LAX Did Not Use Backup Controller as Safeguard : Disaster: Trouble- shooter might have been able to provide help and avert collision, officials say. L.A. workers, unlike those at other major airports, considered backups bothersome.

A trouble-shooter who could have warned a confused controller that she was directing two aircraft into a fatal crash last week was not in place at Los Angeles International Airport because controllers there, unlike those at other major airports, consider the backups bothersome, government investigators 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.

Burnett said none of the four LAX controllers interviewed this week wanted to work the backup shift, which they dismissed as “noisy” and unnecessary. “None of the people liked it,” he said. “They didn’t find it, let’s say, helpful.”

He declined to say who decided not to employ the assistant controllers. Federal officials recommended that backups be assigned to the Los Angeles tower on at least two occasions in the last three years after near-misses on runways.

One aviation expert familiar with operations inside the LAX tower suggested that the addition of a backup controller could have saved the 34 passengers who died 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 LAX tower 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 a controller who had worked since 1982 at airports in Aspen, Colo., and two small Mississippi cities--Greenville and Gulfport. Her name has not been released by government officials, who plan to interview her today. During his daily briefing Wednesday, Burnett provided more details on the “factors”--or distractions--the controller 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 evacuate 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 make any effort to 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 around the woman as she sat motionless--and opened the door. He pushed the woman through to safety before getting out, 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 the 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 onto 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 while preparing to taxi across Runway 24-Left and a second Wings West plane that was preparing to take off.

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

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. They 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 able to prevent disasters.

“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.”

In his first interview with investigators, David Kelly, the 33-year-old co-pilot of the USAir flight, said he did not notice the SkyWest Metroliner on Runway 24-Left as he prepared to land. 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,” said Burnett. “He saw his landing lights shining through a propeller. He saw a flash--everything went black.”

Kelly, who was seriously injured, also said the nose of his craft dipped sharply and stayed down after colliding with the commuter plane, but Burnett did not say whether the jetliner’s nose gear collapsed in the crash.

When investigators asked Kelly his opinion of air traffic control at LAX, he said that “you learn to expect the unexpected,” Burnett said.

The two planes, sandwiched together and in flames, skidded off the runway and into an abandoned fire station. Airport fire trucks arrived in about a 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.

At the same time, commission members were told that airport firefighters responded faster than required by federal regulations.

“It was a smooth operation in the face of a terrible tragedy,” said Davis R. Parsons, deputy chief of the Los Angeles City Fire Department. “The fact that 67 people did live in a sense is a success.”