Crash Death Toll Mounts to 85--15 Found in Rubble : Jetliner Sliced Into Smaller Plane That Had Strayed, Inquiry Indicates

As the death toll from Sunday’s collision of a light plane and an Aeromexico jetliner mounted to 85, federal air safety officials said Monday that a preliminary investigation indicates that the DC-9 plummeted to earth after slicing into the smaller plane that had strayed onto its path.

Meanwhile, searchers combing the Cerritos neighborhood ravaged by the crash were reported to have discovered the bodies of 15 more people in the rubble.

A top fire official at the scene, who asked not to be named, said the dead were all pulled from one house, where neighbors said a Labor Day weekend party was being held.

The collision broke off the horizontal stabilizer of the Aeromexico aircraft, a portion of the tail gear crucial to controlling the plane, plunging it into a residential neighborhood near Carmenita Road and 183rd Street in Cerritos. All 58 passengers and the crew of six aboard the plane perished. At least 18 people were killed on the ground.

En Route to Big Bear

The smaller plane, a four-passenger Piper PA-28 Archer, en route from Torrance to Big Bear Airport, crashed in an empty schoolyard about two blocks from the wreckage of the downed airliner. Its upper part, sheared off when it collided with the DC-9, was not recovered. Three people on board the plane, a man and two women, were decapitated.

Although investigators said Monday that they could not be sure of the sequence of events in the moments before the planes collided, they conceded that it is “possible” that the pilot of the light plane did not know he had entered a traffic area that requires specific permission of Los Angeles approach controllers.

Dr. John Lauber, a National Transportation Safety Board member who is heading the federal investigation team, told a press conference Monday that the pilot of the Piper was “not in contact with the appropriate control facility.”

Under FAA Control

The DC-9 was under Federal Aeronautics Administration control at the time of the crash, officials said.

Lauber said it is unclear whether the small plane appeared on the control tower’s radar in the moments before the crash or what the radar controller specifically told the pilot of the DC-9 in those critical moments.

NTSB officials have recovered the cockpit voice recorder from the tail section of the DC-9, and that recording of what may have transpired in the final moments of the flight is being shipped to Washington for analysis. A taped record of what might have been picked up on radar also will be studied.

What is known is that the small plane was equipped with a transponder, a device that transmits signals to a radar installation.

Investigators said a peculiar pattern of paint scrapes found on the DC-9’s horizontal stabilizer suggests that the larger plane slammed into the Piper as the jetliner made its descent toward Los Angeles International Airport. The paint “appeared to match the paint scheme on the Piper,” Lauber said. The fact that the top of the Piper’s cabin was “sheared horizontally” is further indication that it may have been struck by the descending DC-9.

Once having lost its critical controlling stabilizer, the Aeromexico jetliner plunged toward the earth, first hitting the ground “at full throttle” near the rear of a single-story home at 13432 Ashworth Place, officials said.

The force of the plane hitting the ground dug a crater 6 feet deep and 30 to 40 feet wide, shattering the foundation of the house and sending large chunks of foundation and block wall slingshot style in a southwestern direction throughout the neighborhood. Parts of the block wall were found in the grills of automobiles as far as two blocks from the site. Parts of the fuselage were catapulted into nearby homes, setting them afire; the tail section was thrown more than a block from the crash site, and tiny pieces of metal were shot throughout the area.

Three people inside the Ashworth Place home, identified as Frank Estrada Sr.; his daughter, Angelica, 14, and his son, Javier, 16, died instantly when their house shattered. Angelica’s twin brother, Alejandro, was inside the garage and managed to escape.

Identities of the other dead, including the 15 reportedly found inside a nearby house, were more difficult to determine.

Fire officials said the task of even coming up with a complete death count is difficult because none of the bodies is “intact.”

“One feels very helpless because all you see are body parts and you don’t know who they belong to,” said county Fire Department Battalion Chief Gordon Pearson. He said the bodies of many of those from the plane were mingled with those who perished on the ground.

At midday Monday as many as 100 workers were using shovels, trowels and other hand tools to sift through the debris. Fire officials used pumping equipment to empty two backyard swimming pools that were filled to the brim with the wreckage.

Some homeowners were allowed back into surrounding blocks by late afternoon, but the area of greatest impact--centered along Ashworth, Holmes Avenue and Riva Circle--were closed off to all but emergency personnel and air safety investigators.

In all, 10 homes inside the area were destroyed and six others were severely damaged. Fire officials put the damage at $2.6 million. Officials said at least 20 vehicles were destroyed.

Because of the magnitude of the disaster sheriff’s deputies and firefighters working at the scene received psychological counseling as they left their posts.

Fire official Pearson said that most rescuers were frustrated by the enormity of what they were seeing and that the aim of the counselors was to “help the people understand that they’re doing everything they can and they should feel hopeful about their efforts.

“That sight, all those pieces of flesh are going to stay with me a long, long time,” he added. “I’ve been with this fire department 22 years and this is the worst disaster I’ve ever seen.”