Tape Sheds No Light on Fatal Crash Cause

Investigators who listened Wednesday to the tape of conversations between a pilot and the control tower at John Wayne Airport last weekend said it gave no clue why the small jet crashed into a warehouse moments later, killing all three aboard.

“The best I can say is that there’s nothing remarkable about it,” said Richard Parker, an investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board. “As the witnesses have reported, the pilot declares an emergency and states his intention to land. Later, in response to an interrogative from the tower, he explains that he has the stairs attached to the aircraft. The tower repeats its clearance to land and that’s the last we hear from him.”

Investigators said Wednesday that three factors might have contributed to the crash, including turbulence from a Boeing 757 three minutes ahead, a ladder left hanging outside the jet, and the fact that the pilot was in the co-pilot’s seat.

Although investigators have identified possible contributing factors, they stressed that they are only in the early stages of gathering information and are still at least nine to 12 months away from determining a probable cause.

“We are documenting facts, conditions and circumstances pertaining to the accident,” said Gary Mucho, regional director of the NTSB. “We’re not even close to a probable cause. We’re just trying to draw a picture here, put the pieces of the puzzle back together and find out what the picture shows us. Then we can start analyzing.”

Three people died Saturday afternoon when the four-seat Paris Jet Morane Sauliner 760 fell shortly after takeoff at John Wayne Airport, crashed through the roof of a warehouse and burst into flames. Killed were David R. Hughes, 57, of Cypress and Tina Schroeder, 37, of Newport Beach, both of whom were on freelance writing assignments for an aviation magazine, and Air Force Sgt. David Brooks Covell, 48, who was stationed at Vandenberg Air Force Base in Santa Barbara County.

One piece of the puzzle that investigators are exploring is the fact that pilot Covell apparently was in the co-pilot’s seat, while Schroeder, who was licensed only to fly a single-engine plane and not the twin-engine Sauliner, was where the pilot usually sits.

The seating arrangement was not illegal, Parker said, because Schroeder’s license would have allowed her to fly the plane accompanied by Covell, who also was an instructor, and because the plane was equipped with a dual set of controls.

“That in itself is not too abnormal,” Parker said. “But maybe he hadn’t flown from that position lately, and wasn’t too sure of the controls.”

Another unusual circumstance, the investigator said, was that the boarding ladder was hanging outside the cockpit. Normally, Parker said, the pilot pulls it into the cockpit and stows it before taking off. In this case, however, the ladder apparently was forgotten and left hanging about two feet in front of the intake for the jet’s engine, where it could have affected the flow of wind into the engine or caused a distraction.

It was that ladder that caused Covell to radio the tower that they needed to land.

And, finally, Parker said, the plane was flying about three minutes behind a Boeing 757, a type of aircraft that has been linked to wake turbulence--strong winds that are sometimes thrown off large airplanes, causing smaller aircraft to spin out of control.

“We don’t know how many miles apart they were,” Parker said. “That’s something we’re trying to determine.”

As to whether tail winds could have pushed the jet out of the sky, Parker said, “That is possible, but nothing more.”