p197.raw.html

To anyone that is trying to subscribe to this board: Please send me
an email explaining your interest in becoming a member. Due to the
fact that some inappropriate ads have shown up and the nature of this
board, I would appreciate a little information before approving a
membership. Thanks.

babsf342@...

--- In sr111@y..., donaldnj00 <no_reply@y...> wrote:
> I do not often come into SR111 room but please know that my
thoughts
> are with all.  I too lost 2 family members in the accident, and as
> you
> all know never a day goes by without thinking of our loved ones.
Well
> this is to my extending family--YOU.  God's Blessing to Us All.  Don

Donald, It's good to hear from you again. I hope you are doing okay
under the circumstances. Just wanted to tell you that Mark set up a
site at http://swissair111.org where we have more current posts. Hope
you'll join us there. God bless you and your family also.

Barbara

I do not often come into SR111 room but please know that my thoughts
are with all.  I too lost 2 family members in the accident, and as
you
all know never a day goes by without thinking of our loved ones. Well
this is to my extending family--YOU.  God's Blessing to Us All.  Don

SR111 Operations Center
1901 Research Road
Ottawa Ontario
K1A1K8

23 September 2002

Salutation

The Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) would like to take
this opportunity to provide you with some additional information
regarding the confidential draft review process.

As you may know, the Board has completed its review of the initial
draft report, and the confidential draft report review process is now
under way. As part of that process, and in accordance with Canadian
legislation, the Board has sent the draft report. in confidence to
designated reviewers. Designated reviewers are individuals or
organizations whose performance, behaviour or products may be
commented on in the draft report as well as those who may contribute
to the completeness and overall accuracy of the report. Designated
reviewers play an important role in clarifying technical and factual
information and ensuring accuracy. The Board will assess the
representations from designated reviewers and determine whether any
changes to the draft report are necessary to ensure accuracy, only
then will the final draft report be approved by the Board for release
to the public.

As mentioned, the review process is to be completed in confidence.
Therefore, the contents of the confidential draft report cannot be
released to anyone who is not a designated reviewer, and designated
reviewers have agreed to protect the confidentiality of the draft
report.

Recently, there has been some speculation circulating about the
content of the draft report. Given the provision for confidentiality
of the draft report at this stage at the process, it would be
inappropriate for the TSB to comment on this speculation. Because of
the complexity of this accident, the investigation has taken more
time than might have been anticipated and the TSB understands your
desire to be kept informed. However we solicit your patience in
waiting until the final report is released to receive thorough and
accurate information about the accident. We hope you share our
conviction that the safety deficiencies identified during this
investigation must be well supported in the final public report and
that, by ensuring factual accuracy; we will have helped to advance
air safety worldwide.

Before the final report is released as expected in the first quarter
of 2003, we will again contact you to provide you with information
about the public release, and to ascertain if you wish to receive a
copy of the final report and by what means. We also plan to provide
you with an opportunity to attend a briefing session immediately
preceding the public release of the final report.
Again I appreciate your patience as the TSB finalizes its
investigation report into this tragic accident. If you have any
questions, please write to us at the above address or e-mail us at
Communications@...

Yours truly,

Vic Gerden
TSB Investigator in-charge

Also see http://www.swissair111.org for translated excerpts from the
SonntagZeitung article on the draft report.

From: Mark Fetherolf


Please see:

http://www.swissair111.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=000187

--- In sr111@y..., stuart_allsop <no_reply@y...> wrote:
> --- In sr111@y..., barbarafetherolf <no_reply@y...> wrote:
> > Just want to clarify something I said in my last post. I meant
that
> > Mark spoke with Beanspiller not the source. Just want to be very
> > accurate about this.
> >
> > Barbara
>
> Is Mark still able to contact him?  If so, it would be a great
> opportunity to bring up the points I mentioned, and try to get some
> clarification.  For example, why did he say that law requires
wiring
> to be run in conduit when this is not true?  Why did he say the
IFEN
> was installed down by the leading edge of the left wing, when in
fact
> it was installed in the first-class overhead?
>
> I'm not disagreeing with him on the cause of the fire being the
faulty
> wiring to the IFEN.  That has been my number one suspicion for a
long
> time now (I think we have all suspected that as being the root
cause
> of the tragedy). That part certainly rings true.
>
> I can also understand that, if the person is not knowldegeable
about
> aviation, they could have confused the information given to them,
and
> maybe misrepresented it in the post.
>
> But I am questioning the other "facts" that this person presented.
The
> way they are presented in the post does not bring anything new to
> light (there really is nothing in there that hadn't already been
> leaked to the press, either officialy or unofficially, or
speculated
> up widely).  I guess Beanspiller was able to provide additional
> information to Mark that was not in the post, since the post still
> does not convince me.
>
> Perhaps it is just a case of Beanspiller getting mixed up due to
lack
> of knowledge.  The only way to clarify that is to ask him/her.  So,
if
> Beanspiller still has contact with the original source, then I can
> think of a number of questions that I would like to ask of the
source,
> in order to clear up my doubts about the truthfulness of the
> information.  Of course, the questions and answers would have to be
> carefully phrased in such a way as to ensure that the identity of
the
> source remains totally concealed.
>
> Do you think that would be possible?  Is Mark still able to contact
> Beanspiller, and is Beanspiller still able to contact the source?
>
> Regarding the newspaper article on the contents of the report, yes
I
> did see that.  It sounds quite feasible.  I have no reason to doubt
> that the information is correct.  But it is rather incomplete!
> Personally, I don't see the reason why the families are not allowed
to
> see the report immediately, especially if the Captain's widow has
> already been allowed to read it.  I can't see why the TSB wouldn't
> just ask you all to sign a binding Non Disclosure Agreement, then
> allow you to read the report.  It seems very unfair, if you ask me.

