Piece may have fallen off of plane before Nevada crash

The death toll rose to nine Saturday in an air race crash in Reno as investigators determined that at least eight spectators were killed on impact as the 1940s-model plane appeared to lose a piece of its tail before slamming like a missile into a crowded tarmac.

Moments earlier, thousands had arched their necks skyward and watched the planes speed by just a few hundred feet off the ground before some noticed a strange gurgling engine noise from above. Seconds later, the P-51 Mustang dubbed the Galloping Ghost pitched oddly upward, twirled and took an immediate nosedive into a section of white VIP box seats.

The plane, flown by a 74-year-old veteran racer and Hollywood stunt pilot, disintegrated in a ball of dust, debris and bodies as screams of “Oh my God!” spread through the crowd.

National Transportation Safety Board officials were on the scene Saturday to determine what caused Jimmy Leeward to lose control of the plane, and they were looking at amateur video clips that appeared to show a small piece of the aircraft falling to the ground before the crash. Witnesses who looked at photos of the part said it appeared to be a “trim tab,” which helps pilots keep control of the aircraft.

Reno police also provided a GPS mapping system to help investigators recreate the crash scene.

“Pictures and video appear to show a piece of the plane was coming off,” NTSB spokesman Mark Rosekind said at a news conference. “A component has been recovered. We have not identified the component or if it even came from the airplane ... We are going to focus on that.”

The dead so far included the pilot and eight spectators. Officials said 54 people were transported to hospitals, but more came in on their own. Eight remained in critical condition late Saturday and nine were in serious condition.

A group of journalists given a 20-minute tour of the Reno airplane crash site saw debris spread in a fan-shape over more than an acre. Even though the sun was setting Saturday night, the crater that's roughly 3 feet (0.9 metres) deep and up to 8 feet (2.4 metres) across could easily be seen several hundred yards away.

The hole was brown, compared with the black tarmac all around it. Based on the crater's location, it appears the P-51 Mustang went straight down in the first few rows of VIP box seats, or about 65 feet (19.8 metres) in front of the leading edge of the grandstand.

Yellow crime tape surrounds the scene and seats are askew. A photographer using a telephoto lens could see airplane parts no bigger than a few feet (a meter) in size.

Despite the large number of dead and injured, witnesses and people familiar with the race say the toll could have been much worse had the plane gone down in the larger crowd area of the stands. The plane crashed in a section of box seats that was located in front of the grandstand area where most people sat.

“This one could have been much worse if the plane had hit a few rows higher up,” said Don Berliner, president of the Society of Air Racing Historians and a former Reno Air Races official. “We could be talking hundreds of deaths.”

Some credit the pilot with preventing the crash from being far more deadly by avoiding the grandstand section with a last-minute climb, although it’s impossible at this point to know his thinking as he was confronted with the disaster and had just seconds to respond.

Witnesses described a horrible scene after the plane struck the crowd and sent up a brown cloud of dust billowing in the wind. When it cleared moments later, motionless bodies lay strewn across the ground, some clumped together, while others stumbled around bloodied and shocked.

“I saw the spinner, the wings, the canopy just coming right at us. It hit directly in front of us, probably 50 to 75 feet,” said Ryan Harris, of Round Mountain, Nev. “The next thing I saw was a wall of debris going up in the air. That’s what I got splashed with. In the wall of debris I noticed there were pieces of flesh.”

Ambulances rushed to the scene, and officials said fans did an amazing job in tending to the injured. Just that morning, the 25 emergency workers at the air show had done a drill for such a large-scale emergency like this.

“We run through what we do in the event of an incident,” said Ken Romero, director of the Regional Emergency Medical Service Authority. “We walked through how to respond, where the multi-casualty incident bus is and what is on the bus (by way of equipment), how to set up the treatment zones and how to triage.”

The crash marked the first time spectators had been killed since the races began 47 years ago in Reno. Twenty pilots including Leeward have died in that time, race officials said.

It is the only air race of its kind in the United States. Planes at the yearly event fly wingtip-to-wingtip as low as 50 feet off the ground at speeds sometimes surpassing 500 mph. Pilots follow an oval path around pylons, with distances and speeds depending on the class of aircraft.

The disaster prompted renewed calls for race organizers to consider ending the event because of the dangers. Officials said they would look at everything as they work to understand what happened.

Another crash, on Saturday, came at an airshow in Martinsburg, W. Va., when a post-World War II plane, a T-28, crashed and burst into flames. The pilot was killed.

In Reno, the Mustang that disintegrated into the crowd had minor crashes almost exactly 40 years ago after its engine failed. According to two websites that track P-51s that are still flying, it made a belly landing away from the Reno airport. The NTSB report on the Sept. 18, 1970, incident says the engine failed during an air race and it crash landed short of the runway.

P-51 historian Dick Phillips of Burnsville, Minn., said Saturday the plane had had several new engines since then as well as a new canopy and other modifications.

Mr. Leeward, the owner of the Leeward Air Ranch Racing Team, was a well-known racing pilot. His website says he has flown more than 120 races and served as a stunt pilot for numerous movies, including “Amelia” and “The Tuskegee Airmen.”

