Pistol Found in Wreckage of Jet : Tapes Reveal Intruder Entered Cockpit Just Before PSA Crash

A pistol was discovered Wednesday in the scattered wreckage of Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 1771, and a review of in-flight tape recordings revealed that an intruder entered the cockpit just before the jetliner’s steep plunge into a Central California hillside.

The new evidence lent credence to the leading investigative theory that the air disaster occurred when a recently dismissed airline ticket agent, seeking vengeance on his former supervisor, opened fire with a handgun in mid-flight. Both men died in the crash, and sources said the ticket agent had left a fatalistic goodby message on his girlfriend’s telephone answering device before he boarded the flight.

Federal investigators, struggling to reconstruct the last minutes of the flight, now suspect that the disgruntled ex-employee first started shooting in the passenger compartment and then attacked the cockpit crew. That scenario was supported significantly by the developments Wednesday.

‘A Criminal Act’

“The aircraft did in fact become the site of a criminal act,” Richard T. Bretzing, FBI agent in charge of the Los Angles office, told a press conference convened on the mountainous San Luis Obispo County cattle ranch where the Los Angeles-to-San Francisco bound aircraft slammed down Monday, killing all 43 on board.

Bretzing said the tapes, which proved audible despite impact damage, demonstrated “there was an unauthorized entrance into the cockpit.” The intrusion apparently occurred shortly after the pilot reported the sound of gunfire in the passenger compartment to air traffic controllers and began broadcasting an emergency distress signal.

A source familiar with the investigation said the recordings yielded sounds of terrible commotion on the flight deck, followed quickly by a mechanical scream indicating “great acceleration” as the four-engine BAe 146-200 jetliner plummeted to earth. It was not yet clear from the tapes whether shots were fired in the cockpit, the source said.

Data Given to FBI

The recording was turned over to the FBI by the National Transportation Safety Board because of the criminal investigation. Efforts were underway to enhance the quality of the tape.

A source said the pistol, a .44 Magnum, has been traced to the person who had given it to David A. Burke, a 35-year-old Long Beach man who was fired last month by USAir for allegedly stealing $69 of in-flight cocktail receipts. The source said several shots had been fired from the weapon, but would not specify whether all six bullets had been expended.

Evidence mounted Wednesday that Burke had been a troubled man in his last few months.

In early November, his former girlfriend, claiming he had twice tried to strangle her, obtained a judicial order barring Burke from her Hawthorne residence.

A week later, on Nov. 18, he was fired by USAir after 15 years with the company, and the company was seeking misdemeanor theft charges against him. Company officials and prosecutors had been scheduled to meet and discuss the case on Tuesday--the day after the crash.

And on Saturday, Burke’s former girlfriend, identified in court documents as Jacqueline Camacho, 23, reported to Hawthorne police that Burke had pulled a pistol on her and her daughter in a parking garage at 1 a.m. Friday. Sources said the pistol was believed to be the same one Burke may have taken aboard Flight 1771.

Suicide Implied

It was Camacho, sources said, who first informed investigators that Burke might be responsible for the crash. He had left a message on her telephone answering machine that, as one source put it, “at least implies suicide.”

“It’s a goodby message,” said the source, who like most government authorities involved in the case demanded anonymity. “It at least implies suicide. It definitely implies a final goodby.”

Said another source familiar with the message: “He called, identified himself, and said something to the effect of, ‘I love you and I wish things could have worked out. I’ll be leaving on Flight 1771.’ ”

Burke also was said to have declared, “I messed things up.”

There was no mention of a gun in the message, which was believed to have been left on the morning of the crash.

Burke was said by one source to also have left a “goodby card” to Camacho in the glove compartment of either his or her car.

There was no answer at the door of Camacho’s apartment Wednesday morning. Later in the day, a security guard who said he had been hired by USAir stood watch outside her apartment. Camacho is employed by USAir.

