There were lots of questions about Swissair 111 including the fact it was a 2 man crew on a long flight. Here is the short version of final minutes. At 2210 they first detected smoke. They felt it was air conditioning smoke. 4 minutes later they were 66 miles from Halifax and realized it was smoke from a possible fire. They declared Pan Pan Pan at that point. Test in a simulator determined from that point it was possible to put the aircraft on the ground at Halifax in under 14 minutes or 2228 It would have required a maximum effort and was probably not possible with a 2 man crew. A relief pilot handling the smoke and fire checklist might have allowed a quicker arrival. The crew was task saturated. The aircraft crashed at 2231. The crash may have contribute to the survival of the crew on a FedEx DC10 who also had a onboard fire diverting into Stewart NY. They landed in just under 14 minutes from divert initiation to touchdown from 33,000 feet. The violated both ATC speed restrictions and max aircraft speed but lived. The aircraft was destroyed. It was interesting that from the onset of smoke or smoke warnings both crews took about 4 minutes before initiating diverts. I am not faulting the MD11 crew in anyway. Trying to run the complicated smoke and fire checklist, divert checklist, overweight landing checklist, calculate landing distances ect.. while trying to fly the aircraft was overwhelming. The FedEx flight had the benefit of a 3 man crew with jumpseaters. US airlines were required to have a 3 man crew on flights of that length.
- Swissair 111 heavy is declaring Pan Pan Pan. We have smoke in the cockpit, request deviate immediate right turn to a convenient place. I guess Boston," the pilot radios air traffic control. (Pan Pan Pan is a distress code.)
After informing the pilot that Halifax is much closer, a controller asks, "Would you prefer to go into Halifax?"
"Affirmative," says the pilot, who turns north and is cleared to descend to 10,000 feet (3030 meters).
- As the plane reaches the coast of Nova Scotia, the pilot is assigned a path for landing. The controller informs the pilot, "You've got 30 miles (48 kilometers) to fly to the (runway) threshold."
"We need more than 30 miles," he responds, concerned that he is still too high to descend to a landing within that distance. The controller then instructs the pilot to turn left to lose some more altitude, and he veers away from Halifax.
- As the pilot approaches an altitude of 10,000 feet (3,030 meters), he informs the control tower, "We must dump some fuel." He requests permission to make a right or left turn, which would take him south, back out over the ocean and away from the Halifax airport. He is cleared to make a 200-degree turn to the left.
- Immediately after executing the turn, at 10:24 p.m., the pilot's conversation becomes more urgent: "We are declaring an emergency.... We have to land immediately." It is the last transmission from Swissair 111, which is at 9,700 feet (2,940 meters).
- Over the next six minutes, the pilot proceeds back out toward the ocean in a southbound direction, then turns in a complete circle, apparently trying to realign his route to the east, which would have taken him once again toward the Halifax airport.
- The plane hits the water at about 10:30 p.m., some 16 minutes after the smoke in the cockpit was first reported.