In an interview with the Ocala (Fla.) Star-Banner last year, he described how he has flown 250 types of planes and has a particular fondness for the P-51, which came into WWII relatively late and was used as a long-range bomber escort over Europe. Among the famous pilots of the hot new fighter was double ace Chuck Yeager.

The National Championship Air Races draw thousands of people to Reno every September to watch various military and civilian planes race. Local schools often hold field trips there, and a local sports book took wagers on the outcomes.

The FAA and air race organizers spend months preparing for air races as they develop a plan involving pilot qualification, training and testing along with a layout for the course. The FAA inspects pilots’ practice runs and briefs pilots on the route manoeuvres and emergency procedures.

John Townes, a Reno pilot, said the plane didn’t sound right moments before the crash.

“It wasn’t quite vertical. It was at a very slight angle and because of that I think it probably saved a lot of people,” he said. “Normally when you see an air crash, you see recognizable wreckage. There was nothing, just little bits of metal.”

6 killed in Amtrak train crash, 28 unaccounted for(Photo-Video)

Six people were killed and 28 remain unaccounted for in the fiery collision of a semi-trailer and an Emeryville-bound Amtrak train in the Nevada desert, officials said late Saturday.
It wasn't until Saturday afternoon that the wreckage was safe enough to allow search teams to enter the burned-out hulks of two passenger cars in the 10-car train that exploded in a fireball on Friday.
A team of 18 investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board is examining the wreckage, but they

don't yet have a full explanation of why the crash occurred.
Two other truck drivers watched in horror and disbelief as the lead semi-tractor trailer in their convoy failed to stop for flashing warning signals and plowed into the train, the federal investigators said.
"The two other trucks noticed the signs and took action," NTSB member Earl Weener said at a briefing. "The lead truck did not stop."
The initial findings only deepen the mystery of why the big rig slammed into the California Zephyr at a remote highway crossing about 70 miles east of Reno, shortly before 11:30 a.m. on Friday.
The fellow drivers in the three-truck convoy described ample warnings signs and functioning crossing gates and warning lights, Weener said. The first warning sign was almost 900 feet before what Weener described as a state-of-the-art rail crossing gate. There were additional markers at 650 feet.
Skid marks show the lead driver, who died in the crash and authorities have refused to identify, applied the brakes beginning at about 320 feet from the crossing but was unable to stop in time, officials said.
But more than a day after the rig, owned by John Davies Trucking of Battle Mountain, Nev., slammed into the train, little information was available about who was killed and who was missing in the collision.
The investigators from NTSB combed through the charred wreckage, trying to determine why a semi-tractor trailer hauling empty gravel containers hurtled through the wooden safety gates and flashing lights at the remote highway crossing.
Crews also had the grim task of searching the charred hulk of part of the train for bodies.
The fireball that raged through the train cars made it too risky for crews to search the wreckage until Saturday afternoon, authorities said.
"The fire weakened the structure of the cars and they could collapse," Nevada Highway Patrol Trooper Dan Lopez said. "The safety of workers is a big thing, and we don't want to put someone else in an unsafe situation."
Amtrak officials, who earlier said there were 204 passengers and 14 crew members aboard the California Zephyr, were scouring the passenger manifest to determine how many riders were on the train and how many had bought tickets but did not use them.
There's difficulty in knowing exactly how many passengers were onboard the train, Weener said.
"It's not like an airplane where there's a record of who gets on," he said. "On a train, people can get on and off as they will."
The truck driver is expected to be the focus of the investigation.
"That's what everybody wants to know. Why did the truck collide with the train?" Lopez said. "Unfortunately ... he was pronounced dead."
Investigators are expected to review the man's driving and medical history. Autopsy results would probably indicate whether the driver had consumed any drugs before the collision.
More than 80 people were taken to hospitals in Reno and the surrounding area, some in helicopters, authorities said. Six of the nine who had been taken to Renown Regional Medical Center, the local trauma hospital, were released by Saturday afternoon. Of the three who remained, one was listed in critical condition.
The riders' injuries included blunt trauma, fractures, abrasions, lacerations and internal organ damage, but not burns, Renown officials said.
Another 76 people were treated at Banner Churchill Community Hospital in Fallon, about 63 miles east of Reno, hospital spokeswoman Amiee Fulk said. All but one had been released by Saturday.
Dozens of other passengers were being taken by chartered buses to their destinations, Amtrak officials said. The first buses arrived in Emeryville around midnight Friday. Trains had to be rerouted around the crash site and the highway remained closed around the scene of the wreck.
The train had originated in Chicago. It was due to arrive in Emeryville at 4:10 p.m. Friday.
"Right now it's a shock to everybody's system," Amtrak spokesman Cliff Cole said, "but I think at the end of the day, we run a reliable and safe railroad."

