Note of Doom Found in PSA Jet Wreckage : Message Apparently Written by Fired USAir Employee Supports FBI’s Theory of Vengeance

A note of impending doom--believed to have been penned by a gunman before he opened fire aboard Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 1771--was recovered from the wreckage Thursday, providing dramatic support for the FBI’s conclusion that the crash resulted from a recently dismissed airline worker’s vengeful attack.

FBI agents believe that the note, handwritten on an air sickness bag, was slipped in mid-flight by 35-year-old David A. Burke to Raymond Thomson, 48, a USAir official who recently had fired Burke from his job as a ticket agent at Los Angeles International Airport.

“Hi Ray,” the message began, “I think it’s sort of ironical that we end up like this. I asked for some leniency for my family. Remember?

“Well, I got none and you’ll get none.”

Invaded Cockpit

The note was unsigned, but authorities said they have no doubt it was written by Burke. It was one of several pieces of evidence to surface Thursday as investigators all but completed their reconstruction of what happened in the final minutes of Flight 1771. The FBI believes that Burke fired on Thomson with a .44-magnum pistol and then invaded the cockpit. In the ensuing struggle, the aircraft went into a dive and slammed into a coastal hillside near here. All 43 people on board the British-built jetliner died in the Monday crash.

Investigative sources with access to an in-flight cockpit tape said it contains the voice of a flight attendant informing the crew, “We have a problem here.”

This, sources said, is followed by a male voice, saying, “I am the problem.”

The exchange occurred after pilot Gregg N. Lindamood reported to air traffic controllers that there were gunshots in the passenger compartment. It is followed, according to sources familiar with the tape, by sounds of a tremendous scuffle, including “a groan and a gasp” from a man believed to be the pilot, as the doomed plane plunged nose-first from 22,000 feet.

“There’s a lot of commotion,” the source said, “thumping, crashing, and struggling--that kind of thing.”

The source said “it is a matter of conjecture” whether shots in the cockpit can be heard on the tape.

Efforts were under way to enhance the clarity of the damaged recording. However, the FBI has determined that all six bullets had been fired from the gun, which was recovered from the wreckage Wednesday.

Also, it was learned that the FBI has discovered what may be a bullet hole in the pilot’s seat.

Richard T. Bretzing, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles office, told reporters at the crash site that ballistics checks confirmed that the pistol found in the debris was the same one that a friend and co-worker had loaned to Burke last month.

He also said a part of Burke’s body had been located among the wreckage and had been identified through a fingerprint match-up.

“We have arrived at the point where we have the suspect we believe is responsible,” Bretzing said. “Were he still alive we have more than sufficient evidence to charge him.”

Will Found

Documents released Thursday in Los Angeles federal court showed that an FBI search of Burke’s Long Beach condominium Tuesday night yielded a last will and testament, made out by Burke just five days before the crash. The document supersedes another will drawn up in 1985, which was also seized by the FBI.

Robert Miller, the Long Beach attorney who drafted the new will, said Burke seemed “normal in all respects” and there was nothing extraordinary about the alterations. He declined to give details.

Agents also seized insurance documents, including a form to designate beneficiaries that was dated Nov. 30--eight days before the crash and a little more than a week after Burke had been fired from USAir, allegedly for stealing $69 in receipts from in-flight cocktail sales.

Skirted Security

A sworn affidavit filed by the FBI in support of a search warrant for the Burke residence also resolved a lingering riddle in the case--how the recently dismissed USAir employee managed to skirt an airport security check before he boarded Flight 1771.

According to the document, an unidentified PSA official had informed an FBI investigator that “Burke had been allowed to bypass security screening as a familiar airline employee and therefore was not screened for weapons or destructive devices.”

The airline declined comment on the affidavit’s assertion. PSA was purchased by USAir last May and they operate from the same terminal at LAX.

