USAir Crash: No Problems With Rudder Found : Aviation: Transportation safety board is continuing its tests. One component under investigation was made in Irvine.

Tests so far have found no evidence of problems with the rudder of the USAir Boeing 737-300 that crashed earlier this month near Pittsburgh International Airport, killing all 132 aboard.

National Transportation Safety Board spokesman Michael Benson said testing and inspections being performed in Seattle and California showed no evidence of malfunction.

“Everything fulfilled requirements as far as I know,” he said.

The rudder components are being examined by NTSB investigators at their laboratories in Washington, at Boeing headquarters in Seattle and at a Parker Bertea plant in Irvine, where a hydraulic device that moves the rudder was manufactured.

Parker Bertea is a unit of the Cleveland-based Parker Hannifin Corp.

The findings might shift the investigation’s focus away from problems with a malfunctioning rudder as a possible cause of the Sept. 8 crash, but Benson emphasized that the NTSB has not yet ruled anything out.