Officials with the Transportation Safety Board (TSB) of Canada are taking steps to make sure that all families involved in the Swissair Flight 111 tragedy are fully informed of the investigation findings. The airplane crashed in Sept. 1998 and the TSB plans to publicly announce the findings and recommendations in a 10 a.m. March 27 press conference in Halifax. That release date will cap a four and a half-year investigation.

Investigator in charge Vic Gerden advised families in a Feb. 24 letter of actions planned to ensure that "family members have access to timely information."

Families will be briefed privately in Halifax at 8:30 a.m., an hour and a half before the public release of the TSB report. At the private session, Gerden advised, "Families will receive a copy of the report and [will] have direct access to TSB spokespeople to respond to their questions."

"In addition," he wrote, "they will be able to watch the public release news conference live via closed circuit television."

That's not all. Gerden outlined three additional initiatives:

• "For those who are not able to be in Halifax, the public release proceedings will be broadcast live via a webcast ... for simultaneous viewing from anywhere in the world via the Internet.
• "All family members will receive a copy of the printed report by courier, along with a CD version of the report that includes the supporting technical information. The Mail- out is being coordinated so that it will hopefully arrive on the day of the release.
• "In addition to the above-mentioned pre-release initiatives, in the weeks following the public release, TSB representatives will be travelling to four locations in the United States and Europe - New York, Los Angeles, Geneva and Paris - to be available to brief family members."