Crash Probe Focuses on Landing in Storm

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — The investigation of an American Airlines jetliner crash, which killed at least nine of the 145 people on board, focused Wednesday on why a veteran pilot tried to land amid hurricane-force wind gusts during a powerful hailstorm.

About 90 passengers and one crew member were taken to local hospitals, where at least two of them were reported in critical condition with severe burns. Two passengers could not be accounted for, but the airline said they may be uninjured and may simply have failed to check in with authorities.

The Super MD-80 jetliner was touching down at Little Rock National Airport after a flight from Dallas late Tuesday night when it careened out of control on a rain-slick runway, slamming into a steel light tower and breaking into pieces that burst into flames before skidding to a halt on the banks of the Arkansas River.

“There was panic, craziness. There were flames,” said Barrett Baber, one of the survivors. “The emergency door was cracked, and people were able to get out only one at a time. . . . People were screaming, ‘God, please save us!’ ”

Once clear of the burning wreckage, survivors fled to an open field. Huddled together in a chilling shower of rain and hail, they began to sing “Amazing Grace.”

Richard Buschmann, the pilot of Flight 1420, was among those killed. Co-pilot Michael Origel, who suffered a broken leg, was the only other cockpit crew member injured.

Both men had put in a long day prior to the accident--13 1/2 hours on duty, just under the 14 hours permitted by federal regulations.

Officials said Buschmann was at the controls as the big jet touched down shortly before midnight Tuesday after a flight that had been delayed for more than two hours by the inclement weather.

Why Buschmann attempted the landing during the powerful storm was not immediately clear, airline officials said. Winds at the airport were gusting at up to 87 mph moments after the accident, and the airline’s chief pilot said in Fort Worth that winds of more than 60 mph would have discouraged him from landing.

“If someone told me there were 50-knot [57.5 mph] gusts at the airport, I would be leaving town,” Cecil Ewell, who oversees all of American Airlines’ pilots, told a news conference Wednesday morning.

Meteorological readings at the airport provided by WeatherData, Inc., showed winds gusting between 10 and 40 mph in the five minutes preceding the accident. Then, at 11:56 p.m., just after the plane landed, gusts began to peak at 87 mph. The peak gusts would have hit the plane almost broadside--the worst possible angle.

The deaths in the crash were the first on a major U.S. airline in nearly 1 1/2 years.

Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board arrived at the crash site Wednesday afternoon. George W. Black, an NTSB board member, said at a briefing that there was a “profound change” in visibility and precipitation in the area in the 27 minutes before the accident. He added that it was too soon to say for sure whether the “active weather” had anything to do with the crash.

The plane’s two “black boxes”--the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder--were recovered from the wreckage and flown to the NTSB’s laboratories in Washington for analysis.

The cockpit voice recorder produces a tape of the last 30 minutes of sounds detected by a microphone in the cockpit--usually including the voices of the cockpit crew, noises made by controls and sounds from audible warning equipment. The flight data recorder logs information on as many as 114 technical aspects of the flight, including power and flight-control settings, airspeed, altitude, attitude and G-forces.

NTSB investigators are expected to study the crash site for about a week before returning to Washington to analyze what they have found. On Wednesday, investigators also were collecting tapes from all the radar systems that tracked the flight and displayed the weather surrounding it.

Recordings of conversations between air traffic controllers and the cockpit crew were being studied, with special attention to any discussions about the weather.

That weather had plagued flights throughout Texas and Arkansas on Tuesday, and Missy Lewis, one of the passengers, said Flight 1420, originally scheduled to arrive in Little Rock at 9:41 p.m., didn’t even take off from Dallas until an hour after that.

She was making the flight with her husband, timber executive Billy Lewis, and his 14-year-old daughter, Caroline, who was preparing for a high school exam the next day.

Missy Lewis said she dozed off on the flight, awakening only when she heard the cockpit crew announce over the intercom that it was time to prepare for landing.

The plane was shaking violently.

“It was ridiculous,” she said Wednesday at the family’s home in suburban Little Rock. “Out of this world turbulence. I knew. I knew it was bad.

Looking out the window, she said, “You could see the rain and the hail. It was black, black clouds, and lightning. We were going right through the clouds. And when we came out, we were way too close to the ground.

Billy Lewis said he told himself at the time, “We’ve got a 50-50 chance of making this landing.”

Missy Lewis said she could hear the brakes shrieking as the plane touched down on the runway. The pilot hit the brakes three times, Billy recalled later, and three times, he seemed to release them when the plane began skidding.

Spinning around until it was almost tail first, the plane slid off the runway and crashed into the light pole.

“The plane broke apart right in front of me,” said another passenger, Randy Hill. “Everyone started yelling, ‘Get out! Get out!’ ”

Although the confusion was widespread, Billy Lewis said it was not a “save my butt” situation. “People were still concerned about each other,” he said.

He said that after crawling out of the plane, he realized his wife and daughter were still inside. He said he tried to get back in to get them, but the crush of fleeing people was too intense. Fortunately, there were others who could help.

Missy said a man across the aisle helped her up and shouted, “Get your baby! Get your baby!” She said the man grabbed her hand and Caroline’s hand and led the two women down the aisle.

“Your husband’s gone, save yourselves,” the man told her. “The plane’s on fire.”

Moments after escaping from the wreckage with her stepdaughter, Missy found her husband.

“The plane might blow,” Billy told them. “We’ve got to run.”

They dashed through the darkness and plunged hip deep into the frigid water of a marsh. Wading 150 feet across the marsh, they found about 40 other passengers in a field, huddled together in an attempt to ward off the chill of driving rain and hail.

Some of the group appeared to be seriously injured. Missy said she clasped the hand of an elderly man with a deep slash on his forehead; he was shivering uncontrollably.

A younger man in the group tried to get everyone to join him in a chorus of “The Old Rugged Cross.” But no one seemed to know the words, and the song petered out.

The man then tried “Amazing Grace,” and the group’s voices filled the night. When the song ended, some members of the group recited the 23rd Psalm.

But it was 40 long minutes--lashed with rain, hail and stunning flashes of lightning--before help arrived. Rescuers had been attracted by the burning wreckage, and it was not until they had begun fighting the flames that someone spotted the group in the field.

Someone else told them they’d have to wade back through the marsh, and the group trekked back through the chilly water.

Missy Lewis said she knew even then that some people hadn’t left the plane alive.

“There weren’t nearly enough people out there to equal the number who had been on the plane,” she recalled.

After another delay, the survivors were taken to a local hospital, where the Lewis family was treated for superficial injuries and released.

Back at their home, Missy recalled that when they all were wading through the swamp, she had told Caroline that she could skip Wednesday’s exam.

Missy said she could simply tell Caroline’s teacher, “I’m sorry, the plane burst into flames and it took all her notes.

“Is that a good excuse?”

*

Kolker reported from Little Rock and Malnic from Los Angeles. Researcher Edith Stanley in Atlanta and the Associated Press contributed to this story.

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Big Crosswind

The MD-80 lost control while landing during a severe crosswind, broke apart and came to rest at the edge of the Arkansas River.

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The Weather Factor

Investigators will try to determine whether thunderstorms in the Little Rock area were a factor in the crash of American Airlines Flight 1420 Tuesday night. Storms were moving west to east across Arkansas and were directly over the airport at the time of the accident.