Playing Deadly Games?

By Mark Thompson/Washington

In the intensely competitive market for business- and first-class flyers, Swissair for the past year had pampered such customers with premium video and gambling screens at their seats, touting "an unprecedented degree of freedom and choice." But for the passengers of Flight 111, that in-seat entertainment center may have been a deadly luxury. Last week Swissair announced it was shutting down the system on its 18 jumbo jets after Canadian investigators dredged up evidence of suspicious heat damage near the unit on the Geneva-bound MD-11 that crashed off the Nova Scotia coast Sept. 2, killing all 229 people aboard. The airline said the step was precautionary and no cause for the crash has been determined. Canada's Transportation Safety Board agreed with the airline's position, yet the findings point a finger of suspicion at the electrical wiring on the sophisticated video system.

Swissair was the pioneer in installing such devices aboard its planes, with the first one taking off in January 1997. Each seat has a video screen that pops out of the armrest like a tray table. It can be used to play video games, select music and watch an assortment of movies. In addition, there are three types of gambling available--overseen by the Swiss National Lottery--including slots and keno. Losses are capped at $200, while winnings can go as high as $3,500.

Interactive Flight Technologies, the company based in Phoenix, Ariz., that developed the Swissair equipment, boasts that it builds the "world's most advanced interactive-flight system." Yet the complex and costly devices ($2 million or more per plane) require a web of wires from each seat to central computers, which generate a lot of heat. The question is whether the system--approved by the Federal Aviation Administration but installed only aboard Swissair jets--could have generated enough heat to trigger the disaster. Salvage crews have pulled up evidence of heat damage above the ceiling that straddles the cockpit and first-class cabin, which is where the heart of the in-flight-entertainment system was housed. Each unit uses Microsoft Windows NT software, with a powerful Pentium processor at each seat wired to a central computer. These wires, pulled out of the Atlantic, also had been damaged by high temperatures. Investigators found that the wires had been connected to the same electrical pathway that powers vital aircraft functions, rather than the one that feeds nonessential devices, which pilots can shut down if smoke is detected in the cabin.

Interactive Flight Technologies, a financially troubled company with a new board and chairman (former Secretary of State Alexander Haig was once a director), has said it wants out of the in-flight-entertainment business, a desire repeated at the company's annual meeting a day after Swissair's announcement. Company executives say the airlines want cheaper, simpler systems, and the market has been depressed because U.S. regulations bar gambling on flights that take off or land in the U.S. That means no passengers on Swissair 111, which left from New York City's Kennedy airport, were swiping their credit cards through the system to play the slots. Still, 70 minutes after takeoff, their luck ran out.