City to Do Own Study After Jet Crash, Fire : Airport: The mayor directs officials to recommend ways to improve plane safety. Federal officials, who have authority over airlines, are cool to the idea.

Faulting federal standards as inadequate, Mayor Tom Bradley on Thursday directed city fire officials to recommend ways to increase aircraft safety, including wider use of non-flammable materials in jetliners, and use the information to lobby for regulatory reform in Washington.

Federal officials, who have exclusive authority over airline safety, were cool to Bradley’s idea, but city Fire Chief Donald Manning said the fire deaths in last week’s collision between a USAir Boeing 737 and a SkyWest Metroliner at Los Angeles International Airport “begs a look from another angle.”

The disaster on Runway 24-Left killed all 12 people on the SkyWest plane, including an FAA employee, and 22 people on the larger USAir jet. Although the sandwiched airplanes erupted in flames and slid into an empty airport fire station, 67 people in the larger craft survived.

Meanwhile, more information is trickling in about the background of the controller who told the USAir jet to land on a runway where she already had authorized the SkyWest commuter plane to wait for takeoff.

After graduating from the FAA Academy in Oklahoma City in 1982, in the first class promoted after thousands of striking controllers were fired by President Ronald Reagan in 1981, she worked at an airport in Greenville, Miss.

The controller, who has not been identified by federal investigators, left that “Level 1” field, which has little traffic and no approach radar, for a much larger, Level 3 airport in Gulfport, Miss.

Her last stop before Los Angeles International, a level 5 airport, was Aspen, Colo., which has a smaller, Level 2 facility. Aspen handles an average of about 3,200 takeoffs and landings every month, said FAA Air Traffic Manager Joseph E. Saladino. LAX averages more than 54,000 such operations a month.

At each airport, including Los Angeles International, the woman achieved “full performance level,” the highest skill rating available, officials said.

J.T. Mahon, an air traffic controller instructor at the FAA Academy, said the woman’s career path was not unusual and should have given her enough experience to handle the high-volume rigors of Los Angeles--a pressure-filled post where controllers are expected to keep traffic flowing, to “churn ‘em and burn ‘em,” regardless of how fast they arrive.

“You had a person who had eight or nine years of experience and knew the rules,” he said.

The adequacy of federal rules and regulations, both on the ground and in the air, are likely to come under increasing scrutiny because of the LAX disaster.

Bradley said he ordered the city probe because of evidence that “many USAir passengers survived the initial impact but were killed by fire and smoke inhalation as they tried to reach the exits of the airplane.”

He said the investigation will be conducted by the Airline Passenger Compartment Fire Life Safety Committee, a new panel of fire officials and fire safety consultants. Airlines and aircraft manufacturers also may be represented on the committee, city officials said.

FAA spokesman Fred B. O’Donnell said the agency “welcomes comments and suggestions, especially as they apply to safety,” but maintained that current standards are adequate.

Manning challenged that assertion, saying that his inspectors would shut down a building or nightclub if it had the same narrow aisles and limited exits found on commercial airlines.

Deputy Fire Chief Davis R. Parsons, who will head the safety probe ordered by Bradley, told the city Fire Commission that the USAir jetliner’s flammable interior reduced the chances of some passengers “of exiting and survival.”

Manning said when firefighters arrived, flames were burning along the ceiling of the USAir cabin.

“The cloth of our firefighters’ clothing is made from material that won’t burn,” Mannings said. “Why not have similar material in aircraft? That is the type of thing we will be looking at.”

Manning said his department would test flame resistant materials that could be used for airline cabin interiors and investigate the use of automatic fire extinguishers that work in a way similar to fire sprinkers in buildings.

In addition to the fire and smoke, passengers scrambling to escape the burning aircraft had to climb over luggage that fell from overhead storage compartments that had popped open after the impact, Manning said.

Parsons, who led crash rescue efforts, said firefighters had to pull the USAir co-pilot out of his jet through the cockpit window. The man was trapped there with two broken legs, Parsons said.

Parsons said no one at the scene realized there were two aircraft that had collided “until a firefighter noticed a propeller jammed into the wing engine of the 737,” about 10 minutes after arriving at the scene.

The larger plane slammed into the commuter turboprop about one-quarter of the way down the 10,285-foot runway, where it was awaiting clearance for a “midfield” takeoff. The larger and heavier Boeing jet flipped the smaller Metroliner over, crushing it before skidding to a stop.

AIR CRASH VICTIMS Following are those identified so far as victims in the crash of a USAir 737 and a SkyWest commuter plane at Los Angeles International Airport: USAir

Pilot:

Colin Shaw, 48, Huntingtown, Md.

Flight attendant:

Deanna Bethea, 22, Annandale, Va.

Passengers:

Robert Cole, 27, Washington

Jennifer Dow, 18, Millbury, Mass.

Robert Dow, 46, Millbury, Mass.

Phillip Fleming, 44, Los Angeles

Lisa Mandalfino, 28, Columbus, Ohio. Martha O’Neill, 46, Sutton, Mass.

Jimmy Perdue, 19, U.S. Navy, parents in Huntsville, Ohio

Richard Ronk, 33, Mansfield, Ohio

George Weth, 55, McLean, Va.

Rosemary Weth, 59, McLean, Va.

Dawn Withers, 24, Gahanna, Ohio

Richard Withers, 24, Gahanna, Ohio

David Sharp, 44, Cheltenham, England

Michelle Stambaugh, 24, Columbus, Ohio

SkyWest

Pilots:

Andrew Lucas, 32, Pismo Beach, Calif.

Frank Prentice, 45, Los Osos, Calif.

Passengers:

Michael Fuller, 30, Lancaster

Scott Gilliam, 33, Palmdale

Judy Janisse, 38, California City, Calif.

Bryan Martin, 36, Palmdale

Edwin Reid, 38, Palmdale

Debra Roberts, 34, stationed with husband at U.S. Air Force base at Lajes in the Azores

Krishani Srijaerajah, 18, Quartz Hill, Calif.

Jeffery Steen, 30, Palmdale

NOTE: Additional names have not yet been released.

Times staff writers Glenn F. Bunting, Rich Connell and Tracy Wood contributed to this report.