February 1, 2000
Web posted at: 2:45 p.m. EST (1945 GMT)

Searchers comb the ocean near the crash scene

In this story: 'Still a search for human life' Black box signal detected Pilot reported stabilizer problem Plane nose dived into sea Clinton offers sympathy Veteran pilots Past accidents RELATED STORIES, SITES

From staff and wire reports

PORT HUENEME, California (CNN) -- The Coast Guard said Tuesday that debris and remains of four bodies have been recovered off the California coast near Los Angeles where an Alaska Airlines jet carrying 88 people nose dived into the Pacific. No survivors have been found in the cold ocean water.

PASSENGER AND CREW LIST Names of those aboard Alaska Airlines Flight 261     FAMILIES INFORMATION NUMBERS 1-800-553-5117 1-877-460-8006     WEATHER CONDITIONS Point Mugu, CA Oxnard, CA    VIDEO CNN's Anne McDermott shows the search and rescue efforts. (February 1) Real 28K 80K Windows Media 28K 80K Watch a news conference Tuesday morning with search and rescue, airline and government officials. (February 1) QuickTime Play Real 28K 80K Windows Media 28K 80K     AUDIO Statements and details on the crash     RESOURCES Facts about Alaska Airlines     GALLERY Image gallery: The crash of Flight 261     MESSAGE BOARD Alaska Airlines crash

Investigators also said they heard "pinging" from the ocean, coming from the MD-83's flight recorders.

Coast Guard ships, Navy vessels, a private boat and military aircraft continued to comb a debris-littered, 15-square-mile search area established after Flight 261 crashed Monday afternoon.

The plane was headed to San Francisco and was scheduled to continue to Seattle on a flight that originated in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. The jet went down about 11 miles off Point Mugu, California.

The pilot had radioed a request for an emergency landing in Los Angeles after reporting problems with a stabilizer -- equipment designed to keep the plane aloft.

Searchers said they have not given up hope of finding survivors in choppy, 58-degree water, about 300 feet to 750 feet deep.

"This is still a search for human life," said Coast Guard Vice Admiral Tom Collins.

"Our plans today are to continue to search," he told reporters at the Port Hueneme Naval Center where the military and crash investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board were establishing a joint command center.

The 10-member NTSB team, led by safety board member John Hammerschmidt, arrived in Los Angeles from Washington early Tuesday.

Collins said that the remains of an infant, a man and two women had been recovered, but did not elaborate.

Overnight, commercial squid boats used nets to haul in grim reminders of lives lost: A tennis shoe, a stuffed animal and a number of small souvenirs from Mexico. A stench of jet fuel hung in the air as the nets were pulled to the surface.

The debris recovered so far fills "about 12 boxes -- 3 feet by 5 feet by 4 feet," Collins said. Investigators will analyze the material in hopes of explaining what caused the crash.

Fishing boat captain David Seales, who took part in the hunt immediately after the plane crashed Monday afternoon, said the sea was churning with debris from the airliner.

"The plane is pretty tore up. The only way anybody survived would be by a miracle," he said.

Alaska Airlines said it was flying the families of crash victims to Los Angeles to meet with National Transportation Safety Board officials.

Collins also confirmed that a pinging sound had been detected from one or both of the plane's "black boxes" -- the voice data recorder or the cockpit voice recorder. "We have the position located," Collins said.

But he said no divers had gone down to look for the black boxes because the Coast Guard was still in a "search and rescue operation" in the hope of finding survivors.

The voice recorder -- a continuous rolling 30-minute tape -- tracks cockpit conversation and noises, while another instrument, the flight data recorder, monitors a wide range of aircraft performance indicators.

Moments before the 4:36 p.m. crash, one of the two pilots radioed that he was having trouble with "stabilizer trim" and asked to be diverted to Los Angeles for an emergency landing, airline spokesman Jack Evans said.

The plane fell 17,000 feet (3.2 miles) before being lost from radar screens, officials said.