The same document also quoted verbatim from the telephone message Burke left on the answering machine of his estranged girlfriend, Jacqueline Camacho, hours before the crash: “Jackie, this is David. I’m on my way to San Francisco Flight 1771. I love you. I really wish I could say more but I do love you.”

Friend Loaned Gun

According to the agent’s affidavit, Burke was given a pistol about a month ago by a friend and fellow USAir employee in Foster City, a San Francisco suburb. The weapon was identified as a Smith and Wesson .44-magnum with an eight-inch-long barrel.

The friend, identified as Joseph Drabik, told agents Burke had seemed “depressed” when he asked to borrow the gun.

Drabik said he gave Burke both the gun and a box of a dozen bullets.

The gun was believed to be the same weapon described by Camacho when she reported to Hawthorne police that he had threatened her at gunpoint three days before the crash. Police did not follow up on the report because Camacho did not want to press charges. The violent incident was one of several in Burke’s past, according to police records and interviews with acquaintances.

Altamont Burke Jr., 27, of Atlanta, the dead suspect’s brother, said Burke was troubled both by the loss of his job after 15 years of service with USAir and by romantic troubles with Camacho. She had obtained a court order barring Burke from her residence after alleging that he had attempted to choke her and ripped her clothing.

‘Doesn’t Always Work Out’

“He wanted an all-American family with two children and a house in the suburbs,” the brother told The Times in an interview at Burke’s Long Beach home, “but it doesn’t always work out that way.”

Burke was the father of 11 children by six women but never married.

The reported assault on Camacho was similar to a case involving Burke and another woman in Rochester, N.Y., in September, 1985. Beatrice Burke, described in a crime report as Burke’s common-law wife, told authorities that he “grabbed her by the neck, choking her and causing a bruise on the right side of her neck, and kicked her on the left side.”

An official with the Monroe County Sheriff’s Department said Burke was arrested six weeks later and charged with harassment, but the prosecution ended when Beatrice Burke failed to show up for a Feb. 3, 1986, trial.

Government records also show that Burke was arrested on Nov. 2, 1972, by police in Canadaigua, N.Y., for investigation of reckless endangerment, and arrested for robbery and assault in Rochester, N.Y., in 1975. The records did not indicate the disposition of the two cases.

Real estate records in Rochester, N.Y., where Burke lived until moving to Southern California a year ago, demonstrate how he accumulated income beyond his USAir salary. His first home was given to him by his father as a high school graduation gift, and he eventually used profits from its sale to buy other property.

This year alone, Burke made a $200,000 profit from the sale of two homes.

The cash apparently helped maintain a life style beyond that of a typical ground-based airline employee. Born in London to parents of Jamaican descent, Burke drove around Rochester in a 1984 Mercedes-Benz sedan with the vanity plate, “Reggae.” In Los Angeles, however, he drove a Ford Taurus.

Never Charged

While in Rochester, police suspected him of involvement in drug trafficking and an auto theft ring, but he was never arrested or charged.

Allen Burke, another brother of the suspect, told reporters that his brother must have been hurt by his dismissal from USAir. He said it was the first time David Burke had ever failed at anything.

“What was active in him, I guess,” he said in a television interview with a Rochester station, “was death before dishonor.”

Documents filed in the case indicate that PSA notified the FBI concerning Burke’s possible culpability within two hours of the Monday crash. Agents were told that both Burke and Thomson were aboard, and that Burke had been upset about his Nov. 18 dismissal.

By 9 p.m.--less than five hours after the crash--agents had been made aware of the message Burke had left on Camacho’s answering machine, and by the next day they had confirmed that Drabik, 32, a customer service supervisor for USAir in San Francisco, had loaned Burke his pistol.

Eric Malnic reported from Paso Robles and Peter H. King from Los Angeles. Also contributing to this story were Times staff writers Ronald J. Ostrow in Washington; Phillip Dixon in Rochester, N.Y.; Dan Morain in Foster City, Calif., and Bob Baker, Stephen Braun, Frederick M. Muir and Kim Murphy in Los Angeles.