SwissAir Flight 111

On September 2, 1998, SwissAir flight 111 crashed into the sea off the coast of Nova Scotia. The Department of National Defence (DND), in keeping with earlier Cabinet decisions on such matters, immediately assumed the lead role for the search and rescue phase which called for the participation of many federal departments and agencies. Among those included were DND, RCMP, DFO, Transport Canada, Inter-departmental Search and Rescue Secretariat, Emergency Measures Office, and the Transportation Safety Board. PCO and Treasury Board were consulted early so that they would understand what was going on. Outside partnerships were also established (e.g. the US government, Province of Nova Scotia, Red Cross, Salvation Army, volunteer search and rescue organizations). The initiative ultimately had some 4000 officials working on it. The scale of the operation called for massive coordination. Good collaboration among the federal agencies was essential. Inter-agency briefings were held each day.

A command and control centre was established under the leadership of DND. While the federal activities were coordinated, the individual mandates of the federal departments and agencies were respected. It was expected that the local representatives of the federal departments and agencies had the authority to speak for their organizations and to commit resources.

The fundamental philosophy of the federal team was "do the right thing"; a guiding principle was the "families of the victims come first". One of the operating themes was "let the people who know their jobs do them". For example, the people with the expertise handled their own issues at the press conferences.

Lessons Learned:

SwissAir Flight 111

Some of the key lessons learned from the SwissAir disaster, as a horizontal initiative, were the following:

• leadership is critical; in this case, it was necessary for DND to take the lead and to set up a federal team; one related lesson was "if you take too much ownership, you risk disenfranchising other partners"
• effective representation of departments is essential; one lesson learned was "if you can't deliver, you shouldn't be at the table"; also personal attitude and commitment were very important
• inter-departmental MOUs are needed; in this case, a number of problems were encountered because some key MOUs had lapsed
• delegation of authority; the SwissAir incident highlighted the need to delegate management and financial authorities to the regional/local level; some departments and agencies are very good at this
• common technologies; the different technologies of the federal agencies gave rise to several problems; as a result, an important lesson learned was the need to standardize (or make compatible) the key technologies and management information systems of the various departments/agencies