More remains, some diamonds found in Swissair crash debris

More than a year after the crash of Swissair Flight 111, investigators have recovered more debris that includes human remains. The debris was picked up by a Dutch vessel with a special suction device (picture).

More than a year after the crash of Swissair Flight 111, investigators have recovered more debris that includes human remains.

The debris were picked up by the Dutch vessel Queen of the Netherlands, which has been raking the ground with a special suction device (picture). The Transportation and Safety Board said investigators were searching the silt by hand as part of efforts to find out the cause of the crash.

Larry Vance, deputy investigator in charge of the crash probe, said that human remains and jewelry were mixed in with pieces of aircraft fuselage, wiring and other debris pulled up late last month.

He said it was unclear if the jewelry in the 8,500 cubic meter of debris included a kilogram (2.2 pounds) of diamonds from a shipment aboard the flight that crashed off the coast at Bayswater, Nova Scotia, on September 2, 1998, killing all 229 people on board.

“We have jewelry that is coming up and we have many, many, many small items that are being recovered,” Vance said in Halifax, Canada, on Thursday. “I can’t tell you whether or not we have … among that material diamonds from the cargo because there’s individual diamonds from people’s personal effects.”

The impact of the crash was so great that traditional identification methods, including dental and X-ray records, were of minimal use in identifying the human remains retrieved from the Atlantic.

DNA testing identified some remains from all 229 of the victims, and investigators halted further testing of remains last year.

Any human remains recovered now would remain unidentified and be buried with other unidentified remains interred at Bayswater on September 2, the first anniversary of the crash, said Justice Department spokeswoman Michele McKinnon.

Investigators still don’t know what caused the crash and have focused their efforts on determining the source of a fire in the front of the jet.

There is evidence of heat damage inside and just outside the cockpit, where the two pilots reported smoke about 16 minutes before the plane crashed en route from New York to Geneva.

From staff and wire reports.