The boss of a Baildon lighting company was among 229 people killed when a Swiss airliner crashed into the sea off Canada, it emerged today.

Norman Scoular, 45, was chief executive Sylvania Lighting International in Otley Road, Charlestown, and chief operating officer of SLI Inc, of Canton, Massachusetts, which had recently acquired the Baildon company.

Mr Scoular was among six Britons killed in the air disaster yesterday. The Swissair flight 111 crashed into the sea off Nova Scotia an hour after it took off from New York en route for Geneva.

The plane was minutes away from an emergency landing and had dumped its fuel into the sea when the crash happened at 2.30am British time.

Sylvania Lighting International makes compact fluorescent lamps and was previously known as Concord Sylvania.

In 1995 the firm helped former Lord Mayor of Bradford, Councillor Marilyn Beeley, refurbish the Nell Bank Outdoor Centre in Ilkley when it was the focus of her appeal in 1995.

The company donated energy-efficient fluorescent bulbs which were used throughout the building as part of the upgrading of the facilities used by thousands of young people from the district.

Aviation experts said today investigators will look strongly at a cargo hold fire as a possible cause of the plane disaster.

Details from the aircraft's "black box" flight recorder will also be crucial to the investigation.

The crash probe team will also carefully study recordings of the conversation between the air crew and air traffic controllers in the fateful minutes before the crash.

"Indications are that there was some sort of fire and that the pilot reported smoke in the cockpit," said Kieran Daly, editor of the Internet news service Air Transport Intelligence.

"We don't know how much smoke there was but smoke in the cockpit at any time is extremely dangerous and could have been caused by a substantial fire.

" Some of the passengers are reported to have donned lifejackets, but we don't know if they put them on of their own accord or following an instruction from the flight crew."

The sister-in-law of one Briton killed in the disaster today spoke of her "devastation" at the loss.

Former United Nations employees Joyce Ratnavale, 74, and her Sri-Lankan born husband Victor, 77, had been returning to Geneva from a month-long stay with relatives in America.

Mrs Ratnavale's brother, Lt Col Lionel Dollery, a former Tory mayor of Gillingham, Kent, died from cancer only four months ago.

His widow Monica, 77, said today: "They had so many friends in Geneva who like me will be devastated."

Mr Ratnavale had successful heart by-pass and colon surgery during the couple's stay in America, Mrs Dollery said.

They had been visiting their daughter, Chantal, a doctor, and her family in Virginia.

She said: "It had all gone very well. They were looking forward to getting home to Geneva where they were very well liked.

"There is an English Protestant church in the city which they used to attend and I think there will be a memorial service for them."

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