Modern planes come with more entertainment options than ever. You can listen to music, watch a movie, or even browse the web on flights that have WiFi. But there’s one thing the airlines simply don’t offer—and that’s gambling.
I happened across this story purely by chance. I was researching in-flight entertainment systems for an unrelated project, and turned up this interesting fact about Swissair. The company was innovating at the cutting edge in the 1990s. Back in 1997, they were rocking planes with video-on-demand, putting screens in almost every seat. They had quality screens and digital content delivery years before big players in the American market.
As if that wasn’t enough, the Swiss had an even wilder idea. What if the whole plane became a flying casino?
Have a Punt
Today, commercial air travel is dominated by two major manufacturers in the West—Boeing and Airbus. Go back a few decades, though, and McDonnell Douglas was a big player, too. Swissair was one of many operators that employed the company’s aircraft, running a fleet of MD-11 airliners on routes between Europe and the US.
The MD-11 had its first flight in 1990, having been developed from the earlier DC-10. The tri-engine jet struggled to make sales, as early operators had discovered the widebody airliner had trouble meeting its fuel burn and range targets. Swissair took delivery of 16 examples, starting in 1991. All of these were retrofitted for greater maximum takeoff weight as McDonnell-Douglas developed improvements to the aircraft over the years.
Initially, the planes featured the Cabin Video Information System, with a series of overhead screens installed throughout the cabin. These could show video or flight information to passengers but were not interactive. By 1996, though, the Swiss airline soon saw opportunity to gain an advantage in the competitive air travel market.
A company named Interactive Flight Technologies (IFT) had been making waves with its new in-flight entertainment systems. IFT had been founded in 1994 by one Yuri Itkis—then president of FortuNet, a Las Vegas company that specialized in the development of video gambling games.
In 1995, IFT’s first major deal saw its systems installed on Alitalia aircraft—the first digital in-flight entertainment system of its kind. By 1996, the company was pushing a new second-generation system. It was promising to take in-flight entertainment to new levels of sophistication. The digital system would offer video on demand, including pay-per-view movies, as well as music, video games, and a moving flight map. Plus, for those who liked a flutter, IFT’s new gear would offer inflight gambling for the first time ever, including keno, lotto, and video slots.
May 1996 saw Swissair sign a major deal to equip its fleet. For $72 million, IFT would install its new in-flight entertainment system on all 16 MD-11s, as well as five of Swissair’s Boeing 747s.
Each seat would get a touchscreen entertainment display, with software running on Windows NT and powered by a Pentium processor. These were networked with a server in the galley which provided content to the individual entertainment systems and handled credit card transactions.
The airline would offer inflight gambling on non-US routes, with gambling revenue split between the airline, IFT, and the Swiss National Lottery. Flights taking off or landing in the US would not allow gambling due to contemporary regulations. Customers could wager a maximum of $200 USD during their flight. However, winnings could go as high as $3,500, and were credited to the user’s credit card. Maximum stake was set at $1. Profits after operating expenses were directed to Swiss charities via the national lottery.
The first flight featuring the new IFT system would take off on January 26, 1997, flying from Switzerland to Singapore. Despite the lure of big winnings, however, the system was not the roaring success the airline had hoped for. In an SEC filing made in March 1997, Swissair noted that gambling revenue was far lower than initial expectations. With two MD-11s equipped with the systems, months of flights had only seen 50 customers gamble up to the limit of $200.
We don’t have a great insight into what video gambling was really like on the Swissair system. Our best look comes from contemporary photographs taken by the airlines, which are thoughtfully maintained by the archive at ETH-Zurich.
Pictures show us that passengers could choose from three games—keno, slots, and “risiko”—likely the aforementioned lotto-style game. The simple video slot machine featured a nautical theme. Images of the keno and risiko games are not readily available. As noted in a contemporary press release, poker and roulette were not offered due to Swiss law.
