20 Years Ago on AOL.com: Sept. 3, 1998 -- Swissair Flight 111 Crashes

September 3, 1998: Swissair Flight 111 crashed in the Atlantic Ocean off Halifax late September 2. I seem to remember making updates to the scheduled page from home, either late on Sept. 2 or early on Sept. 3, using dialup and my Defender key authenticator (which looked like an old LCD calculator) to access the publishing systems.

The first image was a breaking news graphic probably repurposed from one created for the AOL News Channel coverage (the website was second-tier to the core service offerings):

This was followed by two photos from the crash recovery:

[Series note: In the late 1990s, I programmed the content for the AOL.com home page, which relaunched with a new design on July 14, 1998. I printed screencaps and saved them. 20 years later, I'm scanning them in and posting them with a little commentary under the tag #20YearsAgoOnAOLcom.]