PSA Plane from L.A. Crashes; All 44 Dead : Gunshots Are Reported On Flight to S.F.

A Pacific Southwest Airlines commuter plane carrying 39 passengers and a crew of five crashed Monday in a San Luis Obispo County mountain range after the pilot reported smoke in the cockpit and gunshots from the back of the plane, federal authorities said.

County fire officials responding to the scene said they believed that there were no survivors on Flight 1771 out of Los Angeles International Airport and bound for San Francisco.

“The plane was coming straight down when it hit a hillside,” said Bill Hartzell, owner of the cattle ranch where the plane slammed to earth. “There’s airplane parts and body parts and luggage all over a 15-mile area. I don’t know how anyone could have survived.”

Sacramento attorney Steve Kronick, bound for a meeting in Paso Robles in a small plane Monday afternoon, said both he and his pilot were listening to radio traffic in the area when they “heard the (PSA) pilot say that there was gunfire aboard. And after that we didn’t hear anything. . . . The Oakland airport tried to get him on again and never was successful.”

“That’s all we heard him say,” Kronick said. “ ‘There’s gunfire on board.’ ”

Fire on Port Side

FAA spokesman Fred Farrar said preliminary information showed that the British-made BAe146 aircraft was spotted burning on its port side over Templeton, Calif., shortly after radar and radio contact was lost at about 4:15 p.m.

The pilot of the plane reported smoke in the cockpit at 4:17 p.m. as he flew over the Lucia Mountain Range near Highway 101, a Federal Aviation Administration spokesman said. The plane crashed into the mountain range shortly after the pilot talked to air traffic controllers.

The plane was flying at about 22,000 feet and crashed in the vicinity of Paso Robles, Farrar said.

A National Transportation Safety Board spokeswoman detailed the unconfirmed report about gunshots.

‘Reported Gunshots’

“Just west of Paso Robles, the crew reported gunshots in the back of the plane,” said Drucella Andersen, a spokeswoman for the NTSB. “I want to stress this is preliminary and unconfirmed information,” she added.

A Fire Department spokesman said the plane crashed in a sparsely populated area on ranchland.

Ron Alsop, a spokesman for the San Luis Obispo County Fire Department, said: “Wreckage was spread out over about 10 acres.”

The crash site was placed about five miles east of the Pacific Ocean--one-quarter mile south of Highway 46 on Old Creek Road, near the community of Harmony, about 15 miles west of Templeton and about 175 miles northwest of Los Angeles.

Cordoned Off Area

At San Francisco International Airport, where the flight was scheduled to arrive at 4:43 p.m., PSA officials cordoned off an airport VIP area for those gathered to meet passengers on the flight. The arrival board directed those interested in Flight 1771 to “please see agent.”

The PSA aircraft normally carries a crew of four, but the flight included an extra flight attendant in training, said Suha Arkan, San Francisco station manger for PSA.

The airline said it had dispatched a crew to the scene and had begun contacting next of kin of passengers and crew “so that they can do what needs to be done.”

PSA has set up a special phone line to field question from the public: (619) 574-2480.