Jet Was Warned of Plane in Area : Air Controller Informed Pilot of ‘Traffic’ a Minute Before Crash

Radar and voice communication records indicate that the pilot of an Aeromexico DC-9 had been warned that there was a small airplane in his vicinity and may have been taking evasive action at the time the two aircraft collided, federal investigators said Tuesday.

Dr. John Lauber, who is in charge of the National Transportation Safety Board investigation into the catastrophe over Cerritos on Sunday, said an air controller warned the DC-9 pilot of “traffic at 10 o’clock, one mile northbound, altitude unknown” a little more than a minute before the crash.

The jetliner’s pilot acknowledged the warning, Lauber said, and was told to reduce his speed to 170 m.p.h.--but was not given permission to change course.

Both Banking Left

Eyewitnesses questioned by NTSB investigators, however, all agreed that the DC-9 and the single-engine Piper Cherokee Archer II were both making steep left banks at the time they collided, a maneuver that experienced pilots said the airliner would not have made without permission except in an emergency.

Lauber said his information came from the initial readout of digital tapes from Los Angeles Terminal Approach Control (TRACON) radar and from voice recordings of the conversations between the air controller and the airliner.

He said Aeromexico Flight 498 had contacted Los Angeles TRACON and received instructions for a routine instrument landing approach when the air controller spotted the Piper.

Visual Flight

He said the small plane’s transponder--an on-board radio transmitter that amplifies radar echoes to make them more easily identifiable--was tuned to a code that is normally transmitted only by airplanes that are proceeding by visual--rather than instrument--flight rules.

But the transponder was not transmitting the Piper’s altitude, he said, and this made it impossible for the air controller to be sure whether it had invaded the tightly regulated terminal control area (TCA) that extends from 6,000 to 7,000 feet in that area.

Lauber said he is reasonably sure the blip seen by the controller was from the Piper.

“That transponder return,” he said, “ends at the same time the readout ends from the Aeromexico plane. Its flight path is generally consistent with the planned flight path of the Piper Cherokee . . . and therefore it is reasonable to assume that this was the airplane that subsequently was involved in the collision.”

Warning Acknowledged

The Aeromexico pilot acknowledged the air controller’s warning, saying “Roger, 498 (the flight’s number-designation)” and was told to reduce speed and begin descending from 7,000 to 6,000 feet.

Then, Lauber said, another small airplane--a “pop-up target” whose on-board transponder also was tuned to the visual flight code--appeared on the screen and asked for a traffic advisory. The air controller gave the “pop-up target” a new transponder code (to identify it as an instrument-controlled flight in the area) and ordered it to make turns and altitude corrections to keep it out of the path of other aircraft.

When he tried to re-contact Aeromexico 498, there was no response.

“He made eight attempts,” Lauber said. “But radar data shows the transponder return from the DC-9 stopped at 6,500 feet; right smack in the middle of the TCA sector.”

Lauber said the Piper initially collided with the DC-9’s left wing and then tore into the stabilizer, causing the jet to flip upside down. Witnesses have said the jetliner plunged to earth in that position.

The stabilizer, which controlled the jet’s pitch or nose-up, nose-down movement, was sheared off in the collision, Lauber said, “and once that happened, no control was possible.”

Lauber said the digital readouts and voice recordings--and data now being retrieved from the jetliner’s own voice recorder and flight recorder--will be integrated later into the investigation to develop “a complete report” on exactly what happened over Cerritos, 20 miles southeast of Los Angeles International Airport.

Meanwhile, there were these developments:

Test for Drugs

Lauber said a blood sample--for drug testing--was taken Tuesday from the air controller who was handling the DC-9 at the time of the collision. But he said he had no real suspicion that drugs had in any way been involved in the crash.

He also largely discounted early reports from the Los Angeles County coroner’s office indicating that the pilot of the Piper Cherokee had suffered a heart attack just before the aerial collision.

NTSB spokesman Ira Furman identified the pilot as William Kramer, an executive who moved to Palos Verdes from Spokane, Wash., about a year ago. He said Kramer had held a private airman certificate (pilot’s license) for about six years, had more than 200 hours of flying experience and had undergone a routine flight physical before moving from Spokane to Palos Verdes.

At that time, he added, there appeared to be no indication of heart disease.

Furman said he had talked to independent pathologists who said there would be no way to pin down the timing of the heart attack to the few minutes between the plane’s takeoff from Torrance Airport and the collision.

Called Inexact Science

“It’s a very inexact science, apparently,” Furman said. “My sources tell me that a man could suffer a heart attack--even one as severe as the coroner’s office seems to think this one was--and not even know it for a while.

