Air Controller’s Error Blamed for Disaster at LAX : Crash: USAir 737 was given permission to land on a runway where SkyWest commuter plane was told to wait for takeoff, authorities say. Death toll may reach 33.

An air traffic controller cleared a USAir jetliner to land on the same Los Angeles International Airport runway where she had earlier directed a small commuter plane to await takeoff, leading to a collision that killed as many as 33 people, authorities announced Saturday.

The jetliner, a Boeing 737 out of Columbus, Ohio, carrying 83 passengers and a crew of six, plowed into the rear of the twin-engine SkyWest commuter and erupted in flames Friday night. Both aircraft then skidded more than 1,200 feet down the runway, across the Tarmac and into the side of an unoccupied airport fire station.

By Saturday, officials listed 13 people as confirmed dead--all 12 people on the commuter and the USAir pilot. The death toll is likely to climb, however: at least 20 people from the USAir flight remained unaccounted for and are feared dead. Twenty-five others were listed as injured.

James Burnett, an official with the National Transportation Safety Board, told a crowded press conference that investigators had listened to recordings of the conversation between the air traffic tower and the cockpit crews.

Burnett said the controller first told the SkyWest commuter, a Swearingen Metroliner, to wait on the runway for takeoff; one minute and 12 seconds later, she gave permission to the jetliner to land on the same runway.

One minute later, the two planes collided. The words “What the hell?” are then heard on the recording. It was not clear whether the expletive was exclaimed from the control tower or from one of the aircraft.

Burnett indicated the controller, who he did not identify, had shown signs of preoccupation and confusion, including “difficult communication” with an earlier Aeromexico flight.

Emergency crews, meanwhile, were struggling to remove bodies from the mangled wreckage Saturday, a task complicated by large amounts of jet fuel that fire officials feared could explode.

“We have two wrecked airplanes in very bad condition,” Burnett told reporters earlier Saturday, adding that the SkyWest commuter jet was “almost obliterated.”

Skid marks on the runway indicated the pilot of the USAir jet may have seen the commuter plane in his way and tried to brake. The black tire tracks were visible for about 250 yards straight down the runway to the apparent point of impact, where they veer sharply to the left.

Debris was scattered every 10 or 15 feet along the skid marks, and metal from both planes lay near the intersection of Runway 24-Left and Taxiway 45, the path that the SkyWest commuter would have been taking as it prepared to leave for the high desert town of Palmdale.

When it came to rest, the jetliner had snapped in two, forming a “V.” All that could be seen of the SkyWest commuter plane was a barely recognizable mound of charred metal.

“That pile of rubble is what remains of the smaller aircraft,” said Los Angeles Fire Department Battalion Chief John D. Badgett.

White sheets covered what officials said were bodies, although it was impossible to count how many there were. A sheet also was draped from the shattered panes of the cockpit, marking the spot where USAir pilot Colin F. Shaw died.

Investigators pored over the remains of the two aircraft, taking inventory of the debris and making notes.

Recovery of the bodies has been a slow process. Shaw’s body was pulled from the cockpit Saturday, but recovery operations were suspended later and scheduled to resume today.

Fire Chief Donald O. Manning said emergency crews could not continue searching for bodies until tankers finish bleeding fuel from the jetliner. Airline officials said they believe about 6,000 pounds of jet fuel are aboard, and Manning said the operation was taking longer than expected.

“The inside of the aircraft is an absolute jumble, (a) horrible jumble inside,” Manning said.

A crane for lifting the jetliner’s hull off the commuter plane was positioned late Saturday, after several delays, and it began prying away a portion of the 737’s tail.

Los Angeles County coroner’s spokesman Bob Dambacher said his office had received five bodies--three males and two females--but said identifying the victims would be difficult.

“They (coroner’s officials) said it could take a couple of hours or a couple of days,” SkyWest spokeswoman Kristan Norton said. “Some of the bodies were burned badly.”

USAir passengers who survived the crash told stories of desperate, panicked escapes from the burning fuselage as it began to fill with smoke. Many scrambled over seats or scooted along the floor to reach an emergency exit. Some passengers cried or screamed while others heroically helped pull others out of the wreckage.

The luckiest apparently were seated near the right wing, where a dozen or more passengers were able to exit to freedom. And some fled out the back of the jetliner, down an inflatable emergency chute.

“The intensity of the fire on the left side of the plane basically melted the skin and weakened it, and the tail fell off,” Michael McCarthy, 37, said Saturday from his home in Point Mugu.

He was treated for smoke inhalation and released.

Ronald Givens, 36, of Pickerington, Ohio, was flying to Los Angeles to attend his father’s funeral Saturday. After the touchdown, he heard a thump and knew the plane had struck an object on the runway. The pilot hit the brakes and passengers lunged forward, he said.

“Not me. Not now,” were the thoughts that raced through his mind in the first splitting moments of the crash. “I was supposed to bury my dad today. And I can’t--because of this.”

Flames started sparking from the aircraft, which tumbled down the runway until hitting the building.

“That’s what kind of stopped us,” Givens said. Then people crowded the doorway. “The door got jammed up so bad I had to jump across the top of someone--I don’t know who. I immediately started pulling people out of the doorway.”

Givens said he will take an Amtrak train back to Ohio.

Scott Vaughan, 26, of Agoura Hills said he slithered on his abdomen out onto the jetliner’s wing. But when he paused to look back, other travelers seemed trapped.

“So I was trying to pull people out and get them off the wing,” Vaughan said. “They were reaching their arms out to me. Some people were coming through and some just had their arms so I was trying to get everyone through as fast as I could.”

Firefighters, who rushed to the scene and drenched the jetliner with foam, later described the blaze as a quick, intensely hot fire that melted the aircraft’s metallic skin and plastic windows.

Shaw, 48, the pilot of the USAir craft, a 22-year veteran from Washington, apparently was killed by the force of the crash. The nose of the plane was badly crumpled, almost like an accordion.

Co-pilot David Kelly, 33, was treated for two broken legs and other injuries. Three flight attendants were treated for smoke inhalation and released, and a fourth flight attendant was missing.

The SkyWest plane was piloted by Capt. Andrew J. Lucas, 32, and co-pilot Frank C. Prentice III, 45.

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If you are seeking information about a specific passenger on USAir Flight 1493, you can call USAir at (703) 418-5100. USAir said it will release information about passengers’ medical condition and where they may be hospitalized to relatives and friends only.

SkyWest can be reached at (800) 453-9417 or (800) 654-8041.

Also contributing to coverage of the disaster at LAX were Times staff writers Michael Connelly, Aaron Curtiss, Paul Lieberman, Janet Rae-Dupree, Iris Schneider, Ronald B. Taylor, Victor Merina, Irene Wielawski, Elaine Woo and Tracy Wood in Los Angeles and Sam Fulwood III in Washington.