Stuart all I can really say at this point is that it is important IMO
to believe 'Beanspiller' even if there are some inaccuracies, and the
Swiss press because unfortunately that may be the closest we ever get
to the truth of what happened to sr111. It is very likely that the
final version that we will see will be changed and basically
sanitized into very little information until all is said and done. At
least that is what I'm hearing. It is VERY important that we get
leaks. It would be better and only right if the family members could
see the original. Mark and I totally believe Beanspiller, and we
trust the Swiss newspaper. Nothing in it for either one of them to
lie. Nothing at all. The TSB is not in anyway obligated to give us a
conclusion (legally that is)and if you read Bouchard's remarks you
will see that we probably will never be given one if we don't see the
draft. I think it is an absolute disgrace the way this is being done
but have no idea of what to do about it. It's beyond me that after
what this family has been through (and all the other surviving family
members of sr111) our lives totally ruined probably because of some
greedy airline and their contractors here in the US, that we can't
even officially be told the truth. Outrageous. After 4 yrs of waiting
and suffering we have to beg information from secondary sources. Yeah
makes a lot of sense. Sorry I'm outraged.

--- In sr111@y..., barbarafetherolf <no_reply@y...> wrote:
> Just want to clarify something I said in my last post. I meant that
> Mark spoke with Beanspiller not the source. Just want to be very
> accurate about this.
>
> Barbara

Is Mark still able to contact him?  If so, it would be a great
opportunity to bring up the points I mentioned, and try to get some
clarification.  For example, why did he say that law requires wiring
to be run in conduit when this is not true?  Why did he say the IFEN
was installed down by the leading edge of the left wing, when in fact
it was installed in the first-class overhead?

I'm not disagreeing with him on the cause of the fire being the faulty
wiring to the IFEN.  That has been my number one suspicion for a long
time now (I think we have all suspected that as being the root cause
of the tragedy). That part certainly rings true.

I can also understand that, if the person is not knowldegeable about
aviation, they could have confused the information given to them, and
maybe misrepresented it in the post.

But I am questioning the other "facts" that this person presented. The
way they are presented in the post does not bring anything new to
light (there really is nothing in there that hadn't already been
leaked to the press, either officialy or unofficially, or speculated
up widely).  I guess Beanspiller was able to provide additional
information to Mark that was not in the post, since the post still
does not convince me.

Perhaps it is just a case of Beanspiller getting mixed up due to lack
of knowledge.  The only way to clarify that is to ask him/her.  So, if
Beanspiller still has contact with the original source, then I can
think of a number of questions that I would like to ask of the source,
in order to clear up my doubts about the truthfulness of the
information.  Of course, the questions and answers would have to be
carefully phrased in such a way as to ensure that the identity of the
source remains totally concealed.

Do you think that would be possible?  Is Mark still able to contact
Beanspiller, and is Beanspiller still able to contact the source?

Regarding the newspaper article on the contents of the report, yes I
did see that.  It sounds quite feasible.  I have no reason to doubt
that the information is correct.  But it is rather incomplete!
Personally, I don't see the reason why the families are not allowed to
see the report immediately, especially if the Captain's widow has
already been allowed to read it.  I can't see why the TSB wouldn't
just ask you all to sign a binding Non Disclosure Agreement, then
allow you to read the report.  It seems very unfair, if you ask me.

It would be so much better if the families had access to the draft
report obviously because there is no question that we are the
affected parties. Unfortunately because we apparently are not privy
to that information, we are forced to pay attention to the leaks that
will come out as a result of this Canadian policy. We can only put 2
and 2 together based on what we've learned from the few updates we've
been given and the research done by other parties. Looking for
consistency in the comments from the different sources is one clue.
That is the position we are in. We think it is grossly unfair that we
are left to wait until the responsible parties have had an
opportunity to make their comments as we would like to see the
original for obvious reasons. IMO we've waited long enough- 4 yrs. It
isn't even clear to me when we will actually receive that final
report. Are the affected parties allowed to make changes to it if
they don't like something that is stated? I guess it depends on how
long the involved parties tie it up. Sounds absurd to me, but as far
as I know there is nothing we can do about that.