Swissair 111, TWA 800, and Electromagnetic Interference by Elaine Scarry

The possibility of electronic warfare practice is suggested by several items in the Navy record. A document called the “Fleet Area Control and Surveillance Facility,”⁵³ which summarizes the military exercises on the eastern seaboard in the first week of September 1998, explicitly announces Electric Counter Measures and Electric Counter-Counter Measures operations during the week and includes among “Weekly Notes” a memo on the need to “submit a small scale E[lectric]C[ounter]M[easure] Notification” in accordance with Navy rules. One such electronic warfare exercise, for example, is specified for the night of September 2, the night Swissair 111 flew, in military exercise zone W-72 off the coast of Virginia from 10:00 PM to 12:00 AM.⁵⁴

All three P3s were on several-hour-long missions, and therefore could have been very far from, or, instead, near to, the path of Swissair 111.⁵⁵ Where they were is one of many questions that need to be answered with precision and care.

I hope the National Transportation Safety Board is already at work to reconstruct the external environment of planes, ships, and ground transmitters⁵⁶ along the route of Swissair 111; or if it is not already, will undertake such a reconstruction soon; and that it will enlist the assistance of the Joint Spectrum Center and NASA in determining the power levels both at the moment the flight first lost radio contact and at later moments along the route. Relevant, too, will be the record of other flights that have lost radio contact in this same geographical region.

In addition to reconstructing the electromagnetic environment of each plane that suffers a fatal fall, a related form of scrutinizing the environment has been suggested by D.V. Giri, who specializes in applied electromagnetics, including EMP (electromagnetic pulse), HPM (high-powered microwave), UWB (ultrawide band systems), and lightning. ⁵⁷ Mr. Giri suggests that the NTSB could enlist NASA’s modified F-106B to assess the environment.⁵⁸ Elaborately equipped to measure lightning strikes and coronas, the airborne laboratory could make a series of test flights from JFK along the Bette route, experimenting with various takeoff times and speeds. The test plane (if suitably modified for sensitivity to radio transmissions rather than lightning) could conceivably discover a single transmitter, or a complex ar-ray of transmitters, that may be producing the adverse electromagnetic environment.

This essay has shown eight features shared by TWA 800 and Swissair 111: (1) they took off from the same airport; (2) they took off on a Wednesday at 8:19; (3) they traveled along the Bette route; (4) they both had their first signs of trouble in the same region of airspace between twelve and fourteen minutes into the flight; (5) they both appear to have suffered an electrical catastrophe; (6) they both suffered a catastrophe whose cause remains mysterious, even after years of rigorous inquiry; (7) they both flew during a week when extensive military exercises were being conducted; (8) they both flew when certain specific transmitters (submarines, the Navy P3s) appear to have been in the region.

These overlaps may implicate the external environment. If two planes suffered a mysterious electrical catastrophe but had taken off from different cities, traveled along different routes at different times, and had their first trouble one after twelve minutes and the other after one hundred minutes, it would still be crucial to reconstruct the electromagnetic environment and include it among the pos-sible causes to be investigated. (Electromagnetic interference, as stated at the outset, can just as easily happen at irregular as at regular times and places, though the irregularity of the external environment makes it harder to discern that the external environment is playing a part). But to have two electrical accidents and also to have them share many key features of time and place should surely accelerate the inquiry into the external environment.

Rusty Yeiser, a retired naval aviator and former commander of the Joint Spectrum Center who oversaw the Center’s analysis of TWA 800’s electromagnetic environment, believes that other accidents would benefit from similar analyses. He recently said:

Aircraft electronic systems (often referred to today as “avionics”) continue to grow more and more complex, and are increasingly relied upon for safety of flight functions (including flight control, navigation and communicating, and data storage and retrieval). Given this, it would seem reasonable that a comprehensive examination of the external electromagnetic environment should become a routine component of commercial aircraft accident investigations conducted by the NTSBor other similar national organizations abroad. The Joint Spectrum Center’s core capability for analysis of electromagnetic interference lends itself directly to this type of task.⁵⁹

Physical events, as has often been observed, tend to outpace our ability to describe them. While the present essay on TWA 800 and Swissair 111 was being written, a third large passenger plane entered the Atlantic Ocean south of Long Island, a third large passenger plane that—as in the other two cases—fell without any discernible mechanical cause. There are factors which differentiate EgyptAir 990 from the two earlier flights (it did not take off on a Wednesday at 8:19) but also key factors that link them.

