Details of Brown Crash Still Unclear

Investigators pored over radar tapes and marked pieces of sheared metal scattered on a ragged hillside Friday but remained puzzled over the cause of the plane crash that killed U.S. Commerce Secretary Ronald H. Brown and all 34 people on board with him.

The last of the 35 victims were removed Friday from the mountaintop where Brown’s U.S. Air Force T-43 aircraft hit Wednesday afternoon. The first clear, sunny morning in days revealed a distinct view of the wreckage from Dubrovnik. It sat high above this picturesque coastal city and reflected sunlight as helicopters hovered overhead and lifted body bags.

Possible explanations for the disaster also were coming more clearly into focus: The Boeing aircraft flew into one of the region’s worst rainstorms in years using out-of-date technology to land at an airfield that has mountains on one side and an ocean on the other.

Brown was flying with a large Commerce staff and a dozen senior business officials on a mission to promote reconstruction investment in the former Yugoslavia, where a U.S.-brokered peace accord has stopped fighting for the first time in five years.

Their bodies were scheduled to be flown to the United States today after a short ceremony at the Dubrovnik airport led by Croatian President Franjo Tudjman.

In Washington, the White House announced that President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore will travel to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware today to meet the plane bringing the bodies home. They will participate in a brief memorial service.

On Friday, Clinton planted a dogwood tree on the South Lawn of the White House to honor the memory of Brown and the Americans who died with him.

“We hope the prayers of the American people will be with them and their families at this difficult time, and we hope that everyone will honor the contributions they made to the United States and the welfare of our people,” the president said.

Clinton also completed a round of phone calls to the families of all of the American victims of the crash.

American military investigators spent their first full day at the crash site, searching for clues and marking off pieces of the fuselage, tail and other sections in an effort to trace the pattern of falling parts.

They and Croatian investigators also were examining recordings of radar transmissions and conversation traffic between the T-43 and Croatian air traffic controllers. The inquiry is complicated by the fact that the aircraft was not equipped with flight-data or cockpit-voice recorders, the “black boxes” that are often crucial in determining why a plane has crashed.

Croatian investigators sought to deflect suspicions that the low-tech navigational systems used at Dubrovnik’s airport contributed to the crash.

Stanko Misetic, an aviation expert with Croatia’s Transport Ministry and a lead investigator of the tragedy, said that the airport on the day of the crash was “open and functional,” despite the turbulent weather, and that the radio beacons used to guide planes to Dubrovnik’s runways were also “functional.”

The so-called nondirectional beacons show a pilot the way to a landing, but they can be affected by unusual weather and are among the least precise of navigational systems. Few U.S. airports, for example, still rely on nondirectional beacons.

“It doesn’t tell [a pilot] how far he is from the beacon or how high he is,” Misetic said. “That’s why they call it a non-precision approach.”

U.S. aviation experts said that most American pilots are unfamiliar with nondirectional beacons because so few have been used at U.S. airports in recent years. One experienced pilot said that the equipment can be used safely by pilots who are familiar with it but that the readings can be bewildering to fliers who are used to more modern instruments.

A key piece of evidence is the final radio call made by the pilot to the Dubrovnik flight control tower as he flew near the Adriatic island of Kolocep. In the taped conversation, Croatian officials said, the pilot requested and was given clearance to land.

But officials have refused to discuss the conversation in greater detail, and Croatian and U.S. authorities have given conflicting accounts of whether the aircraft was on course when the call was made. Within the next 18 miles, the flight veered about a mile off course before slamming into the peak of a 2,100-foot mountain in a foggy rainstorm.

“He was on approach,” Misetic said when asked how Dubrovnik’s air traffic controllers remember the conversation. Misetic has debriefed the controllers as part of the investigation.

It remained unclear whether the aircraft crashed as the pilot was trying to correct his course or whether he did not realize the danger in time to act. Also puzzling is the question of whether the aircraft’s instruments alerted the pilot of the obstacles he was about to hit, and that he had strayed off course.

A discrepancy in the death toll was finally put to rest Friday with the evacuation of all bodies.

“Thirty-five sets of remains were removed from the crash site . . . and are now in the temporary mortuary” at an airport hangar, U.S. Army Col. Mark Brzozowski said.

Two Croatians were among the victims, and their bodies have been identified by family members, Simun Andjelinovic, a government pathologist, said.

Andjelinovic, who is one of the forensic specialists involved in the recovery operation, said that many of the bodies remained intact, but some were burned and others were so badly mangled that DNA testing will be necessary to identify them. About two-thirds are identifiable visually or through personal effects such as rings and wallets, he said.

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