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The 1998 Swissair crash in Nova Scotia gave Canadians the expertise needed to help relatives of those killed in the terrorist assaults on the World Trade Center, and within days of those Sept. 11 attacks that expertise was on its way to New York City.
"Two lessons we learned from Swissair were the need to get the right information to families and to work with families," Dr. James Young, Ontario's chief coroner, said in a telephone interview from New York at the end of September. Young, who arrived in New York City Sept. 16, said this close connection with the bereaved is needed not only for humanitarian reasons but also to compile the highest quality antemortem information for identifying bodies and body parts.
After Swissair Flight 111 crashed into Peggy's Cove Sept. 2, 1998, killing everyone on board, the Ontario coroner spent 3 weeks in Halifax, working with Nova Scotia medical examiner John Butt in the most massive body-identification job in Canadian history.
Young has now met with American officials to explain some of the procedures developed in the wake of that crash, since the same challenges will face New York's medical examiners.
Of the 229 people on the Swissair plane, only 1 intact body...