Visit to Condominium

FBI agents twice visited Burke’s Long Beach condominium Tuesday. During the first visit they were accompanied by a woman believed to be Camacho. In the second visit agents executed a search warrant and were seen leaving with two cardboard boxes and a metal briefcase.

Investigators believe that Burke boarded the airliner with the intention of killing his former supervisor, 48-year-old Ray F. Thomson of Tiburon, Calif., and may have been determined from the outset to take his own life and that of the other passengers as well.

Several uncertainties remain. It was still not known Wednesday how Burke could have managed to sneak a weapon on board. His former colleagues at the USAir office at Los Angeles International Airport have said that he was a familiar face to security guards, and that he might also have known how to operate combination locks to doors that provide access to aircraft.

USAir officials have said Burke was stripped of his employee credentials when he was fired, although he apparently retained his USAir uniform. PSA is being merged into USAir as the result of a $400-million takeover in May. Both airlines operate from Terminal One at the airport.

The Federal Aviation Administration issued a directive Wednesday instructing airlines to “immediately re-emphasize and strengthen those procedures that ensure that IDs are immediately retrieved from fired employees.”

Warnings to Guards

The FAA also directed the airlines to establish procedures to inform airport security guards about employees who had been fired or who, for other reasons, were no longer to be allowed to pass through checkpoints without being electronically frisked along with passengers.

Also unsettled is the question of what actually caused the aircraft to fall. Most of the 13 witnesses interviewed by the NTSB have said it dived nose first and intact into the hillside.

Experts at the scene, seeking to explain the aircraft’s steep dive, privately have hypothesized that the pilot and first officer may have been shot and slumped forward into the controls. They said shots fired through the fuselage from the passenger compartment would not be likely to cause a crash.

Patricia A. Goldman, vice chairman of the NTSB, said that a preliminary examination of the wreckage indicates that there were “no apparent problems with the air frame or air worthiness of the plane.”

She could not explain how a gunman might have entered the cockpit. Regulations call for the cockpit door to remain locked during flight. There were no indications that the regulation was not followed, Goldman said.

Crash Site Studied

Searchers moved slowly Wednesday across the muddy incline where the jetliner exploded into thousands of small pieces, methodically looking both for human remains and for clues that might help experts piece together the cause of the crash.

Salvage efforts today were to be concentrated in a 10-foot-deep crater drilled by the aircraft into the hillside. Three of the jet’s four engines have been located in the crater, and authorities believe much of the wreckage and human remains are buried inside it. Heavy earth-moving equipment was to be employed today in the excavation of the crater.

The aircraft’s data recorder was found Wednesday. Although extremely battered in the crash, Goldman expressed hope that valuable information could be coaxed from the device. The data device was found near where the cockpit tape recorder was located Monday. Both devices are positioned in tail sections of commercial aircraft to lessen damage in crashes.

Many of the NTSB’s crash experts were to leave here today for Washington, where they will begin sifting through the accumulated evidence. FBI and NTSB officials took pains Wednesday to discount reports that the unusual criminal nature of the investigation, and the FBI’s dominant role, had created friction between the two agencies.

Identification Problem

In addition to the painstaking search for forensic clues, volunteer crews also were faced with the grisly assignment of collecting pieces of human remains scattered over the hillside. This task was expected to be completed today, officials said. The remains are being taken to a Morro Bay mortuary, where attempts will be made to identify them.

“The coroner faces a very difficult task,” said George Brown, who is coordinating the effort for Sheriff Edward C. Williams.

PSA on Wednesday added the name D. Guiliano of New York to the passenger list. There had been difficulty apparently notifying his family. Only one other passenger’s name has not been released, at the request of relatives.

Eric Malnic reported from Paso Robles and Peter H. King from Los Angeles. Also contributing to this story were Times staff writers Douglas Jehl and Ronald J. Ostrow in Washington; Dan Morain in San Francisco; James Rainey and Curtis Taylor in Hawthorne and Bob Baker, Stephen Braun, Kim Murphy and William Overend in Los Angeles.