A retired RCMP officer who worked on the probe into the Swissair disaster that killed 229 people off the coast of Nova Scotia in 1998 says suspicions that arson caused the crash were ignored by his superiors.
Former arson investigator Tom Juby says investigators found unexpectedly high levels of magnesium, iron and aluminum – ingredients needed for an incendiary device – in the melted wirings left in the cockpit where the blaze began.
“I’m not saying there was an incendiary device. I’m saying there was suspicion of an incendiary device,” Mr. Juby said by telephone from his home.
He said his superiors were skeptical because someone should have claimed responsibility for the purported arson.
“The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence . . . You don’t have the answer yet to the story but there is a story and you keep digging at it,” Mr. Juby said.
However, he said, he was pressured into abandoning that line of inquiry.
“People weren’t listening, especially the RCMP wasn’t listening.”
Mr. Juby’s complaints were eventually heard by the force’s internal oversight branch, the Office of the Ethics Advisor.
“We are aware of allegations made by former RCMP Sgt. Tom Juby pertaining to Swissair Flight 111. Mr. Juby’s complaint was reviewed by the RCMP’s (then) Office of the Ethics Advisor and we stand by the findings of that review,” an RCMP spokeswoman, Sergeant Julie Gagnon said in an e-mail, declining to comment further.
A retired sergeant, Mr. Juby is now a forensic-evidence consultant in New Minas, N.S.
He said he had initially been prevented from making his views public because of federal statutes binding him to keep investigative details confidential.
Mr. Juby said he has documents showing that his concerns were ignored. “There’s a tremendous paper trail,” he said.
Mr. Juby is outlining more details of his allegations in a CBC Fifth Estate report to be broadcast Friday evening.
The federal Transportation Safety Board would not comment on Mr. Juby’s claims, saying that it stood by the findings of its investigation.
The investigation, which took four-and-a-half years and cost $57-million, was the most expensive and exhaustive air-crash probe in Canadian history.
Swissair Flight 111 from New York to Zurich crashed near Peggy’s Cove on Sept 2, 1998, after a fire started in the cockpit of the McDonnell Douglas MD-11 jetliner.
The final TSB investigation report said that a sparking wire in the cockpit ceiling above and behind the co-pilot’s head “most likely” started fire in flammable insulation.
The TSB determined that the video and gambling system that Swissair had installed in its MD-11 fleet had been improperly wired to one of the aircraft’s main electrical systems rather than the non-essential cabin electrics, and that the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration had failed to properly oversee that installation.
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