Swiss Air Flight 111 - 25 Years Later

A Legacy of Understanding the Impact of Trauma

Cautionary Prologue: This essay contains some descriptions of trauma that may be difficult for people involved in this historic incident or who have suffered operational stress injuries. I also note that this was composed from my memories from 25 years ago, which may lead to some unintentional inaccuracies.

A phone call that I will never forget came in late in the evening on September 2, 1998 as I was reading in bed. My friend Sarah called on the landline of the apartment in Halifax I shared with a military friend. Nobody had a cell phone in those days and calls were rare at this time of night. Sarah was the duty officer for our squadron (423 Maritime Helicopter Squadron) and she was calling to tell me to come into work. I was startled by the call and asked her what had happened. I could tell she was trying to rush me off the call and said she didn’t have much time because it was hard finding people not on vacation in the final week of summer. She needed me to stop asking questions and just get my butt into the squadron. She ended the call by saying:

“Come in as soon as you can. There has been a plane crash…and I think it is a big one.”

Fishermen in the vicinity of the crash, naval and air force personnel and volunteers from the nearby communities all responded to the call of duty that night. In the pitch black of night they went by boat and by aircraft to the site of the crash, which was a few miles off the coast of Nova Scotia’s iconic Peggy’s Cove. There was a sense of cautious optimism for the first people responding to the crash. It was the end of summer and the icy waters of the Atlantic Ocean were a little warmer than normal. The weather was generally calm and our search and rescue prediction tables showed people could survive for several hours in these waters. There was even some hope that some survivors could make it to shore or find debris to float on as they waited for rescue. That night everyone set out to save lives, but when they reached the crash site all optimism faded and they knew that no lives would be saved that night. They immediately knew that their rescue mission to save passengers was now a recovery mission to give families closure.

Two-hundred and twenty-nine souls were lost that evening when Swiss Air Flight 111 crashed into the ocean. Four Canadians lost their lives as well many Americans, French, Swiss and people from around the world. The flight had encountered smoke in the cabin shortly after its take-off from JFK and it was directed to land at Halifax. The pilots were following procedure and were dumping fuel before heading directly to Halifax to avoid the need for an overweight landing. They were following the checklist and unaware of the extent of the fire that was the cause of the smoke. Soon their cockpit was engulfed in flames and the aircraft was impossible to control. The plane crashed into St. Margaret’s Bay at high speed and all were lost. Of course, none of this was known by the Rescue Coordination Centre in Halifax and the responders that night. All of this was painstakingly pieced together as a result of the Transport Safety Board accident investigation into the crash.

Operation Persistence

I am not sure who gave the recovery mission the name Operation Persistence, but that was the name used by the Canadian Armed Forces for the mission in the days and weeks following the crash of Swiss Air Flight 111. Persistence is defined as the “obstinate continuance in a course of action in spite of difficulty” and that is exactly what I saw in the action of hundreds of military personnel and civilians over the course of the next month. The recovery mission was extremely emotionally scarring. The force of the crash was so incredible that the plane and its passengers were shattered by the impact. Crews in boats and in aircraft were faced with the heart wrenching task of picking up the pieces of tragedy and those pieces left their mark. It also makes their obstinate continuance of their duty in the aftermath of the crash even more inspiring.

I got to the squadron about forty minutes after the call and the last of our operational Sea Kings was just taking off for the crash site. The hanger and operations desk was abuzz with people arriving in the middle of the night and asking about the mission. People were getting dressed in their flight gear and milling around trying to listen to the radio traffic from the crews on scene. Before too long, we were transfixed by CBC Radio reports in the hanger and CNN coverage in the aircrew lounge as the media was beginning to provide early reports about a major crash off the coast of Nova Scotia. The Squadron began two-hour rotations of flights as aircraft returned, fueled back up on the ramp with the blades turning and swapped out the crews. Aircrew, technicians and ground crew were firing on all cylinders to get our assets on site for as long as possible. In any search and rescue mission time is of the essence and our pace reflected that. The military would keep up this frenetic pace for the next 72 hours or more despite the feeling of desperation that would set in quite quickly.