“And if he didn’t know he’d had a heart attack, he might very well have gone right on flying, assuming that he was in physical shape to do so.”

Tissue from the pilot’s heart, he said, will be sent to the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology near Washington for re-examination.

Acting Los Angeles County Coroner Dr. Ronald N. Kornblum told county supervisors Tuesday that Kramer might have suffered a fatal heart attack before the two aircraft collided. But he, too, said there is no way of determining that for certain.

“The heart attack might have killed him,” Kornblum said. “But the chances are it did not. It’s possible he was dead before impact, but there is no way to say that.”

Kornblum added that it was also “possible” that the heart attack was triggered by the frightening realization that the two planes were nearing impact.

Unknown Casualties

The number of people to perish in the worst airline accident in Los Angeles history remained a mystery Tuesday.

Coroner’s spokesman Bill Gold said it would be a week or more before medical examiners could identify those killed. Until then, Gold declined to confirm the estimated number of dead or news reports that the fatalities included at least seven family members holding a party at 13421 Reva Circle.

Los Angeles County Fire Department spokesman Garry Oversby also issued a statement on Tuesday saying he was misquoted about the number of dead found at the Reva Circle home. Oversby was quoted as saying rescue workers found the remains of 18 people on the corner lot--15 of whom were attending a party in the house at the time of the crash.

“That number, as far as I’m concerned, is incorrect because that determination has to come from the coroner,” Oversby said. “We had no knowledge as to total body count.

“The thing that we were concerned about at the scene, that at the particular house in question, there were five vehicles out in front,” Oversby said. “This would lead us to believe that there was a family reunion or group at the house. We don’t know what the situation was.”

Woman, Child Victims

Next door, at 17908 Holmes Ave., the crushing blow of the Aeromexico jetliner apparently killed a woman and her 4-year-old child as they were moving into the residence Sunday morning.

The house, owned by Ildefonso and Elnora Figueroa of La Mirada, was being rented to the woman and her fiance, said rental agent Gordon Stefenhagen of Excellent Property Management.

“The people that I had were just moving in on Sunday morning,” said Stefenhagen. “It was a couple with a 4-year-old girl. They signed all the papers Saturday, and they were moving in the big stuff on Sunday morning, all their furniture.

“The husband-to-be was not in the house at the time,” Stefenhagen said, adding: “It was pretty definite that the 4-year-old girl and the lady were killed.”

Stefenhagen declined to disclose the name of the tenants, but said he was unable to contact the man as of Tuesday afternoon.

Emergency crews finally moved out of the crash area Tuesday.

“Everyone feels that they’ve done as much here as they can,” Los Angeles County Fire Department Inspector Chuck Gutierrez said as the remains of cars and homes were bulldozed into huge piles and crews began erecting chain-link fences around the lots where burned-out debris marked places where homes had once stood.

Crash Debris Sifted

NTSB investigators, however, continued to sift through crash debris, carefully raking up all available bits and pieces of the two dismembered airplanes.

The Piper fuselage and the jet’s horizontal stabilizer were loaded onto trucks Tuesday, and Lauber said they would be taken to Long Beach Airport for study.

The stabilizer and the fuselage of the smaller airplane, he said, “contain the most information about the actual impact.”

Most of the streets near the crash site were reopened to traffic Tuesday, and authorities allowed all but a few residents who lived in the devastated residential tract on the city’s east side to move freely in and out of the area for the first time in three days.

Walt Buryn, whose home is on Felson Street, two blocks from the disaster site, said he had not been out of the neighborhood since the crash at noon Sunday.

Sheriff’s deputies, trying to restrict access to the area until crash investigators finished their work, warned residents who left that they would not be allowed immediately back in--so Buryn and his wife, Ziska, stayed home.

“We started running low on food,” Buryn said Tuesday. “Finally, somebody in the neighborhood made a big shopping list and we smuggled it out and eventually got a new supply of milk, bread and eggs. But it’s been damn frustrating, just sitting here waiting. Like being in a prison.”

Ways to Help Studied

Cerritos officials, local clergy and school administrators met Tuesday afternoon to discuss ways to help the community of 55,000 residents cope with the tragedy.

Tonight, the City Council at its regularly scheduled meeting is expected to announce a day of mourning for the city.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors ordered all flags on county buildings flown at half staff for one week and called on Congress to convene hearings in Los Angeles on air safety after reports that private aircraft often stray into the approach path to the L.A. airport.

The board ordered county lawyers to meet with NTSB and Federal Aviation Administration officials to develop regulations that would require all small airplanes to be equipped with working transponders when flying in this area.