http://news.excite.com/news/r/000201/20/crash-alaska

Last exchanges with doomed Alaska jet released Updated 8:23 PM ET February 1, 2000

By Dan Whitcomb

PORT HUENEME, Calif. (Reuters) - Minutes before Alaska Airlines Flight 261 crashed into the Pacific with 88 people on board the pilot still thought he could make an emergency landing in Los Angeles, crash investigators said Tuesday.

More than 24 hours after Monday's crash, four bodies but no survivors had been found from the MD-83 which plunged 17,000 feet into the ocean off southern California on a flight from the Mexican resort of Puerto Vallarta to Seattle via San Francisco.

National Transportation Safety Board investigator John Hammerschmidt, giving details of the final exchanges between the plane and air traffic controllers, told reporters the pilot first reported "control difficulties" at 4:10 p.m. (7:10 p.m. EST/0010 GMT).

Eleven minutes later the aircraft disappeared from radar screens.

Hammerschmidt, speaking at the makeshift rescue center at Port Hueneme, said people on four other aircraft in the area had seen the doomed plane plunge into the waves and the pilots of those planes would be interviewed.

He said a signal had been detected from the flight data recorder and video equipment on robotic submersibles was trying to locate it in water about 700 feet deep.

Hammerschmidt quoted a crew member as telling air traffic control three minutes after the first alert of trouble: "We're still working on it."

As the aircraft made a swift but apparently controlled descent, crew members advised at 4.15 p.m. they had a jammed stabilizer and were having trouble maintaining altitude.

But Hammerschmidt said they thought they could maintain altitude and intended to land at Los Angeles international airport.

At 4:16 the flight was cleared to land at Los Angeles and was given permission to descend to 17,000 feet from 23,000 feet .

The pilot acknowledged and said he wanted to come down further. "This was the last known transmission from Flight 261," Hammerschmidt said.

A message from air traffic control one minute later went unanswered and at 4:21 p.m. radar contact was lost.

Coast Guard Vice Admiral Thomas Collins told reporters the search and rescue operation would continue at least through Tuesday.

"We continue to search for human life," he said. "I am not yet ready to make the decision to stop the search. We will make that decision tomorrow morning."

NTSB officials declined to speculate further about the cause of the crash -- the first fatal accident involving an Alaska Airlines plane for 25 years.

They planned to videotape the wreckage of the plane before attempting to bring it to the surface.

So far 12 boxes of debris have been recovered and the twisted metal and personal belongings that littered the ocean Monday evening had either been swallowed by the waves or picked up by a flotilla of boats after a night-long search.

"They've found things like a Bible, a child's teddy bear, a wallet, personal things. These things are important to families of the victims," said a spokesman for the Salvation Army at Port Hueneme, north of the celebrity beach city of Malibu.

Relatives of those lost were overwhelmed by grief. The passenger list released by the airline showed families of four or five members, some of them children, had apparently been wiped out.

The sister of one woman who died on the flight collapsed in grief on the sand before a makeshift memorial, a tall wooden cross strewn with roses set up on the beach overlooking the crash site under a bright blue California sky.

President Bill Clinton said the crash was a "terrible, tragic thing."

It was the second air disaster in two days. A Kenya Airways Airbus en route to Nairobi via Lagos crashed into the sea off Ivory Coast Sunday minutes after taking off from Abidjan airport. Some 169 people were feared dead and 10 were rescued from the water.

As the NTSB inquiry got underway, aviation experts suggested the problem with the plane's stabilizer may have been a symptom of more complex troubles.

"There has really been nothing in the history of the airplane that would indicate it would be susceptible to this kind of (stabilizer) problem," said David Stempler, Air Travelers Association president and publisher of the Airline Accident Report Card.

Alaska Airlines officials fended off reports suggesting a connection between the crash and a year-long probe by the Federal Aviation Administration of its maintenance procedures.

Spokesman Jack Evans said the inquiry was related to record keeping rather than safety issues and the allegations involved two specific MD-80 planes.

The aircraft that crashed was a longer distance version of the MD-80 and was built in 1992. Aviation experts said the MD-80 accident rate is 0.41 accidents per one million departures, which is less than one-quarter the industry average for all airplanes.

Alaska Airlines Chief Executive John Kelly said the airline had an "impeccable safety record and a maintenance record that I would hold up to the industry."

-- Hokie (Hokie_@hotmail.com), February 01, 2000

Answers

"...aviation experts suggested the problem with the plane's stabilizer may have been a symptom of more complex troubles. "

The intriguing comment. Apparently the "guidance system" on this airplane was the first of its kind. How difficult is it to go to the manual backups? Is it possible at all?

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), February 01, 2000.

Jim Nance suggested that the MD-80 was a highly over-engineered airplane. I am not a subject matter expert by any means, but there are procedures for dealing with a jammed stabilizer on an MD-80. Note that the pilot called neither Mayday nor Pan-Pan. Nance suggests that the flight crew may not have understood the actual problem.

-- Chuck (ckincy@aa.net), February 01, 2000.

Hey Bubba, look that plane just fell out of the sky! Oh Dubba Bubba, no big deal, it happens all the time!

-- Kyle (fordtbonly@aol.com), February 02, 2000.

Spokesman Jack Evans said the inquiry was related to record keeping rather than safety issues..."

The NPR report on the DOT investigation (Tuesday evening) said the charges against Alaska Air included deliberate falsification of maintenance records, namely, signing off on maintenance procedures which in fact were not performed. They only found out through a whistle-blower and even then waited two months before even starting their investigation.

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), February 02, 2000.

If the problem is simply a runaway stabilizer then there are emergency procedures to deal with that problem(including a quick disconnect toggle switch in easy reach of both pilots). It gets a lot more complicated if there are additional mechanical problems or failures of a different type. These were experienced and competent pilots and I'm sure that they did everything in there power to save the airplane. Bless their souls... MD-80 Pilot

-- jim (jim@jim.com), February 02, 2000.

Just heard on Art Bell's archive for last night that a group of 80- 100 dolphins were swimming and playing at the crash site. This was from a listener in LA who said it took place at about 8:30 a.m. Tues.

-- Lurkess (Lurkess@Lurking.Net), February 02, 2000.

Lurkess,

FWIW The swimming dolphins were all over the television here on the West Coast, yesterday morning. Art was several hours late with this bit of info.

-- Richard (Astral-Acres@webtv.net), February 02, 2000.

Crouch - Echlin strikes again. Instead of "Your firmware has expired" message, it's more like ...

"Your tomorrow has been canceled!!"

-- K. Stevens (kstevens@ It ALL went away last month .com), February 02, 2000.