The toll of Operation Persistence was visible right away. You could see it on the faces of the first crews who returned from the crash site in the middle of the night. All of us in the hangar rushed over to them to ask about survivors and the size of the debris field. We were patting them on the back and peppering them with questions, but most of them just stared back at us in silence. Their faces were ashen and tired. It was if they had been gone for days, when in actual fact they had only left the hanger a few hours earlier. They looked like they were walking wounded and in the weeks and years that followed I would begin to realize that this was exactly what they were after exposure to such terrible trauma. 229 souls were lost in the crash of Swiss Air Flight 111, but dozens more were permanently scarred by the aftermath.

Critical Incident Stress

That evening and the days that followed were a blur for everyone involved in the response to the crash. Operation Persistence was an example of the benefits of military training. Everyone went into operational mode and did what we had trained to do. You didn’t think. You just acted. You became oblivious to the reality of the tragedy around you while you were in this frame of mind, but it would hit you later when you stopped working. In some cases, later might have meant days, but in some cases ‘later’ would be months or even years. That is the insidious nature of trauma exposure. No two people respond the same way.

I remember our Commanding Officer (CO) Al Blair starting to order people in the squadron to take time off. He actually did ‘order’ and not recommend because most people did not want to stop working. He told the squadron that people needed time to decompress from the operations and that it would help them return in good form after some downtime. In my case, the magnitude of the tragedy hit me in the evening of my first ordered day off. I was sitting in my Halifax apartment watching CNN and saw interviews with some of the families of the passengers. They were on the ground in Halifax and amid their tears they were thanking Nova Scotians for their compassion and thanking the military and first responders for their tireless work to try and find survivors. Many of them still had the hope for survivors that had long been extinguished for those responding to the crash. I suddenly realized that I was crying watching this on TV. I did not know these people, but I suddenly felt tied to them in the tragedy of their loss.

In the days after the crash I also heard a term that changed my life. Critical Incident Stress. The military was deploying what they described as Critical Incident Response Teams (CIRT) to support the military units involved in the recovery operations. I learned that these were new to the military and had been put into place following some of the lessons learned about trauma exposure from the ill-fated Rwandan mission, when our troops were caught in the middle of the horrific 1994 genocide in that country. The CIRT team appeared to be a collection of military medical personnel alongside some civilian social workers and other support personnel. They were there to check on the mental wellness of the squadron and asked us about our sleep patterns and whether we believed the recovery operations were impacting our work or our family life.

This all seemed very strange to us at the time. It seemed to run contrary to the military ethos of being impervious to pain or fatigue. We had all been steeped in that culture and had been trained by the drill staff at boot camp or the physical education instructors at our units (the uber-fit PERI staff ) who used old military maxims like ‘Pain is just weakness leaving the body!’ to inspire us to grind things out. Now, this same institution was ordering us to take some time off and asking about our sleep patterns. It didn’t seem to make sense. Like most of my comrades, I was shocked by the CIRT process and likely made fun of the whole exercise at the time.

In the days and weeks that followed, however, I began to understand why the military was beginning to change and I began my own journey of trying to learn more about trauma exposure and recovery. Several of my friends from the squadron went on medical leave as a result of their work on the recovery. I heard similar stories from my friends in the Navy. Most returned to duty quite quickly, but some were off duty for some time for what the military was calling “critical incident” or “operational” stress. You could see the military just starting to realize that mental injury needed quick diagnosis and treatment in the same way that physical injury did. As few years later, in 2001, the Canadian Armed Forces opened their first Operational Stress Injury Clinic dedicated to injuries from trauma exposure. Today, there two dozen full OSI clinics or satellite clinics spread out across the country to support the military, RCMP and Veterans.

Full Circle

When I left the regular forces of the military and transferred to the reserves to attend law school at Dalhousie, my CO Al Blair tried to talk me out of the decision by encouraging me to transfer to the Judge Advocate General branch and become a military lawyer. I was engaged to be married and knew I wanted a career in corporate law, so I politely declined, but promised him that I would never really leave the military. I pledged to him that I would work hard to remain a friend and advocate for those in uniform long after I hung mine in the closet. I will continue to work hard for the rest of my life to keep that promise.

