A Swissair pilot reported smoke in the cockpit, dumped tons of fuel and attempted an emergency landing before his jetliner crashed off Nova Scotia, killing all 229 people aboard, including 136 Americans.
Flight SR111 from New York to Geneva plunged into the ocean late Wednesday after leaving Kennedy International Airport at 8:17 p.m. It carried 215 passengers - including two infants - and 14 crew members.The plane disappeared from radar screens 30 miles south of Halifax International Airport.
Philippe Bruggisser, chief executive officer of Swissair's parent group, said Thursday that the 136 Americans were the largest single group aboard the plane. Some 30 French and 28 Swiss citizens were on board, he said.
The pilot had asked for permission to land in Boston, then decided to go on to Halifax, said Walter Vollenweider, a Swissair official in New York. Vollen-weider said he had no indication why the pilot made that choice.
Those on the ground reported hearing sputtering noises from an aircraft passing overhead and then a thundering crash.
"The motors were still going, but it was the worst-sounding deep groan that I've ever heard," said witness Claudia Zinck-Gilroy.
Dozens of fishing boats and coast guard ships immediately headed out in driving rain to the crash site, about six miles off the coast of Peggy's Cove, a picturesque fishing village popular with tourists.
By Thursday morning, 36 bodies had been recovered.
"We knew it was an explosion; there was a silence for two seconds after the explosion, then my ears popped," said Dar-rell Fralick, 26, a resident of Peggy's Cove. "At that split second, I looked at my watch; it was 10:35. I don't know why I looked at my watch; I just did."
The White House said terrorism likely was not a factor in the crash of the McDonnell Douglas MD-11 plane. President Clinton, who was visiting Northern Ireland Thursday, was being regularly briefed on the crash.
Dr. Jonathan Mann, a former professor at the Harvard School of Public Health and a pioneer in the fight against AIDS, was among the dead, along with his wife, according to Dr. Peter Piot of the U.N. World Health Organization.
The United Nations said about 10 U.N. workers returning to headquarters in Geneva also were believed to be on board.
Swissair said the passenger list will not be released until family members are notified.
An oil slick, life preservers and other debris from the downed aircraft spread out over six miles, said Roy Bears, an aviation safety investigator. Divers were using sonar to map the debris field and try to locate the black box in 150 feet of water, he added.
Ships and helicopters could be seen from shore through the light mist, about six miles offshore. Dozens of police, rescue workers and residents stood on the rocky granite coast watching the rescue effort.
Debris from the aircraft was found off Clam Island and other islets between Peggy's Cove and Blandford, 20 miles southwest of Halifax.
Canadian navy spokeswoman Tracy Simoneau said civilian rescuers were at the scene within minutes of the crash. Four rescue planes and four helicopters, as well as a Canadian navy ship, were also searching through the debris.
At the airports in New York and Geneva, grief counselors were on hand for relatives of the crash victims. A special lounge was set up in the Delta Air Lines terminal at Kennedy Airport.
More than 100 relatives and friends had gathered at the Geneva airport. Kennedy officials reported only a handful of relatives had shown up there.
The National Transportation Safety Board in Washington sent a team of 10 people to Canada Thursday and Swissair President Jeffrey Katz was heading to Halifax.
It was the first crash of a Swissair plane since Oct. 7, 1979, when one of its DC-8s overshot the runway in Athens, Greece, while attempting to land and burst into flames. Fourteen people were killed.
The plane was put into service in August 1991 and was overhauled in August and September last year, said Georges Schorderet, the chief financial officer of parent company SAirGroup. It had been checked as all are before takeoff, he added.
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Utahn killed
A prominent Utah physician was among those killed in the crash of a Swissair jet. Dr. Roger R. Williams, 54, internationally acclaimed for his work in cardiovascular genetics and professor of internal medicine at the University of Utah School of Medicine, was reportedly traveling to Geneva with a scientist from Merck, the pharmaceutical company. Williams was director of the U.'s Cardiovascular Genetics Research Clinic.