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Probe of Jet’s Crash Focuses on Its Engines

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Times Staff Writers

Federal aviation investigators searching the runway used by a Midwest Express Airlines DC-9 that crashed here found scattered “components” of an engine similar to those that powered the ill-fated jetliner, the chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board said Saturday night.

Jim Burnett, the NTSB chairman, said he could not say for sure that the components, parts of compressor blades from a Pratt & Whitney engine, came from Flight 105, which crashed killing all 31 persons aboard Friday.

The downed aircraft, built in 1967, was one of the oldest DC-9s flying, according to McDonnell Douglas, the manufacturer. It was one of three DC-9s purchased by Midwest two years ago from Avenza Airlines, a Venezuelan carrier.

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Burnett said the aircraft’s left engine was still functioning at full power when the plane slammed into a wooded area about a half-mile from the end of the runway. But he said the right engine “had little or no rotation” at impact.

The compressor fragments were scattered near the end of the 9,600-foot runway, well beyond the point at which such aircraft normally lift at takeoff.

Investigators will close the runway today while they use metal detectors to expand their search along its entire length and in the grassy areas alongside.

When asked whether the seared right-hand engine--the only recognizable part among the charred debris at the actual crash site--showed signs of disintegration before impact, Burnett said it was still too early to tell.

“We cannot say the components (found along the runway) came from that engine without further examination” under laboratory conditions, Burnett said.

He called the plane “the most severely damaged I have seen.”

An NTSB investigator also went to the Appleton, Wis., headquarters of Midwest Express, a 15-month-old airline and subsidiary of Kimberly-Clark Corp., to examine the maintenance records of the plane and its engines.

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Midwest said it would resume normal operations today.

Relatives of the passengers on that Atlanta-bound jetliner, who had been encouraged to bring victims’ dental charts and photographs, arrived in Milwaukee on Saturday to help authorities identify the dead, many of whom were badly burned when the plane exploded upon impact.

22 Victims From Georgia

Twenty-two of the dead were from Georgia, one was from North Carolina and eight--including the four-member flight crew--were from Wisconsin.

The NTSB on Saturday listened to the tapes of radio messages between the control tower and the aircraft. The last transmission from the pilot, 31-year-old Dan W. Martin, was: “We’ve got an emergency here.”

The weather was sunny at the time of the crash and visibility was reported to be about 10 miles. NTSB investigators have virtually ruled out weather as a cause; a meteorologist was not part of the on-site investigatory team.

Burnett said on Saturday that four witnesses in the airport control tower watched the plane as it began to accelerate down the runway, “and there was no indication of anything abnormal . . . although some described ‘pops.’ ”

Climbed to 900 Feet

Burnett said the investigation indicated that the aircraft rose to an altitude of 900 feet and banked sharply to the right before plummeting nose-first into a nature preserve at the edge of the airport property.

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The cockpit voice recorder, its orange casing charred by the fire and damaged by the impact, was recovered Saturday afternoon. But Burnett said the recording inside was intact and should provide information about the cockpit crew’s conversation and other on-board noises in the last moments of the flight.

Another important device, the flight data recorder, was recovered Friday night and sent to Washington. It holds such information as the aircraft’s attitude, speed and throttle settings.

Fires Kill a Deer

The plane, parts of which were found in trees, made a deep gouge in the earth upon impact, Burnett said. No one on the ground was injured, although fires that broke out in the woods after the crash killed a deer near the wreckage.

The DC-9 crash followed by exactly a month the apparently weather-related crash of a Delta L-1011 in Dallas that killed 135 persons. This year has been the worst in commercial aviation history; more than 1,600 persons have died in air crashes worldwide.

Burnett said air crashes “seem to happen in groups and it’s not the first time” several accidents have occurred in the space of a few months.

“I’m still flying,” he said. “Since I’ve been in this job I feel more safe in the airways--and more terrified on the roadways.”

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FAA Records Checked

A check of FAA records by The Times turned up no reports of previous engine problems on the crashed plane, though such records extend back only five years and do not include any for the period in which the plane was owned by the Venezuelan carrier.

A computer count found 31 service difficulty reports describing engine problems on DC-9s in the U.S. air carrier fleet over the last five years. The engine problems varied from backfiring and vibration to flame-outs.

DC-9s, specializing in short- and medium-distance routes, currently make 5,420 trips a day, according to the manufacturer.

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