For me, the Swiss Air experience and my advocacy work on mental health came full circle in 2017 when I read the book Everyday Heroes. The book is an anthology of veteran stories edited by my friend and Afghan War Veteran Jody Mitic. It brings together the stories of veterans from different eras and backgrounds in a way that tells a slice of Canadian military history alongside the personal impact of a mission on the person. I had been given an advance copy of the book by Simon & Schuster, who wanted me to read it and provide a quote for the back cover because of my time as Veterans Minister.

In another unforgettable moment for me, I was reading the book shortly after the conclusion of the 2017 Conservative leadership race during a little getaway with Rebecca. I was halfway through the book when I turned to the next story entitled “The Morgue in Hangar B, CFB Shearwater” by Dr. Trevor Jain. I did not recognize the name of the author, but I certainly recognized the location. Much like that time watching CNN in my Halifax apartment years before, by the time I was finishing reading the story I was wiping away tears. Jain’s words transported me back to memories of Operation Persistence and the aftermath of the crash.

Hangar B was an empty hanger at our airbase and as crews began returning remains of Swiss Air passengers to the base it was established as the official morgue for the tragedy. I had been to the hangar several times in the early days of the recovery mission, but I had never once thought about the toll of the mission on the people inside. As Operation Persistence quickly transformed from rescue to recovery, it was the job of Dr. Jain and the entire team in Hangar B to establish a system to receive remains as they came in and set up operating procedures that would allow them to be handled safely and respectfully as the important process of identification got underway. No amount of time in medical school or military field medicine training could ever possibly prepare anyone for this type of mass casualty event. Even worse than the trauma exposure was the pressure on the shoulders of the team in Hangar B. Nobody could be saved after the crash, but the medical team could try and give the families closure through the swift identification of their loved ones. But this was a seemingly impossible task with the reality of the crash and recovery. Dr. Jain’s difficult mission would last much longer than the Sea King crews at CFB Shearwater.

Trauma Buddies

Trevor and I had likely crossed paths in Hangar B, but we did not know one another at the time and the rush of operations would have made any meeting forgettable. We were in operational mode at that point and focus was on the mission. After reading his story in Everyday Heroes I reached out to him and we realized this connection we had in the tragedy of that event.

Dr. Jain travelled to Ottawa in 2019 to tell the story of Hangar B and his own road to recovery from trauma exposure as the keynote speaker at the 2019 Sam Sharpe Mental Health Breakfast on Parliament Hill. A copy of Everyday Heroes was provided to everyone in attendance. Trevor spoke about the personal toll of Operation Persistence and how he has used his experience with Swiss Air to become a trailblazer on mental health. He spoke about the continuing need to reduce stigma surrounding mental health and the need for more access to treatment options for those dealing with Operational Stress Injuries. For me, it was a very special event. It was a full circle moment to have Trevor speak about the Swiss Air recovery at a mental health event that I had started as an indirect result of my own journey of learning and recovery from Swiss Air.

Dr. Jain and I remain good friends as a result of serving together even though we did know that we served together until 19 years after the event. We even found time for a quick breakfast amid the hectic pace of the 2021 election when my tour passed through Prince Edward Island. At that breakfast and especially in several calls and texts during my final year as an MP, Trevor began by asking me how I was doing and not letting me get away with a short answer. That is the sign of someone who is not only a great friend, but a great leader. Trevor and I are battle buddies without the traditional battle. I guess you could call us trauma buddies. Friends united by a traumatic event that forever changed them.

On this twenty-fifth anniversary of the crash of Swiss Air Flight 111, I am thinking of the families and communities impacted by this tragedy. I remember with gratitude the compassion and outpouring of love and affection from Nova Scotians to the Swiss Air families and those responding to the tragedy. And I am thankful for my trauma buddies and how the experience of Swiss Air turned many of us into mental health advocates.