Piece of Jetliner May Have Broken Off Before Plunge

Radar data show that a piece may have broken off Alaska Airlines Flight 261 seconds before the jetliner began its fatal plunge into the sea near Anacapa Island, sources close to the investigation said Monday.

The sources, who asked not to be identified, said the data appear to show a separate, smaller image paralleling the main image of the MD-83 as it fell from the sky Jan. 31, killing all 88 on board.

Two loud bangs were heard aboard the jetliner in the minutes before it crashed, including one just before the fatal plunge.

Investigators won’t speculate on what might have caused the bangs, but several aviation safety experts have suggested structural failure of the horizontal stabilizer that controls the up and down pitch of the plane’s nose.

“It sounds like something broke,” said Barry Schiff, a retired Trans World Airlines pilot and air safety consultant.

In radio conversations with air traffic controllers and airline maintenance personnel, Flight 261’s pilots said they were having problems with the stabilizer, making the jetliner difficult to control.

However, the investigative sources said it was too early to say whether the smaller radar image was part of the stabilizer. The sources said the pieces of wreckage spotted on the ocean floor by remote-controlled video cameras are extremely fragmented, and it is hard to determine if any part of the stabilizer landed elsewhere.

Details about the data gleaned from Federal Aviation Administration and military radar were not made public Monday, but the National Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating the crash, has scheduled a briefing this morning in Washington to discuss the crash.

The NTSB is expected to reveal more about the radar data and more about the information picked up by the plane’s flight data recorder, which was recovered from the ocean floor Thursday.

Meanwhile, on Monday evening sparks were seen flying from the rear of an Alaska Airlines jetliner approaching San Francisco International Airport from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, according to an airport duty manager. It was the same route Flight 261 had been taking.

At the request of the pilot, firetrucks met the airplane when it landed about 7:45 p.m., said duty manager Chris Ludwell. The aircraft landed safely and no injuries were reported.

The sparks, which were seen by a pilot, did not cause any apparent problems in the aircraft’s cabin, Ludwell said.

The plane, like the Flight 261 aircraft, was one of the MD-80 series.

Coroner investigators in Ventura County are trying to spare relatives the ordeal of inspecting remains for identification purposes. Instead, investigators are relying on a 14-page questionnaire relatives were asked to fill out last week. In the questionnaire, relatives provided detailed information on clothing, shoes, jewelry, tattoos and scars.

“Just anything that would be a clue to who the person is,” said Eric Nishimoto, a Ventura County Sheriff’s Department spokesman. “There are no family viewings so far. We want to avoid that at all possible costs.”

Nishimoto said investigators are also gathering medical and dental records from relatives.

As family members return to their homes, Alaska Airlines employees who have been assisting them will return to work, said airline spokesman Greg Witter. The employees were volunteer members of the airline’s Compassion and Action Response Effort, or CARE, team.

The team, trained to help family members in times of crisis, is made up of employees from across the airline, including reservation agents, marketing directors and customer service specialists, Witter said.

The airline is now arranging for counselors to help those who have spent the week helping others, Witter said.

“Now we’re turning to taking care of mental health internally,” Witter said. “History tells us there is a likelihood that those who have been on the front lines helping families will have sleepless nights of their own. We need to make sure they have support, too, and are allowed to do all the crying they need to do.”

Navy ships, meanwhile, continue to map the ocean’s floor in search of plane wreckage and human remains. National Transportation Safety Board officials, however, said no decision has been made on whether to recover major portions of the plane, including the tail.

National Park Service employees have joined efforts to recover debris, said parks spokeswoman Carol Spears. She said teams have scoured the shores off Anacapa and Santa Cruz islands since Saturday. Some material has been recovered, Spears said, declining to provide details.