Swissair Crash Could Have Been Deliberate

A former RCMP arson investigator says all the evidence he found in the Swissair flight 111 crash points to an explosive device being set off in the cockpit.

A former RCMP investigator who worked on the Swissair crash case says the plane might have been taken down by an incendiary device and not – as is commonly accepted – by an electrical failure. Swissair flight 111, en route from New York to Geneva with a smattering of dignitaries and valuables aboard, crashed near Peggy's Cove, N.S., in 1998, killing all 229 passengers and crew. The flight's demise was officially chalked up to a fire in the cockpit caused by faulty wiring, although Tom Juby, the lead arson investigator on the file, told the CBC's The Fifth Estate that he believes it was caused by an explosion due to the amount of magnesium found in the plane's cockpit. That element is commonly used in explosives, says Juby, but because the crash was ruled an accident, the Transportation Safety Board led the case instead of the RCMP, which only would have led had it been deemed a criminal investigation.