The flight was normal until the crew reported control problems, a source with close knowledge of the investigation told The Associated Press.

On MD-80 series airplanes, the horizontal stabilizer looks like a small wing mounted on top of the tail. The stabilizer, which includes panels that pitch the nose up and down, is brought into balance, or "trimmed," from the cockpit.

If a plane loses its horizontal stabilizer, there is no way to keep the nose pointed to the proper angle, and the aircraft will begin an uncontrollable dive.

Bill Weaver, Alaska Airlines vice president for engineering, said flight crews have procedures to help them control a plane having problems with stabilizers.

Evans said the plane had no previous stabilizer problems, and Federal Aviation Administration spokesman John Clabes said it had never been in an accident.

A National Park Service ranger on Anacapa Island, off the coast of Oxnard, saw the airliner go down and was the first to report it, said spokeswoman Susan Smith at the Channel Islands National Park headquarters in Ventura Harbor.

"He observed a jet going down in the Santa Barbara Channel. From his observation it was nose first," Smith said.

Tony Alfieri, owner of a squid fishing boat, told the Los Angeles Times that he and his crew "heard a big boom and we saw a big splash, I mean like 200 feet in the air. ... We thought, 'Oh my God, this is not a good deal.'"

In Washington, President Clinton offered a statement of sympathy for the families and friends of those who died in the crash.

"In times of tragedy, the American people pull together as one and offer their prayers and solace to those in need. Today, our nation prays for the men and women who were aboard Alaska Airlines flight 261, and for their families and friends," Clinton said in the statement released by the White House.

Later, during a meeting with congressional leaders, Clinton called the crash "terribly tragic," and said he, like many Americans, had watched early rescue efforts unfold on television. "It's a very sad thing," Clinton said.

The passengers on the half-full plane included three airline employees, four employees of sister airline Horizon and 23 relatives or friends of the employees.

Near the entrance of Port Hueneme, where the search effort was based, a 7-foot wooden cross festooned with flowers was erected Tuesday. A white plastic angel sat at the base with a candle blowing in a jar.

Some local residents bowed their heads in prayer. From the site they could see search aircraft patrolling offshore above the crash area.

"They just stand for a while with their own thoughts. It's tragic," said Neal Silverman, 47, who moved into his beach house just a week ago.

Both pilots were Alaska Airlines veterans. Capt. Ted Thompson, 53, was hired August 16, 1982, and had 10,400 flying hours with the company. First Officer William Tansky, 57, was hired July 17, 1985, and had 8,047 flying hours with the Seattle-based airline.

The plane was purchased by Alaska Airlines in 1992. The airline said the MD-83 was serviced on Sunday, went through a low-level maintenance check on January 11 and had a more thorough routine check last January.

An FAA service difficulty report for the plane includes 44 incidents dating to 1992, most of them dealing with emergency lights and problems with sliding windows not opening.

In 1995, an engine failed and the plane landed without incident, the report said. The engine was replaced.

Alaska Airlines has had two fatal accidents in the 1970s, both in Alaska.

The airline has been the subject of an Oakland, California, federal grand jury investigation over maintenance and repair records for some MD-80s in the past year.

A Federal Aviation Administration report found two MD-80s that made 840 flights in late 1998 and early 1999 on which records were falsified. Because of the altered records, the aircraft were considered to be in "unairworthy condition," FAA documents said.

Federal prosecutors declined to comment on the probe, citing grand jury secrecy rules. Evans said at the time that the airline was consistently told by federal investigators that airplane safety was not in question and that the inquiries were limited to record keeping.

The Oakland probe "has nothing to do with this accident," Evans said Tuesday.

Before this week, the most recent fatal crash in the United States involving an MD-80 series jet was last summer's American Airlines accident in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Eleven people died and 110 were injured when an MD-82 trying to land in a storm ran off a runway, broke apart and caught fire.

Correspondents Jennifer Auther, Jim Hill, Ann McDermott, Greg LaMotte, Patty Davis and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

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