USAir Jetliner Lacked Latest in Fire Safety : Crash: Eighteen people died inside the burning plane. Officials also question FAA’s escape-testing procedures.

As federal investigators tried to determine how 18 people were unable to escape from a burning USAir jet at Los Angeles International Airport, questions arose Tuesday over why the airliner was not retrofitted with the latest in fire-retardant materials.

Meanwhile, a National Transportation Safety Board official criticized the Federal Aviation Administration for what he called shortcomings in tests used to determine if passengers trapped in burning aircraft can escape quickly.

The FAA test standards require that a planeload of passengers leave the aircraft through half of the emergency exits within 90 seconds, but NTSB officials said the conditions under which the tests are conducted may be unrealistic.

Some of the survivors among the 89 passengers and crew on the USAir jet relied on bright floor lights and the moisture of firefighters’ foam to make their way through thick smoke in the frantic seconds after the fiery collision, said James Burnett, the NTSB official coordinating the investigation.

The crash, which killed 34 people, occurred early Friday evening when an arriving USAir Boeing 737 slammed into the rear of a SkyWest commuter plane as it was preparing to take off on the same runway. All 12 passengers and crew members on SkyWest Flight 5569 were killed.

In his nine years with the safety board, Burnett said, he could not recall another plane disaster where so many passengers survived the crash but could not get out of the exits.

Meanwhile, the unidentified controller who was directing both planes is getting professional counseling and coping “as well as could be expected,” said a fellow controller who asked not to be identified.

The colleague, who has spent a great deal of time with the controller since the collision, said: “She felt terrible remorse, terrible guilt but she can smile now--eat and sleep. I’m impressed with how well she is dealing with this. She is a very strong person.”

The controller will not be interviewed until all passengers, crew, fellow controllers and other witnesses have been questioned so that safety officials will know what to ask her, Burnett said. He said there were “no anomalies” in her work history.

He also said she would be interviewed depending on “medical availability.” He declined to elaborate.

The purpose of the NTSB investigation is to determine the cause of the crash. Safety officials have said that the controller may have been distracted and confused in the moments before the disaster.

Compounding her distraction, Burnett said Tuesday, may have been the presence of a third plane, a Wings West commuter that had just landed and was trying to taxi across the same runway in front of the two other planes.

A communications foul-up occurred when the Wings West crew accidentally shut off radio contact with the controller in the tower, Burnett said.

“When this was all going on, the USAir’s 737 was asking for permission to land,” Burnett said. “She (the controller) was not responding.”

Burnett also said that the interior of the USAir jetliner was not equipped with the latest fire-retardant panels that are designed to give passengers up to a minute longer to escape a burning aircraft. The airline was not required to install the equipment by the time of the crash.

The FAA required airlines to install the fire-safety ceilings and walls in new commercial aircraft beginning last August. Aircraft that were already in service--such as the USAir jet--were required to have new interiors installed only when they underwent major interior renovation, FAA officials said.

When the regulation was first adopted in September, 1988, FAA officials assumed that most airlines would make the changes within two years because they frequently replace interiors for competitive purposes, an FAA spokesman said.

“I was told when they adopted the regulation that by the time two years was up most (airlines) would have done it already,” said Fred Farrar, an FAA spokesman in Washington.

The new fire-retardant materials extend “for as much as a minute the time you’ve got available to get out of the airplane,” Farrar said. “We are not saying that the thing is not going to burn. It’s going to burn. All this does is extend the time you’ve got to get out of there before the smoke is going to kill you.”

Critics said the delays given the airline industry to install the fire-safety interior illustrates the FAA’s unwillingness to crack down on safety standards.

“The FAA moves with the speed of a herd of turtles in imposing new safety requirements,” said Chris Witkowski, director of Aviation Consumer Action Project in Washington. “They want to impose as little cost as possible on the carriers. . . . Basically, the industry is running the program.”

Agnes Huff, a spokeswoman for USAir, said there was no requirement to retrofit the 6-year-old Boeing 737 involved in the crash.

“We are not required to (install the new interior) unless we go in and gut the entire airplane,” Huff said. She added that she did not know if such a refurbishment was scheduled.

Like all commercial airliners, the Boeing 737 was tested by the FAA to ensure that passengers could evacuate quickly in the case of a fire.

Burnett said the FAA and aircraft manufacturers do not simulate crash conditions closely enough when carrying out the tests. For example, he said, only able-bodied adults are used by the aircraft companies in evacuation drills.

“We’ve had a long history of disagreement with the FAA and the airlines because they do those tests sometimes under more favorable circumstances,” Burnett said. “So, in the cabin safety area, one of the issues is, are the tests rigged, so-to-speak, to make it easier for the planes to pass.”

Employees of the aircraft manufacturer are frequently used in the evacuation tests and those volunteering are briefed beforehand, but they are not told which exits will be available, said Dave Duff, a spokesman for the FAA’s aircraft certification service in Seattle. The interior is dark during the tests, but there is no smoke present, he said.

“It is not intended to cover every possible accident scenario,” Duff said.

Investigators have described a hellish scene in the interior of the USAir jet, where passengers who survived the initial impact were jammed in the aisle. Many died as they struggled to make their way toward exits.

“At first, people were really staying focused,” said one survivor, Scott Vaughan, 26, of Agoura Hills. “No one panicked. But then you could see the flames get closer and smoke engulfed the cabin and everyone tried to get out the door.”

Consumer advocate Ralph Nader, who heads an airline safety group, called the test requirements imposed by the FAA a “phony 90-second standard.”

“The test is conducted by airline employees who have been rigorously briefed and trained . . . and they barely make it,” Nader said. “There are no elderly people, no children, no shock.”

Nader said he has been repeatedly frustrated by the FAA’s unwillingness to force the airline industry to adopt basic safety standards.

“We’re looking at probably the worst safety agency in the entire federal government,” he said.

FAA spokesman Farrar defended the testing programs. He said the agency does not use children or elderly people because “there’s no purpose in exposing them to serious injury if we don’t have to.”

“We have required a hell of lot of (fire-safety) changes in very short time,” Farrar said. “We do require a lot that Mr. Nader doesn’t recognize.”

He cited as examples fire-retardant seats, an emergency breathing system for crew members and the floor lights that helped guide USAir passengers to safety.

In a related matter, the safety board said it would ask why no assistant controller was in the tower at the time of the crash.

Burnett said there were five controllers and one supervisor in the tower when the collision occurred. The position of assistant controller was recommended to the NTSB after a near-miss in 1988, Burnett said. The FAA was authorized to add a backup controller but never provided the money to fill the post, he said.

Times staff writers Glenn F. Bunting, Rich Connell, Eric Malnic and Tracy Wood reported this story. It was written by Bunting.

AIR CRASH FATALITIES

A National Transportation Safety Board official said that the bodies of 17 passengers and one flight attendant killed on the USAir 737 that collided with a commuter plane at LAX Friday night were found in the plane. One passenger was still buckled in his seat and the others were in aisles, “or in one case, crawling over a seat.” All together, 34 people were killed in the collision between the USAir jetliner and the SkyWest commuter plane.

Seven bodies were found in the first-class cabin; all were passengers. One was found in a seat wearing a seat belt, and six were found face down--apparently trying to get out.

Behind the first-class section, in and behind Rows 9 and 10 where the wing emergency exit on the right side is located, four bodies were found face down. Closest to the exit was a flight attendant. The bodies were facing the exit--only a few feet away, the NTSB said.

Seven passengers were found near rows 15, 16 and 17, in the rear of the 737, facing in the direction of a rear exit. A passenger who was climbing over seats in an attempt to escape was found in this area.