The second part of this article will look at EgyptAir 990, as well as at the important, but incomplete, work that has so far been carried out on TWA 800.

—This is the first of two articles.

53 Virginia Capes (FACSFAC VACAPES) Messages 162000Z August 98, Item E. ↩

54 The memo specifies the use of "two Lear [jets] with pods." On the day TWA 800 flew (July 17, 1996), an exercise was also scheduled in "W-72" involving "two Lears." ↩

55 The package of documents sent by Commander Newcomb includes a schedule of flights that occurred during the hours Swissair 111 was in the air but not the mission statements from those flights (which often contain brief narratives of what occurred). He did, however, include a mission statement from a flight earlier in the day. ↩

56 It is primarily the air- and seaborne craft that the NTSB needs to identify by further research, since the Joint Spectrum Center already has on file all the fixed ground transmitters along the American and Canadian seaboards. But because the Air Force and Navy sometimes carry out highly unusual experiments at these antenna sites involving transmitters that are not permanently installed (and therefore are not part of the fixed record), the NTSB should make specific inquiries about events taking place at these fixed sites as well. ↩

57 At the October 1, 1999, sessions of the Technical Interchange Meeting held at the Nuclear ElectroMagneticPulse Laboratory of the Swiss Defense Procurement Agency in Spiez, Switzerland, Mr. Giri and his colleagues discussed the question of whether the Swissair 111 accident could have been caused by electromagnetic interference of unknown origin. Giri concentrated on the radio blackout and the overlaps in the timing of the Swissair 111 and TWA 800 flights. The consensus of the group was that this was a realistic possibility deserving further investigation. ↩

58 D.V. Giri, conversations with author, September 1999, March 24, 2000. Although the F-106B is primarily used to test the effects of lightning, it has also been tested for high-altitude EMP (nuclear-electromagnetic pulse) effects. A particular sensor on the nose boom of the F-106B was designed by Mr. Giri (who has also designed microwave antennas and has helped to build EMP simulators in many different countries). ↩

59 Conversation, August 20, 2000. ↩

53
Virginia Capes (FACSFAC VACAPES) Messages 162000Z August 98, Item E. ↩
54
The memo specifies the use of "two Lear [jets] with pods." On the day TWA 800 flew (July 17, 1996), an exercise was also scheduled in "W-72" involving "two Lears." ↩
55
The package of documents sent by Commander Newcomb includes a schedule of flights that occurred during the hours Swissair 111 was in the air but not the mission statements from those flights (which often contain brief narratives of what occurred). He did, however, include a mission statement from a flight earlier in the day. ↩
56
It is primarily the air- and seaborne craft that the NTSB needs to identify by further research, since the Joint Spectrum Center already has on file all the fixed ground transmitters along the American and Canadian seaboards. But because the Air Force and Navy sometimes carry out highly unusual experiments at these antenna sites involving transmitters that are not permanently installed (and therefore are not part of the fixed record), the NTSB should make specific inquiries about events taking place at these fixed sites as well. ↩
57
At the October 1, 1999, sessions of the Technical Interchange Meeting held at the Nuclear ElectroMagneticPulse Laboratory of the Swiss Defense Procurement Agency in Spiez, Switzerland, Mr. Giri and his colleagues discussed the question of whether the Swissair 111 accident could have been caused by electromagnetic interference of unknown origin. Giri concentrated on the radio blackout and the overlaps in the timing of the Swissair 111 and TWA 800 flights. The consensus of the group was that this was a realistic possibility deserving further investigation. ↩
58
D.V. Giri, conversations with author, September 1999, March 24, 2000. Although the F-106B is primarily used to test the effects of lightning, it has also been tested for high-altitude EMP (nuclear-electromagnetic pulse) effects. A particular sensor on the nose boom of the F-106B was designed by Mr. Giri (who has also designed microwave antennas and has helped to build EMP simulators in many different countries). ↩
59
Conversation, August 20, 2000. ↩