An insurance company's proposal to look for diamonds and other valuables at the site where 229 people died in the crash of Swissair Flight 111 has disgusted and enraged some relatives of the victims of the tragedy.
"Nobody should be raking around in an area that is similar to an area of entombment for money," said Ian Shaw, in an interview yesterday. His 23-year-old daughter, Stephanie, died when the jet slammed into the Atlantic Ocean on Sept. 2, 1998.
Yesterday, Mr. Shaw, who operates a restaurant in West Dover, near the crash site, went to the Nova Scotia Legislature to demand that the province turn down a scheme proposed by insurance giant Lloyd's of London to use divers and a minisubmarine to scour the ocean floor of St. Margarets Bay.
The company, which insured the cargo of Swissair Flight 111, is primarily looking for a metal canister containing two kilograms of diamonds that some reports say are worth as much as $300-million. As well, about five kilograms of other jewellery was on the flight.
However, sources involved in the investigation say the value of the diamonds is far less than has been reported.
The canister, which may have shattered on impact or been driven into the ocean floor, was not found despite intensive searches of the area by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, which used divers, robots and even a huge underwater vacuum as part of its investigation.
Lloyd's has made an application to conduct the search this summer under the rarely used Treasure Trove Act. Natural Resources Minister Ernie Fage said the government will make a decision on the application within two weeks.
The crash site, about 11 kilometres off the coast from tourist magnet Peggys Cove, was declared a special site last summer along with two monuments constructed by the province to commemorate the tragedy. But no regulations governing activity in the special area were enacted.
Mr. Shaw said the site was consecrated forever and no one should be allowed to search for treasure there.
He said the salvage proposal is an insult to Nova Scotians who participated in the horrific search after the plane went down and also comforted the families of the victims of the crash.
"I think it is quite out of place for anybody to say we'd like to come looking for money," he said. "We are all looking for closure and we do not wish to have divers within sight of the shore and we do not want them to be operating a search for something as futile as diamonds."
Many relatives of the victims visited the crash site on the anniversary of the tragedy last year and cast wreaths into the water and said prayers.
On a Web-site bulletin board yesterday, many of the relatives of the victims condemned the treasure-hunt proposal.
"It seems as if we really have no rights in this nightmare," one relative wrote in an e-mail message.
Mark Fetherolf, whose 16-year-old daughter, Tara, died in the crash, said in an interview that those who have lived through the traumatic aftermath of the tragedy find the Lloyd's proposal crass.
"I think it's just so crass that people can't help but be indignant about it," Mr. Fetherolf said in an interview from Pennsylvania. "It just seems so unreasonable."
Mr. Fage, the Natural Resources Minister, said he is prepared to listen to families of the Swissair victims and members of the local community before making a decision on the proposed search.
However, Bill Estabrooks, MLA for the Peggys Cove area, said the province should hold a public meeting to discuss the proposal. He said he received 23 telephone calls from local people opposed to the search after the proposal was revealed in a report on CBC television Thursday night.
"Every one of those calls said this [the search proposal]is just tasteless," Mr. Estabrooks, of the New Democratic Party, said in an interview. "In my opinion, that area is sacrosanct and we should show respect for what happened there."
He said the proposal is particularly objectionable because it comes after the families of some of the Swissair victims said they would sponsor a visit by some Nova Scotia students this summer.
The agencies involved in the 15-month search that recovered 98 per cent of the downed jet along with human remains and personal effects doubt the proposed search would be able to find anything in St. Margarets Bay.
Sergeant Wayne Noonan, spokesman for the RCMP, said he saw the small pieces of debris that were brought in by the underwater suction system operated by the dredge ship Queen of the Netherlands. The suction sweep was the final search/retrieval task.
"I also know from speaking with our people and talking to people who talked to divers that the conditions were treacherous. . . ."