Two Pilots Contradict Controller’s Account

Pilots of two planes that were in critical positions the night a passenger jet and a commuter plane collided at Los Angeles International Airport have contradicted a key section of the air traffic controller’s account of events, according to interviews released by federal investigators Sunday.

The new accounts indicate that even if the SkyWest commuter plane was where controller Robin Lee Wascher mistakenly thought it was, she still might have been directing it into the path of the incoming USAir Boeing 737.

Wascher last week told investigators that on the night of Feb. 1 she never saw SkyWest Flight 5569. She said she never heard the transmission when the small plane reported it was on a short taxiway leading to Runway 24-Left.

From her vantage point in the control tower, Wascher told investigators, she could see a plane that was the same model as the SkyWest aircraft and she believed that the similar plane was the SkyWest commuter.

When the SkyWest pilot radioed for permission to enter the runway for takeoff, Wascher gave the OK. But the plane that Wascher was watching turned out to be a Wings West Metroliner that, unknown to the controller, also was waiting to take off.

In her interview with investigators, Wascher recalled that a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 blocked the path of the small Metroliner. She believed that even though she had authorized the SkyWest plane to move onto the runway, it was cut off by the Southwest jet--and safely away from any aircraft landing on Runway 24-L.

Thinking the runway was clear, the controller gave USAir Flight 1493 permission to land. The jet slammed into the SkyWest plane and 34 passengers and crew on the two planes died.

Jim Burnett, a member and former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said that after interviewing Wascher, investigators talked again to pilots of the Southwest jetliner and the Wings West Metroliner.

Both pilots denied that the route of the small Wings West commuter leading to the runway was blocked by the larger jet.

If the Wings West plane had actually been the SkyWest flight, as Wascher said she believed, it apparently still could have rolled into the path of the incoming USAir jet.

“They both say that the taxiway to Runway 24-Left was open so that Wings West would have had clearance,” Burnett said. “They’re saying it was not blocked . . . the entryway to Runway 24-Left was open.

“According to them, had it been (SkyWest) Flight 5569 and had it had clearance, the plane would have been able to enter the runway,” Burnett said.

Federal investigators also are inspecting some of the emergency oxygen equipment on the USAir jet to determine if it was damaged in the collision and possibly increased the intensity of the fire inside the aircraft after it smashed into the commuter plane. Burnett said equipment that regulated the flow of oxygen in supply tanks for the pilot and co-pilot was sent to a federal laboratory in Washington.