World: Death in Distant Places

SWISSAIR Flight 330 was 15 minutes out of Zurich's Kloten Airport en route to Tel Aviv last week when the Zurich tower logged the kind of report that airmen dread. "We are on fire!" called Swissair's pilot. Before he could obey Zurich's emergency instructions, the jet exploded in midair, spraying metal and bodies on an Alpine forest below. All 47 people aboard perished.

The explosion might have resulted from a malfunction, but investigators doubted it; the blast occurred toward the tail section, probably in the baggage or mail compartment. Only three hours earlier, an...