Swissair pilots issued the ultimate distress call "pan, pan, pan" as they fought in vain to keep the crippled Flight 111 aloft and make it to the airport in Halifax, airline officials said yesterday.
But their time ran out 10 minutes too early as the MD-11 aircraft - many of its passengers already dressed in life preservers as smoke poured into the cockpit - plunged into the Atlantic off the coast of the eastern Canadian province Nova Scotia.
The crash, Switzerland's worst aviation accident, killed all 229 people on board, including 14 crew. The Swissair group chief executive, Mr Philippe Bruggisser, told reporters the experienced pilots - Captain Urs Zimmermann (50) and First Officer Stephan Loew (36) - called out the distress message, which airline officials said was short for the German and French word Panne, or breakdown.
"The crash followed around seven to 10 minutes of flying time out of the Halifax airport. Ten minutes more and the aircraft would have landed," he said, voice tight with emotion.
Mr Christian Stuessi, Swissair's top MD-11 pilot, said crews were trained to issue the "pan" call only in dire circumstances.
The crew reported problems with the flight soon after takeoff from New York en route to Geneva and initially considered diverting to Boston.
But the situation appeared to deteriorate quickly, prompting them to head for the smaller but closer airport in Halifax.
Mr Bruggisser declined to speculate on what might have caused the crash until searchers recovered the plane's voice recorder, flight recorder and flight data recorder that will give vital clues. "Until this evaluation is available, we cannot give more information about how the flight developed because it would be pure speculation."
He said the Swissair crew had gone about its business in a professional manner even as disaster loomed. "From the debris one can conclude that an emergency landing was well prepared because many of the passengers were wearing life preservers," he said.
Mr Bruggisser said the MD-11 jet joined Swissair's fleet in 1991, underwent a major overhaul a year ago, and had its last one-day maintenance check on August 10th.
"The pilots who flew the aircraft in the few days before the mishap had not been able to determine any irregularities," he said. "We believe that the aircraft was in impeccable technical condition when it left Geneva," he said.
Choppy waves and poor visibility, plus the tail-end of Hurricane Danielle, were hindering the grim search for bodies yesterday. Only 36 had been recovered by midday. A Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Supt, Mr Steve Duncan, said "a portion of the aircraft" had been located and divers were being sent down to investigate it. He said the portion of the aircraft - believed to be the fuselage - was on the ocean bed, between 72 and 150 feet below the surface.
The crash occurred at a time when US fear of terrorism was already high because of blasts at two US embassies and White House reprisals.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has already sent agents to John F. Kennedy airport in New York in search of evidence.
Asked if threats had been made to aircraft, a US official said: "I know of no information that would lead anyone to believe there were terrorists involved in the Swissair crash."
Mr Freeh said that the FBI has broadcast eight warnings to regional authorities because of the Africa attacks. But an FBI spokesman said that no recent alert had been issued specifically on air transport.