Product Details

• Actors: Will Lyman, Dr. David Suzuki
• Directors: Gary Glassman, Howard E. Green
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: PBS
• DVD Release Date: April 27, 2004
• Run Time: 60 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00018U98O
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #31,230 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Studio: Wgbh Wholesale Release Date: 04/27/2004 Run time: 60 minutes

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Flying the friendly skies on unfriendly airplanes, August 9, 2007

By 

Kyle Tolle (Phoenix, Arizona USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: NOVA: Crash of Flight 111 (DVD)

On September 2nd, 1998, Swissair flight 111 (a McDonnell - Douglas MD -11) flying from New York to Geneva crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Nova Scotia killing all 229 people aboard. In the aftermath, the Canadian Transportation Safety Board conducted a 4 ½ year, 39 million dollar investigation that included assistance from the Americans and the Swiss.

Within 9 days of the crash, the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder (`Black Boxes') were recovered from the wreckage. Normally this is a significant aid in dissecting a crash but highly unusual in this case was that the recorders stopped working 6 minutes before the plane went down. In essence, this lost data equated to a major setback for investigators.

At the one year anniversary of the accident, most of the aircraft debris had been recovered and investigators had found burn marks on recovered aircraft parts and floating debris. Clues pointed to a fire origin somewhere in the forward attic section of the plane and this led investigators to focus on an electrically sparked fire. About 150 miles of wire traverse the jet overhead and a serious short circuit (i.e. - an electrical arc) in cracked insulated wire can be catastrophic.

After 3 ½ years of meticulous research, investigators finally pinpointed a space of 2 square feet above the cockpit as the ignition point and the material that quickened the spread of the fire was dangerously flammable fuselage insulation blankets. A re-enactment and simulation of the final 6 minutes of the flight shows the devastating and frightening series of events that made it impossible to save the aircraft and all of those aboard.

The most ominous messages in this documentary might be at the end and they are chilling in their implications. The Canadian Transportation Safety Board made 23 recommendations to improve flying safety because of this disaster. Unfortunately, the Civil Aviation Board (think: FAA) has only implemented a few of these changes much to the detriment of aviation safety. Furthermore, the airline industry and the FAA knew about the flammable material in the Swissair jet years before the accident occurred and they know about similar materials in several types of McDonnell - Douglas, Boeing, and Airbus aircraft today. There is even footage shown here of 2 previous aircraft fires caused by the same flammable insulation that helped bring down flight 111. Since this disaster occurred, there have been efforts to improve aircraft and aspects of flying safety but the progress is much too slow and complacent attitudes continue to persist despite obvious warning signs.

This is now the second NOVA presentation I've seen on aviation issues and I am once again highly impressed with their efforts. My first outing with them was `NOVA: The Deadliest Plane Crash'. Both of these features have met and sometimes exceeded my expectations for a quality documentary and I recommend these programs to everyone.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very helpful and enlightening Documentation, April 27, 2010

By 

Galileo - See all my reviews

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This review is from: NOVA: Crash of Flight 111 (DVD)

I wonder why this docu cannot be obtained in Europe, let alone in Switzerland. It is thorough and informative material, seriously asking a few vital questions but not accusing. It gives a neutral and relieving picture of the pilots who did their best but had no chance. It is still wide-spread that the two of them had an argument on the flight deck, and the Captain's name is still not entirely cleared although there's no reason at all to reproach either of them.

This documentation is giving facts and not speculations. It is highly interesting and informative, even to professionals like me. It's an ode to the many many people working hard to solve this incredible case of disaster and, very importantly, to the two pilots who were fighting for their lives and these of their passengers, not to forget their company. It opens ones eyes to the incredible nit-picking work crash investigators go through and finally find the missing part at the bottom of a scrap box. Highly recommendable!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An eye-opening look at one of the most difficult crash investigations ever, November 3, 2010

By 

Daniel Jolley "darkgenius" (Shelby, North Carolina USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: NOVA: Crash of Flight 111 (DVD)

This is an illuminating look at the tragic crash of Swissair 111 in 1998 and the extremely difficult and years-long investigation to pinpoint the cause of the disaster; perhaps even more importantly, the context of this fully avoidable accident casts a bright and extremely worrisome light on the continuing failures that pervade the air traffic industry. It is a story that goes beyond the tombstone mentality of aircraft makers and airlines executives and reveals the unwillingness and/or inability of the Federal Aviation Administration to ensure the safety of the millions of air passengers every year. This excellent documentary should and almost surely will make you angry.

On September 2, 1998, Swissair Flight 111 bound from New York to Geneva crashed off the coast of Nova Scotia, killing all 229 people on board. With the plane literally destroyed on impact, its debris lying 180 feet underwater, investigators had little to go on. The crew had reported a transient smell of smoke in the cockpit that seemingly disappeared when an air conditioning vent was closed - only to return in a significant way minutes later. A non-urgent emergency was declared, and the crew began plans to land at Halifax airport - but only after circling out over the water to dump fuel and begin its descent. It never made it to Halifax. Investigators soon learned that both the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder had failed during the emergency, robbing them of any data for the final six minutes of the flight. Thus began one of the longest, most expensive, and most difficult crash investigations in history. This documentary does an excellent job of describing the incredible challenges the investigators faced - collected and sorting through the tons of tiny debris, testing the wind currents in a similar plane to see how a fire above the cockpit would have spread, analyzing miles of recovered wires looking for evidence of power arcs, recreating the conditions of the flight, mapping every detail of the plane using advanced computer software, etc. Even after determining the cause of the problem, it took many more painstaking months to identify the initial source of the spark that caused the fire.

Investigators made a number of incredibly important discoveries during the investigation, the most important of which was the fact that the insulation around the wiring in the plane's attic was highly flammable. The material had passed FAA tests years earlier, but more stringent testing revealed that this plane and hundreds if not thousands more around the world were basically tinderboxes one good spark away from catching fire. The National Transportation Safety Board was quick to release this information and to recommend this flammable insulation be replaced by more fire-resistant material. Unfortunately, the NTSB could do no more than recommend such action be taken. Only the FAA has the authority to require safety changes of this type be done. The FAA did enact this recommendation - but gave airlines years to do it. Thus, this documentary ends on a really ominous note - at the time of its release in 2004, some six years after the crash of Swissair 111, hundreds of planes worldwide were still flying daily with highly flammable insulation protecting the wiring. Not only that, we learn that Boeing and the FAA knew about the insulation issue long before Swissair 111's last flight, which means its 229 passengers and crew should never have died in the first place. As a viewer, this widespread tendency of airline companies and aircraft manufacturers to ignore huge safety issues until it leads to needless death and destruction infuriates me. Time after time, we also see that the FAA is complicit in what should really be prosecuted as criminal negligence. I should note that this documentary doesn't make this final point, but anyone who looks into the history of air disasters over the past few decades will find ample evidence of the industry's failure to correct known problems until hundreds of people die. I would hope that as many people as possible view this eye-opening documentary for themselves.