Tragedy Strikes
Sadly, this pioneering in-flight entertainment system was not one that stuck around for long. In 1997, Swissair was complaining that the electronic boxes under each seat would get too warm, with hard drives inside regularly failing. IFT put this down to an issue with supplier Avnet, while Avnet countered that excessive heat generated by IFT’s hardware was responsible for the failures.
The darkest day was yet to come, however. That occurred on September 2, 1998, when Swissair Flight 111 left John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, bound for Geneva. Approximately 52 minutes after takeoff, the crew detected smoke in the cockpit. The crew put out a distress call, and began preparations for an emergency landing at Halifax International Airport. Sadly, as the crew attempted to dump fuel and maintain control as smoke filled the cockpit, the fire spread and took out critical flight systems. One hour and 13 minutes after take off, the plane crashed into the ocean at 345 miles an hour. There were no survivors.
A transnational effort worked to reassemble the plane and determine the cause of the tragedy. Investigators honed in on evidence of arcing in wiring near the cockpit, including multiple wires feeding the inflight entertainment system. It was noted that the circuit breakers installed in the aircraft were not designed to trip on arcing, suggesting but not confirming a potential cause of the fire. Whatever the cause, the flames spread through MPET insulation blankets that were found to be dangerously flammable for use in an aircraft.
It was also found that the crew had followed the Swissair checklist to deal with “smoke/fumes of unknown origin,” cutting power to non-essential cabin systems with the “CABIN BUS” breaker. This shut off cabin ventilation fans, which inadvertently increased the flow of smoke into the cabin.
Notably, the in-flight entertainment system had been installed in a somewhat unusual configuration. In the original setup that saw 257 seats equipped with screens, the power draw was too great to run off the usual cabin power supply. Instead, the system was installed running off the MD-11’s AC Bus 2. This would have left the in-flight entertainment system powered even when the crew cut the CABIN BUS supply.
The in-flight entertainment system became a key focus for investigators. As covered by USA Today, the FAA eventually conducted a special review that shed light on numerous irregularities. Chief among them was that the in-flight entertainment was wired into the plane’s essential power system. It should have been installed on the aircraft’s non-essential power bus.
The system had also been installed in such a way that the only way to cut power was with a cockpit circuit breaker. The system was supposed to have had an off switch accessible by flight attendants in the cabin. Certification of the system was handled by Santa Barbara Aerospace (SBA), which had been the subject of prior FAA investigations. The agency found that the company had not properly audited or approved the system.
Aircraft certification engineer Edward Mlynarczyk was also consulted by USA Today. He pointed out that the system’s installation involved the use of mixed wiring types and inappropriate metal clamps that were not suitable for wiring.
Notably, Mlynarczyk had also declined to certify an earlier IFT entertainment system prior to 1996, noting that the company was trying to rush FAA certification of its product. “They had no clue what it would take to get an STC [Supplemental Type Certificate,” he told USA Today. “They were running out of funds and trying to shortcut so many things.”
On 29 October 1998, Swissair elected to voluntarily disable the entertainment systems in its remaining aircraft. The systems were later removed entirely, while the FAA doubled down with a ban on their use on the MD-11 aircraft. The airline would eventually go bankrupt amidst financial strife and difficult trading conditions in 2002.
Thing Of The Past
Since then, no other airline has explored the world of in-flight gambling. The hurdles are not technological. Modern in-flight entertainment systems are more than capable of handling credit card payments and simple games of chance. {ut it down to the complexities of gambling regulations, or the fact that few passengers engaged with Swissair’s offering—in any case, the interest from the big carriers simply isn’t there.
Some are still flying today, including N624FE, presently operated by FedEx. Credit: Steve Knight, CC BY-SA 2.0
That’s not to suggest we won’t see in-flight gambling return. The practice is still a popular feature on many ocean cruises, after all. As it stands, though, we have no more casinos in the sky. If you must place a wager at altitude, best to do so with your traveling companions instead.
Image credits: Swissair via ETH-Bibliothek Zürich, Bildarchiv CC BY-SA 4.0, Federal Aviation Administration
So are the gambling law boundaries in the sky like the ones on the sea followed by cruise ships?
