Photodissociation of methyl chloride at 157.6 nm has been investigated using a molecular beam apparatus with a universal detector, which is based on VUV photoionization by synchrotron radiation. Three dissociation channels have been observed: Cl + CH3, H + CH2Cl and HCl + CH2. Product translational energy distributions were determined for all observed dissociation channels. An intriguing HCl elimination channel was observed, which consists of two distinctive micro channels: one is CH2((X) over tilde B-3(1)) + HCl, the other is CH2((a) over tilde (1)A(1)) + HCl The fraction of the available energy released as product translational energy was determined to be 0.75 for CH2((X) over tilde B-3(1)) + HCl and 0.38 for CH2((a) over tilde (1)A(1)) + HCl Other product channels such as H-2 + CHCl were not found. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.