Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 3, 1991 TAG: 9102030298
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES LENGTH: Medium
A tape of air traffic control communication has a voice saying, "What the hell," just moments before controllers are heard on the tape acknowledging knowing about the collision, said Jim Burnett, National Transportation Safety Board spokesman.
Burnett declined to say whether the controller had erred: "We don't deal in terms of fault. That's a word the Safety Board doesn't use."
The USAir 737-300 ran into the back of the smaller Skywest Metroliner soon after 6 p.m. Friday.
The crash killed at least 13 passengers and a pilot. Another 20 people were missing and feared dead.
During a hectic few moments, an air traffic controller directed the Skywest plane onto runway 24 left at 6:04:45 p.m. Three seconds later, the plane answered that it was on the runway, Burnett said.
After twice asking for permission to land and receiving no response, the USAir plane received clearance to land on runway 24 left.
Two to three seconds later there is an electronic squeal heard on the tape. The cause of the squeal was unclear. Then an unidentified male voice is heard saying, "What the hell."
While she was dealing with the Skywest and USAir planes, the controller was having trouble with an Aeromexico flight and was repeating messages to the Aeromexico plane, he said.
The controller was trying to determine if two other planes were on the runway. "She in fact had a somewhat complicated course of dealings . . . with an Aeromexico plane and involved repeating of messages," said Burnett.
The controller's name was not released and Burnett said she had not yet been interviewed by investigators. The controller had submitted a urine test for drugs. The results were not disclosed.
Lingering jet fuel stymied the search for bodies Saturday. Emergency crews began to pump fuel from tanks of the jet and searchers pulled a body from the wreckage before their work was halted for safety reasons.
"Our crew has returned from the scene," said a coroner's investigator, Carlos Perez. "It's not safe to work in there until the fuel's gone and the plane's secure."
The Boeing 737 had about 6,000 pounds of fuel left when the crash occurred, said USAir President Seth Schofield.
The jet had barely touched down when it crushed the Skywest commuter plane under its belly as the smaller plane prepared for takeoff. It skidded about 250 yards down the runway and veered across a gravel median, a taxiway and a service road before crashing in flames into an abandoned concrete-block fire station.
The larger plane dragged the smaller one all the way.
"The USAir airplane is sitting right on top of our airplane and it's smashed flat, and there was a ball of fire that went through our airplane," Skywest spokeswoman Kristan Norton said. "There are no survivors."
All 12 people in the commuter plane, a twin-engine Fairchild Metroliner III, were killed. USAir said its pilot was killed and 20 other crew members or passengers were missing.
The FBI ruled out terrorism in the crash, spokesman Fred Reagan said.
Earlier, Burnett denied early reports the USAir jet's landing gear hadn't been down.
Coroner's spokesman Robert Dambacher said five bodies were found outside the planes. A sixth body was pulled from the wreckage Saturday. Officials said they didn't know if the bodies were from the jet or the commuter plane.
Burnett and NTSB spokesman Ted Lopatkiewicz would not discuss the accident's cause at a news conference Saturday.
They said the jetliner's cockpit recorder and flight data recorder, the so-called black box, had been recovered along with tapes from the control tower. The commuter plane wasn't required to have recorders.
Keywords:
FATALITY
by CNB