PSA Plane From L.A. Crashes; All 44 Dead : Gunshots Are Reported on Flight to L.A.

A Pacific Southwest Airlines commuter jet carrying 39 passengers and a crew of five from Los Angeles to San Francisco crashed Monday afternoon in the mountainous back country of San Luis Obispo County after the pilot reported gunfire in the back of the plane, federal authorities said. All aboard were killed.

Flight 1771 crashed at 4:17 p.m., about 45 minutes after it took off from Los Angeles International Airport.

Bill Hartzell, a longtime cattle rancher in the area, said the burning plane crashed into a grove of oak trees on a brushy hillside about 600 yards from his home.

‘It Just Disintegrated’

“The plane hit the hill just about as fast as it could go,” he said. “It just disintegrated. . . . I’d say the debris is spread over a 20-acre area. . . .”

Among the passengers on board the flight, a shuttle popular with business executives, were four Chevron USA executives, including Chevron USA President James R. Sylla, 53, of San Francisco.

PSA identified the pilot as Capt. Gregg N. Lindamood, 43, of Julian, Calif., a 14-year veteran with 11,000 hours in the air. The other crew members were First Officer James Howard Nunn, 48, of Upland; flight attendants Debbie Nissen Neil, 47, of San Jose and Debra Watterson Vuylsteke, 32, of Redding, Conn., and flight attendant trainee Julie Gottesman, 20, of Veradale, Wash.

Radio Reports

Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Fred Farrar said radio reports from the crew monitored by local air traffic controllers about two minutes before the crash--indicated that the British-made, four-engine BAe 146-200 aircraft was burning on its left side and there was smoke in the cockpit as the plane passed over Templeton, about five miles south of here.

Sacramento attorney Stephen Kronick, flying to Paso Robles for a meeting Monday afternoon, said both he and the pilot of the small plane he was flying in were listening to radio traffic in the area when they “heard the (PSA) pilot say that there was gunfire aboard.”

“And after that we didn’t hear anything,” Kronick said. “The Oakland airport tried to get him on again and never was successful.

“That’s all we heard him say: ‘There’s gunfire on board.’ ”

Los Angeles FBI spokesman Fred Reagan said agents were told that the gunshot report “was transmitted twice by a crew member, something regarding gunfire in the passenger compartment” moments before the plane crashed about 15 miles southwest of Paso Robles.

Richard Bretzing, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles office, drove to the crash site to join in the investigation.

The indication of gunshots “makes the possibility more intense there has been a crime aboard the aircraft,” Reagan said. He said agents had already begun efforts to determine “if in fact there were gunshots; if they contributed to the crash.”

“I do not know if there was an attempt to skyjack this aircraft,” Reagan added.

Similar reports of the cockpit crew’s alarm were reported by others monitoring radio frequencies. Col. Richard Hill, a spokesman at Vandenberg Air Force Base, said two air traffic controllers at the base quoted a crew member as saying, “We are going down.”

Metal Detectors

PSA spokesman Bruce E. Nelson told reporters at Los Angeles International Airport that the airline had no record of any armed law enforcement personnel flying as passengers on the plane.

Prior to boarding at the airport, all passengers passed through metal detectors without incident, Nelson said. He said all carry-on luggage was X-rayed and no weapons were detected.

The screening was done by personnel from the Ogden-Allied Aviation Co., which provides security in Terminal 1, screening passengers before they board PSA, USAir, America Southwest and Southwest Airlines flights.

The X-ray and metal-detection equipment was checked by the FAA Monday morning and found to be operating properly, Nelson said.

PSA mechanic Mike Doering told the Associated Press that the noise reported as gunfire may actually have been the breaking up of an engine fan blade.

In February, 1986, a PSA BAe-146 en route from Los Angeles to Reno was forced to land in Fresno after a blade inside one of its four engines broke, piercing the passenger cabin and causing a drop in pressure. There were no injuries in the incident.

The aircraft that crashed Monday was manufactured in 1984, and the engines were recently overhauled, a PSA spokesman said.

The National Transportation Safety Board was flying a team of experts here from Washington on Monday night to investigate the crash, the first of a PSA plane since Sept. 25, 1978, when one of the airline’s Boeing 727 jetliners collided with a Cessna 172 over San Diego, killing 144 people.

Flight Recorder Found

PSA said it was flying two planeloads of company personnel to Paso Robles to assist in the investigation.

Investigators retrieved the plane’s flight recorder--the so-called “black box”--Monday night. It will be taken to Washington, where NTSB experts will examine its tape to determine the exact path of the last moments of flight.

By nightfall Monday, law enforcement personnel had sealed off the mile-square crash site. Between 50 and 100 searchers, using light provided by portable generators and a nearly full moon, combed the shredded wreckage in a last, futile attempt to find survivors.

San Luis Obispo County Sheriff Edward C. Williams said the searchers retrieved a few personal effects but did not find a gun. He said he considers the crash site “a crime scene.”

The site is about five miles east of the Pacific Ocean, near the community of Harmony, which is about 175 miles northwest of Los Angeles.

Spotted Wreckage

Jack Strauch was driving home from his job as a winery manager when he spotted the wreckage and a small crowd of bystanders who had gathered by the road to watch it burn.

