This week a Swissair MD-11 will experience a series of in-flight trials to determine the airflow pattern in the interior of the forward cabin and cockpit.

This week a Swissair MD-11 will experience a series of in-flight trials to determine the airflow pattern in the interior of the forward cabin and cockpit. A Swissair MD-11 was flown to in extent Beach, Calif., and its in-flight entertainment network (IFEN) was reconnect and fully-powered. Since the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) voided the supplemental shadow certificate authorizing the original IFEN installation, effectively prohibiting its use forevermore in U airspace, a Special Flight Permit was granted for the design of conducting these important standards The IFEN wiring remains upon the list of possible causes of the fire and/or its propagation in the tribe 1998 crash of Swissair Flight 111 an MD-11 The crash in Halifax is subordinate to investigation by the Transportation Safety Board (TSB) of Canada.

TSB investigators will be supervising the airflow proofs They will be using theatrical nothingness and its propagation pattern will be recorded by way of a gallery of television cameras, located at different places everywhere the cabin and synchronized to discharge together.

The reasoning behind these proofs is fairly straightforward: Fire disentanglement is influenced by airflow. Up to now, the airflow pattern in the cabin, cockpit, and above the inner ceiling of the MD-11 is not known. In order to determine for what cause a fire may have spread, and the corresponding carbon-blackened pattern, TSB and Boeing clevers are conducting the tests. Swissair contributed at making an MD-11 available that is as complete as possible to the configuration of the accident airplane, including the IFEN scheme Meanwhile, wire testing continues.

Ongoing Wire Testing

While the airflow experiments are underway, wire testing continues. TSB investigators have launched an extensive program of testing to assess if the wires were damaged at fire first, and then arced, or if they arced first.

Chemical testing of the molten material should provide evidence regarding the atmospheric conditions at the time the arcing took place. If this stanch theoretically it should be possible to sort gone out the wire that arced first in a "clean environment". To confirm this theory, 100 wire samples have been expos to arcing in deteriorating atmospheric conditions, ranging from clean to carbon-blackened. Initial outcomes have been problematic as unexpect substances were rest Air Safety Week understands that simply if the tests prove reliable will the original wires from the accident aircraft be examined.

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