Not quite. Basically, the US says you can’t run gambling on a flight that lands or takes off in the country. So even just getting into international waters isn’t good enough.
I mean, technically M-D is still a major player, seeing as how their management team runs Boeing.
Apparently you were gambling with more than money when you got on these planes.
If I’m going to drop an extra $200 on a flight it’s going to be on upgraded seats with more leg room, not crappy video slots.
OOF
I at first interpreted the “gamble on planes” headline as being able to place bets on things like delays, crashes, maintenance issues. I thought that was pretty dark and was relieved that people were just playing slots while flying. Or at least I WAS relieved until I realized that the system gambled with peoples lives and 250+ people lost.
90’s were awesome. Gambling in the skies, while wearing a grey suit with a dark blue shirt and colorful tie without being taxed as dressed as a clown.
Definitely, those were the years to be alive.
First glance, though it might be a Jerry Garcia tie, but not abstract enough. Some sort of asphalt street design
I’ve had some Jerry Garcia ties in my time, love ’em.
I only own one decent tie, and of course it is a Jerry Garcia tie. Rarely had a need for it (in-person job interviews), definitely don’t need them anymore. Well, when I was in Hong Kong, I did buy a bootleg Calvin and Hobbes tie along with a Rocky, Bullwinkle, Boris, and Natasha tie.
A great deep-dive into Swissair 111 was recently on the Controlled Pod Into Terrain podcast. Worth a listen if this sort of thing is your jam.
IFE in planes in the 90s ruled. When I was a kid we flew a few times to India and the planes had Super Nintendo on them. My mom says I was the most well behaved kid lol.
I vaguely remember that on one international flight from US to UK. I was pretty young at the time, but I seem to remember you could buy (well, rent for the flight) a special Super Nintendo-esque controller with a non-standard connector (likely to discourage theft) that would plug into the screen and you could choose from a handful of games in the system. Now I’m somewhat curious how that system worked.
I recall some hotels had similar setups for SNES and later N64 games. The janky “LodgeNet” or whatever branded controller was hard-wired to the TV with an extra long cord and you could “order” a game via the menu in the same way you could buy a movie.
Yes, remember those, they usually had some sort of set top box that wasn’t quite like a cable box and wasn’t quite a recognizable console
It was called the Nintendo Gateway System. It’s what also powered said lodgenet stuff.
In IFE mode, you actually used the IFE controller sideways
Plenty of photos and info on it here
http://videogamekraken.com/nintendo-gateway-system
I left it out of this story, but before this, Swissair actually offered passengers Atari Lynxes!
Real linxes would’ve been more fun.
Wowsers! Lewin, that is absolutely the kind of information that NEEDS to be in this article
I flew across the Atlantic a couple of times on an MD-11. It was a nice enough plane, smooth and comfortable from what I remember. No risk of fire since Northwest was way too cheap to upgrade anything.
Apparently they’re… iffy on landing though.
IIRC they’re iffy when fully loaded with cargo. Passengers were lighter, and had most of the fuel burned off.
Landing speed is still pretty high afaik, and the tail engine’s axis of thrust is so high that it tends to cause the plane to porpoise in response to throttle inputs.
There’s a reason the L-1011 and every other passenger trijet had an S-duct.
My first thought when I read the head line was SA 111, so sad.
Mine too.
If we cannot trust the Swiss about fiscal transparency and compliance, who could we trust?
Love that dude’s suit.
That was a notably horrible way to cash in one’s chips.
COTD
“The money plane has you covered. You want to bet on a dude fucking an alligator… Money Plane.“
As opposed to just traveling on any Boeing, where flying itself is the gamble
Three guesses who bought out McDonnell-Douglas, but odds are you’ll get it in one.
Officially, but in practice, you wonder who really took over whom
Look at the execs who were in charge after the merger, and you’ll have your answer. Hint: Harry Stonecipher became the president of the company.
Pretty much what I was getting at, yeah. Technically a merger.
Yeah, same with the HP/Compaq thing. I was internal at HP for that fiasco. I liken it as an internal takeover of HP by Compaq.