“I could hardly believe it; here all these people were standing here and all of them nonchalantly, like it was the most normal thing in the world for a plane to go down in those hills,” Strauch said.

By then, he said, a woman from the state Forestry Department had arrived and she asked, “ ‘Anybody here who can get up that hill in a hurry?’

“I said, ‘I’ll go up,’ ” Strauch said.

Strauch, an experienced runner, said it took him about 20 minutes to get there. He said he had “just been hoping to help somebody,” but when he arrived, he realized there was nothing he could do.

“It was a mess,” he said, “just pieces of people and debris everywhere . . . wreckage everywhere, purses hanging in trees.

“The most poignant thing I found is a little Social Security card I handed back to the Forestry Department.

“When this is all over, I’m going to find his family and see what I can do at Christmas for them. . . . I was connected to this person for a moment.”

Families Gathered

At San Francisco International Airport, where the flight had been scheduled to arrive at 4:43 p.m., PSA officials cordoned off an airport VIP area for those gathered to meet passengers from the ill-fated flight. The arrival board directed those interested in Flight 1771 to “please see agent.”

Friends and family gathered to hear if their loved ones were on the plane.

Guillermo Casillas of Daly City said he had been watching the evening news when word of the crash was aired. His 30-year old daughter was supposed to be on the flight.

After calling the airline several times only to get busy signals, Casillas drove 10 miles to airport to find out what he could.

“Thanks to God, she took the next plane,” a teary Casillas said.

‘Very Quiet’

For those who got worse news, the airport had arranged for two clergymen, a doctor and two paramedics to be in the conference room where friends and family of victims met with airline officials.

“It’s very calm, very quite, very somber,” airport spokesman Ron Wilson said. “I’ve never seen anything so quiet.”

San Francisco Airport officials said commuter flights such as PSA’s pose a particular problem in identifying victims and locating next of kin because many passengers get on at the last minute without reservations.

“A lot of times some one will say, ‘I’m coming in on the 4 o’clock flight,’ but they’re really on the 3:30 flight that is late,” one airport official said.

As a result, he said, airport and PSA personnel were bombarded with calls from loved ones who knew that their friends and family were coming to San Francisco from Los Angeles.

The PSA aircraft normally carries a crew of four, but Flight 1771 included the flight attendant trainee.

PSA has set up a special phone line to field questions from the public. The number is (619)-574-2480.

Contributing to this story were Times staff writers David Freed, Peter H. King and Robert W. Stewart in Paso Robles; H.G. Reza in San Diego; Miles Corwin, Dan Morain, Mark A. Stein and Victor Zonana in San Francisco, and Mark Arax, Stephen Braun, Scott Harris, Patt Morrison, Judy Pasternak, Kenneth Reich and Ronald B. Taylor in Los Angeles.

PARTIAL PASSENGER LIST Here is a partial list of those aboard PSA Flight 1771, which crashed Monday near Paso Robles.

PSA crew members:

Capt. Gregg N. Lindamood, 43, of Julian, Calif., a 14-year veteran pilot with PSA who had logged 11,000 hours of flying, including 1,500 hours on the BAe-146.

First Officer James Howard Nunn, 48, of Upland, who has been flying with PSA since March and had logged 12,000 hours, with 300 hours aboard the BAe-146.

Flight attendant Debbie Nissen Neil, 47, of San Jose, a 17-year PSA employee.

Flight attendant Debra Watterson Vuylsteke, 32, of Redding, Conn., a 10-year PSA employee.

Flight attendant trainee Julie Gottesman, 20, of Veradale, Wash., employed since November.

Partial list of passengers:

Shawn Addington, San Francisco area.

Jim Carroll, San Francisco area.

Stephen Cone, San Francisco area.

Anthony Cordova, San Francisco area.

Sharon Engstrom, San Francisco area.

Karen Fox, hometown unknown.

Donald Hoag, San Francisco.

Jocelyn G. Kempe, Ventura.

Kathryn Mika, Arcadia.

Owen Murphy, hometown unknown

Wayne Nelson, hometown unknown

Allen F. Swanson, Los Angeles area

James R. Sylla, San Francisco area

CALIFORNIA’S WORST AIR CRASHESSept. 25, 1978: 144 killed when PSA Boeing 727 collided with a small private craft over San Diego.

June 25, 1965: 84 killed when U.S. Air Force C-135 hit mountain and crashed after takeoff from Los Angeles.

Aug. 31, 1986: 82 killed when Aeromexico DC-9 collided with a small private craft over Cerritos.

June 6, 1971: 50 killed when Hughes Air West CD-9 collided with Marine Phantom F-4 fighter jet.

Aug. 24, 1951: 50 killed when United DC-6B crashed near Fremont.

Feb. 1, 1958: 48 killed when MATS C-118 collided with USN P2V Neptune over Los Angeles.

Dec. 7, 1987: 44 killed when PSA BAe-146 crashed near Paso Robles after gunshots were reported in the plane.

May 7, 1964: 44 killed when Pacific F-27 crashed near Concord, a tape recording indicating the pilot was shot.

Feb. 17, 1956: 40 killed when Marine R5D crashed carrying Marines near Miles.

Jan. 18, 1969: 38 killed when United Airlines B-727 crashed shortly after takeoff from Los Angeles.

HOT LINE Pacific Southwest Airlines set up this special telephone hot line:

(619)-574-2480