Light Plane’s Pilot Had Heart Attack Before Collision : Autopsy Findings Issued; More Bodies Found; Death Toll Reported at 85

A preliminary autopsy Monday disclosed that the pilot of a small private airplane suffered a heart attack shortly before his in-flight collision with an Aeromexico DC-9 that sent both aircraft hurtling to their doom in suburban Cerritos.

Los Angeles County Coroner’s spokesman Bill Gold said the heart attack “definitely” occurred before the collision that claimed the lives of 67 people in the two airplanes--and more on the ground.

“He had suffered an occlusive coronary artery disease, or heart attack, within the minutes before his death--which is to say, it happened after he took off from Torrance Airport and before the collision with the airliner. We do not know the exact timing or severity of the attack, or whether it rendered him unconscious.

“He did not die of the heart attack, however. Death was due to other causes--to multiple traumas suffered in the crash itself. . . . “

The identity of the small airplane’s pilot--and his two women passengers--was still undisclosed Monday, as firefighters and coroner’s personnel continued to search through the charred and blackened debris where the airliner’s wreckage came to earth.

Although the coroner’s office said the figure could not be confirmed, Los Angeles County Fire Department spokesman Garry Oversby said that 18 bodies were discovered Monday morning in a house at 13421 Reva Circle and that only three of them were from the airliner.

Party at the House

“The rest were in the house, on the ground, when they died,” Oversby said. “That brings the total death toll to at least 85: 58 airline passengers, 6 airline crew members, 3 people in the light airplane, 3 at the (Frank) Estrada house, and 15 more here.

“Apparently all of them were attending a party at the house where they died.”

The Red Cross said it now lists 15 people as “officially missing” in the crash area--but coroner’s spokesman Gold said it is too early to make an accurate count.

“We are not dealing, here, with whole bodies,” he explained.

Meanwhile, federal air safety officials said preliminary investigations indicated that the aerial collision broke off the horizontal stabilizer of the Aeromexico jetliner--a bit of the tail gear crucial to controlling the airplane--causing it to crash and explode near the intersection of 183rd Street and Carmenita Road.

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.

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” at the time of the collision.

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.

He said preliminary interviews with 11 of the 32 eyewitnesses that investigators have thus far been able to locate indicate that both airplanes were banking to the left when they collided--left wing to left wing--and that the smaller airplane scraped swiftly along the side of the airliner until it hit the horizontal stabilizer, causing it to break off.

“At that point,” Lauber said, “the DC-9 rolled into a nearly inverted attitude” and began its swift descent to death.

Drug Tests Requested

Lauber said all the eyewitnesses will be interviewed and reinterviewed in an effort to determine exactly what maneuvers the two airplanes went through during their last moments.

He also said his group has asked that drug tests be administered to air controllers who were on duty at Los Angeles International Airport when the tragedy occurred. Asked whether that is normal procedure, he replied, “It’s getting to be.”

NTSB officials have now recovered both the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder from the tail section of the DC-9. They are being shipped to Washington for analysis.

He said his group has obtained a rough transcript from the voice recorder that shows a series of exchanges between the jetliner and the ground controller concerning a “pop-up target”--an unidentified light airplane--that appeared in the control area just before the collision.

Subsequent investigation, he said, showed that the “pop-up target” was not the Piper Archer that collided with the airliner. But he said the time spent by the flight controller in dealing with the problem might well have diverted attention during the critical seconds before the collision.

A taped record of what might have been picked up on radar also will be studied.

Transponder Found

The small plane was equipped with a transponder, a device that transmits signals to a radar installation.

Lauber said that transponder has been found, and was set to a number code that would be proper for an airplane flying--as the Piper Cherokee was--under visual flight rules.

Had the pilot of the smaller plane requested a change to instrument flight rules (which would have enabled him ask permission to enter the restricted area where the Aeromexico jetliner was operating) he would have been told to readjust the transponder to a new number code that would have positively identified the airplane to air controllers, Lauber explained.

Therefore, the fact that the transponder was still set on the visual flight rules number indicated that the small plane was not aware that it had penetrated the terminal control area.

Moreover, Lauber said at a later press conference, the private pilot had only 231 hours flying experience, spread over five years, and had passed the written test for an instrument rating--but not the practical test that would have qualified him to fly by instruments.

‘At Full Throttle’

Investigators at the crash site said the Aeromexico jetliner hit the ground “at full throttle” near the rear of a single-story house at 13426 Ashworth Place.

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 the Reva Circle house were more difficult to determine.

“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.

2 Pools Being Emptied

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 Reva Circle--were closed off to all but emergency personnel and air safety investigators.

By mid-evening, when county coroner’s officials concluded they had gathered the remains of all victims, most emergency crews withdrew.

The yellow tape came down.

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.

Psychological Counseling

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.” Coroner’s officials said it may take two weeks to positively identify all the bodies.

Two blocks away in an empty grass-covered playground at Cerritos Elementary School, two sheriff’s deputies stood guard throughout the day near the crinkled metal hull of the downed Piper. Although the names of those found inside were not being released, the daughter of William K. Kramer of Rancho Palos Verdes told a Seattle newspaper that she feared they were her parents and her sister, Caroline.

Kramer, the registered owner of the airplane, had moved from Washington to Southern California during the past year.

Gov. George Deukmejian met with NTSB officials at the crash site for about 10 minutes Monday and then toured the stricken area.

Governor’s Remarks

The governor, who once represented Cerritos as a state senator, spoke to reporters of his special feelings for the community.

“I know the area well, and it saddened me deeply to have to come here today and see what happened,” Deukmejian said. Although the governor added that he has not been asked to declare the neighborhood a state disaster area, he pledged that the state will do everything possible to aid residents.

Meanwhile, the “go team” of NTSB investigators arrived at the scene throughout the day to launch what is likely to be an exhaustive investigation.

These teams, made up of investigators with individual technical specialties, are kept “on hold” in Washington for immediate dispatch to the scene of any major disaster such as the one in Cerritos.

In the coming weeks, separate teams of technical experts will review all aspects of the operations of both aircrafts, the crash scene and the events preceding the collision.

Assisting NTSB investigators will be officials from Aeromexico, the Mexican Flight Attendants Union, the International Federation of Airline Pilots and representatives of the Mexican government. Representatives from McDonnell Douglas Corp., which manufactured the DC-9, and from Piper will also aid in the inquiry.

Contributing to this article were Times staff writers Cathleen Decker, Ralph Frammolino, Eric Malnic and Dave Palermo.

The picture that appeared in Monday’s Times of the Aeromexico DC-9 plunging to earth was taken by Al Francis, who was photographing his grandchildren when he heard the mid-air collision. He sold the picture to The Times.

Additional stories and photos on Pages 3, 4, and 5.