Probe of Latest Jet Incident Begins

As recovery efforts continued Sunday at the site of the Alaska Airlines crash off the Ventura County coast, federal investigators retrieved the flight data recorder from an Alaska jet that was forced to return to Reno on Saturday evening when the pilot reported problems with the motors on the plane’s horizontal stabilizer.

In the minutes before Alaska Airlines Flight 261’s fatal plunge into the Pacific last Monday, the pilots reported trouble with the MD-83 aircraft’s stabilizer trim and discussed the problem with mechanics as they struggled to regain control of the ill-fated plane.

While mapping and videotaping of the debris field continued in the waters of the Pacific on Sunday, Cardinal Roger M. Mahony officiated at a Mass in Westchester attended by some of the crash victims’ relatives. “When that tragedy hit, we all became members of your family,” Mahony told them. “We became part of your lives and your loss.”

At least three dozen relatives and airline staffers were in the packed Church of the Visitation. While 88 people lost their lives in the crash, Mahony said, “you are surrounded today by hundreds of friends who do not know you personally.”

After taking Communion, several relatives sobbed silently as they knelt during prayer. Many of them exchanged embraces outside the church where Mahony spoke to them personally.

Throughout Ventura County, worshipers in large congregations and small prayed for the victims, their families and recovery workers.

Nearly all who came said that they did not know anyone on the plane, but that the proximity of the crash meant it affected the whole community.

Ventura County Sheriff Bob Brooks said several more bodies have been pulled from the ocean floor. The total number of bodies recovered so far, however, is still unclear.

At a private briefing for families and friends of the crash victims at a hotel near Los Angeles International Airport, National Transportation Safety Board officials said the recovery team had collected many pieces of clothing from the crash, according to one relative who asked not to be identified. The clothing was to be dried quickly and photographed for a catalog that family members can look through.

Another relative, Larry Nelson, a real estate agent and contractor from Lynnwood, Wash., said he did not attend memorial services, but went to the hotel because “I just really wanted to be with all the other grieving families.”

Nelson and his stepbrother, David Sipe from Aliso Viejo in Orange County, lost Nelson’s mother, Charlene Sipe, and her friend, Harry Stasinos, in the crash.

For two days, it didn’t really hit him, Nelson said. “Then it hit very hard. It was almost like a breakdown. . . . I was really wailing.”

The federal investigation into what went wrong with the Alaska jet bound from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, to San Francisco and Seattle will be aided by the swift recovery of two black boxes that record flight data and cockpit conversations.

Attention has focused on the trim mechanism that controls the movement of the stabilizer used to maintain the plane’s up and down angle of flight.

Twice since the crash, similar MD-80 series aircraft have returned safely to airports shortly after takeoff because of concerns about the stabilizer or a switch that controls it.

An American Airlines MD-83 en route from Phoenix to Dallas-Ft. Worth returned to Phoenix on Wednesday after a switch appeared to be working only intermittently on the co-pilot’s side of the cockpit.

Although there was no problem with the stabilizer itself, American spokeswoman Elizabeth Ninomiya said Sunday that the pilots “elected to turn around and landed safely in Phoenix.”

“I think everyone has an awareness of the issue,” she said.

The problem turned out to be a bad switch on the co-pilot’s control yoke. Mechanics also replaced a motor in the stabilizer, she said. The NTSB sent the American jet’s flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder to its headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Shortly after taking off from Reno-Tahoe International Airport on Saturday evening, the pilots of an Alaska MD-80 jet reported that the motors controlling the horizontal stabilizer were operating “intermittently,” airline spokesman Greg Witter said Sunday.

The plane bound for Seattle carrying 140 passengers and five crew members returned safely to Reno.

“This was not an emergency landing,” Witter said. ‘The airplane turned around out of prudence and due diligence.”

The flight data recorder on the Alaska aircraft was retrieved and sent to Washington for analysis, said NTSB spokesman Keith Holloway. Federal investigators planned to interview the aircraft’s crew about the problem.

Witter said the electric motors probably had overheated after the pilots “double- and triple-checked” the stabilizers before they took off. The overheating causes the motors to shut down until they cool. The motors did not burn out, Witter said. “If you give it an extra workout, you can overheat the motor,” Witter said.

Testing the motors for more than 90 seconds can cause them to overheat, if the plane is on the ground.

Such an occurrence is not unusual, he said, because once the motors are cooled they usually begin operating again, which happens when the plane is airborne.

“The stabilizer did not jam at all,” Witter said. “It was operating intermittently and it cleared itself up within minutes of takeoff. But the flight crew decided to return and get it checked out.”

Alaska flew two mechanics to Reno to determine the exact cause of the problem and flew a replacement plane to pick up the passengers and brought them to Seattle early Sunday morning.

Replacing faulty trim motors was the subject of a federal Airworthiness Directive involving DC-9 / MD-80 aircraft. On March 4, 1996, the Federal Aviation Administration issued a directive that required carriers to inspect and replace incorrectly manufactured primary trim motors that control the horizontal trim system. Investigators first identified the problem motors in 1994.

The motor shafts could fail prematurely, causing the motor to fail, according to the FAA directive. The agency required the motors’ manufacturer, Sundstrand Electric Power Systems, to repair the parts at no cost. The airlines paid for the costs of inspection and replacement, estimated between $240 to $3,600 per plane. Airlines had six months to comply with the directive.

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Times staff writers Edward J. Boyer, Daryl Kelley, Gary Polakovic and Tracy Wilson, and Times Community News reporter Gail Davis contributed to this story.