Jet’s ‘Black Box’ Found

Search teams today removed bodies from the wreckage of a Mexican jet that smashed into a mountainside, killing all 166 people aboard. Officials said the remains of more than half the victims and the “black box” flight recorder were recovered.

The Mexicana Airlines Boeing 727, en route from Mexico City to Los Angeles with stops in Puerto Vallarta and Mazatlan, hit 7,792-foot El Carbon mountain about 90 miles northwest of Mexico City shortly after takeoff Monday morning. (Story on Page 11.)

U.S. Embassy officials said nine Americans were among the dead.

Among the U.S. citizens believed booked on the flight were Christine Pittner and Tracy Bates, two teen-agers from suburban Buffalo, N.Y.; Robert B. Loeb, a Cleveland lawyer, and Debra Roth, a Cleveland junior high school teacher, relatives and friends said.

Witnesses in this hamlet of 300 people at the foot of the hills said the plane exploded “like thunder” and was burning before it crashed.

The cause of the crash was not known, but Mexicana said the pilot reported pressurization problems and sought permission to fly lower shortly before the plane went down.