Search for Jet Engine Parts Goes On

Investigators continued to use infrared cameras Sunday to search cornfields for pieces of a shattered jet engine from a DC-10 that crashed, and prayers for the 110 people killed were offered during church services.

Ted Lopatkiewicz, spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board, said that most of the wreckage from the Wednesday crash had been recovered but that reconnaissance planes pressed the search for most of the fan section of the jet’s tail engine, which apparently exploded and severed hydraulic lines.

Lopatkiewicz said Nebraska Air National Guard jets were used to carry infrared cameras to photograph a 16-square-mile area about 60 miles from the crash site in a search for metal fragments thrown from the engine when it exploded.

Church services around Sioux City on Sunday morning centered on the disaster.

“Hear our prayers this day again and again and again for the families, for the survivors,” said the Rev. Duane Churchman, senior pastor at First United Methodist Church. About 300 people attended the service, more than a typical Sunday service draws there, a church official said.

At the site of the crash of United Airlines Flight 232, officials were painstakingly reassembling the jet’s tail section.

Others gathered luggage and other personal effects, storing them in a hangar for families to retrieve.

Hospital officials said 39 people remained hospitalized early Sunday, but some were being dismissed as the day progressed. The plane was carrying 296 people.

Medical examiners were working to identify the 110 victims of the crash. They have made positive identification on 100 bodies, a United spokesman said Sunday.