LAX Did Not Hire Backup Controller as Extra Eyes : Disaster: Trouble-shooter might have been able to provide help and avert crash, officials say.

Air traffic controllers inside the Los Angeles International Airport tower during last week’s fatal collision told investigators that, unlike officials at other major airports, they decided not to employ a trouble-shooter who could have assisted a confused controller whose error apparently caused the disaster, government officials said Wednesday.

Backup controllers were assigned last year to help direct rush-hour runway traffic at congested airports nationwide, but the position was not filled most of the time at LAX, said Jim Burnett, the National Transportation Safety Board member leading the investigation.

“They didn’t like it,” Burnett said of the LAX controllers. “They didn’t find it, let’s say, helpful.”

One aviation expert familiar with operations inside the LAX tower said the addition of an assistant controller could have saved the 34 passengers who died last Friday night when an arriving USAir Boeing 737 slammed into the rear of a SkyWest commuter plane as it prepared to take off on the same runway.

“Had there been another set of eyes and ears plugged in there, I really believe the accident would not have happened,” said the expert, a former controller who asked not to be identified. “That is why they created this position in the first place.”

Both planes were directed on the collision course by one controller, whose name has not been released by government officials and who is scheduled to be interviewed today.

Burnett, in his daily briefing Wednesday, provided more details on the distractions--or “factors”--she faced in the minutes before the crash. He said she was directing at least four planes at roughly the same time--not three as earlier reported.

Burnett also disclosed that while some passengers risked their lives to help others from the burning wreckage, survivors are telling them that a few passengers froze in fear or “walked over” people and fought among themselves in a panic to escape.

USAir flight attendants had less than two minutes to evacuate as many people as they could from the wreckage. That process was complicated by the failure of a woman sitting next to the right over-wing exit to swiftly open that escape hatch and clear the row for others to follow.

Burnett said a man sitting in the next row finally “came over the seats”--climbing over the woman as she sat frozen in fear--and opened the door. He pushed the woman through to safety before getting out himself, Burnett said.

Later, escape through that same exit was impeded when “two men ran over a woman and then scuffled among themselves” in a rush to flee. After precious seconds, another male passenger broke up the fight by shoving one of the men out the door; this third man helped the woman who had been knocked down.

All four of those people apparently escaped, but four others, including a USAir flight attendant credited with remarkable valor and presence of mind in managing the evacuation, died near that same exit after being unable to escape the smoke and flames in time.

Burnett said accounts of the fight came from other passengers and investigators were unable to identify the men involved. He said he did not know if they were among the 41 passengers interviewed so far. “If we’ve interviewed them, they didn’t tell us about it,” he said.

Investigators so far have focused much of their attention on what happened in the control tower. They have said the controller who guided both aircraft to the same runway appeared confused as she struggled with several “difficult” communications at the same time.

In addition to the USAir 737 and the SkyWest Metroliner, she was trying to re-establish radio contact with a recently landed Wings West Metroliner that had mistakenly switched off its radio as it prepared to taxi across Runway 24-Left and a second Wings West plane that was preparing to take off.

Paperwork authorizing the takeoff of that second Wings West plane was misplaced in the control tower, investigators said, adding temporarily to the confusion.

Aviation experts say that such confusion can be relieved by the use of backup controllers to monitor radio communications and ease the workload when traffic becomes too hectic.

Working in the tower at the time were a supervisor, one clearance controller, two ground controllers to handle taxiways and two local controllers to handle runways, said Burnett of the NTSB.

Assistant controllers have been used off and on at LAX since last year. But LAX controllers said they considered the backup job more of a distraction, Burnett said. They argue that the extra positions increase the noise level in the tower.

But backup controllers also provide “an extra set of eyes for controllers in the tower,” said Elly Brekke, spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration in Los Angeles.

Dick Russell, an aviation safety consultant and former United Airlines captain, said the backup controllers often are in a position to prevent disasters before they happen.

“I know as a captain that the co-pilot is supposed to assist the pilot in flying the airplane,” Russell said. “They do the same things as far as controllers are concerned. It’s always better to have someone standing behind you so you know who is coming up next.”

David Kelly, the 33-year-old co-pilot of the USAir flight, told the NTSB that none of the cockpit crew noticed the SkyWest Metroliner on Runway 24-Left as they made their approach. He said his jetliner touched down on its back wheels, as usual, and only as the craft’s nose wheel came down on the runway did he see anything unusual.

“He saw a red light, he saw the tail of an aircraft,” Burnett said. “He saw his landing lights shining through a propeller. He saw a flash--everything went black.”

Kelly also said the nose of his craft dipped sharply and stayed down after colliding with the commuter plane, but Burnett declined to speculate whether the jetliner’s nose gear collapsed in the crash.

The two planes, sandwiched together and in flames, skidded off the runway and into an abandoned fire station. Airport firetrucks arrived in about one minute, dousing the wreckage with fire-suppressing foam.

News about confusion in the control tower led Los Angeles Airports Commission President Johnnie L. Cochran to say that airport officials plan to travel to Washington in March and will bring up the issue of safety, particularly the need for more equipment.