Four dead in crash of small plane

Four people were killed Saturday afternoon when a single-engine Cessna 210 plane crashed into a wooded area and burned not far from Westchester County Airport. An FAA spokeswoman said the plane was en route from the airport in White Plains to Montauk on eastern Long Island when it crashed into a heavily wooded area behind an office complex. The pilot had taken off from the airport when he radioed the control tower that he was experiencing problems and was on his way back. The main runway was cleared

for an emergency landing, but the plane never returned to the airport, instead crashing into the woods. Emergency responders from a number of area agencies converged on the crash scene. The cause of the crash is under investigation by the FAA and National Transportation Safety Board.

Southwest Grounds 79 Planes After Scare

Southwest Airlines grounded 79 airplanes on Saturday after a piece of the fuselage on one of its Boeing 737s ripped open during a flight the day before, leaving a hole in the cabin ceiling and rapidly depressurizing the aircraft.

“We’re taking them out of service to inspect them over the next few days,” Whitney Eichinger, a Southwest spokeswoman, said Saturday. She said they would be “looking for the same type of aircraft skin fatigue.”

In a news release, Southwest announced that it would cancel about 300 flights on Saturday because of inspections, and that customers should expect delays of up to two hours.

“The safety of our customers and employees is our primary concern,” Mike Van de Ven, Southwest’s chief operating officer, said in a statement. “We are working closely with Boeing to conduct these proactive inspections and support the investigation.”

The Southwest plane, a 15-year old Boeing 737-300, was cruising at around 35,000 feet on Friday afternoon en route to Sacramento from Phoenix when passengers heard an explosion. The Associated Press reported that one woman described it as “gunshot-like.”

Oxygen masks were released, and two people, a passenger and a flight attendant, passed out as the pilot descended to make an emergency landing at a military base in Yuma, Ariz. Nobody was seriously injured, Ms. Eichinger said.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation told The Associated Press that there was no reason to suspect terrorism.

All 118 passengers on board chose to continue on to their destination Friday evening aboard a replacement jet, Ms. Eichinger said.

Southwest Airlines’ fleet is made up entirely of Boeing 737s, and the 79 planes the company grounded were all 737-300s.

Pictures of the airplane show that a flap of the aircraft’s skin near the overhead baggage compartments was peeled back.

“You can see completely outside,” one passenger, Brenda Reese, told The Associated Press. “When you look up through the panel, you can see the sky.”

This was not the only incident in American skies on Friday.

In a separate episode, an American Airlines flight from Reagan National Airport in Washington to Chicago made an emergency landing in Dayton, Ohio, after two flight attendants told the captain they were feeling dizzy. Jim Faulkner, a spokesman for American Airlines, said they were investigating whether the plane had depressurized improperly. No other planes had been taken out of service.

And an Atlantic Southeast Airlines flight from Atlanta to Little Rock, Ark., made an emergency landing after hitting a flock of birds. None of the 48 passengers or three crew members on the regional jet were injured, and the plane was operating normally when it landed in Little Rock, said Kate Modolo, a spokeswoman for Atlantic Southeast.

CNN reported that the aircraft sustained substantial visible damage to its nose and that at least one dead crane was stuck to the front when it landed.

Regarding the Southwest incident, James E. Hall, a former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said the company worked its airplanes especially hard, scheduling flights with very quick turnaround times. “They pound their airplanes daily,” Mr. Hall said.

Two years ago, Southwest faced a similar episode when a hole ripped open in a plane’s fuselage and forced an emergency landing on a flight bound for Baltimore. Earlier that year, Southwest was fined $7.5 million for safety violations by the Federal Aviation Administration.

In 1988, a flight attendant was swept to her death and scores of passengers were injured when an Aloha Airlines Boeing 737 suffered a 20-foot rupture in its fuselage during a flight in Hawaii. The flight, carrying 89 passengers and a crew of five from Hilo to Honolulu, was at 24,000 feet when the tear occurred.

The pilots sent an emergency message to air traffic controllers and then guided the aircraft to a safe landing at the Kahului airport on the island of Maui. The right under-wing engine had been knocked out of commission by debris from the fuselage section that ripped away.

Though one flight attendant was swept from the plane, passengers held on to a second to keep her from being pulled out. Sixty passengers were injured.

Despite Friday’s episode, Mr. Hall said, “My experience with Southwest is that they have a good safety program.”

Bus crash horror: Black box is key to probe as driver is eyed in accident that took 14 lives

Federal agents probing the cause of a horrific Bronx crash that killed 14 discount-bus passengers were poring over the coach's "black box" and onboard videotape Sunday night.
Investigators said the black box will reveal if the driver, Ophadell Williams, was speeding, and video should indicate if he fell asleep at the wheel - or support his initial claim he was sideswiped by a big rig.
A truck driver contacted state police Sunday, but claimed he was behind the bus, not alongside it, and saw it weaving and then swerve off southbound lanes of Interstate 95.
Christopher Hart, vice chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said the truck driver's rig was impounded and was being inspected for damage.
The tractor-trailer showed no visible signs of colliding with the bus, but it has to be checked more closely and taken apart, a police source said.
Hart said the bus' onboard camera was pointed at the passengers, but investigators will probably be able to determine if the driver lost control after falling asleep or was bumped.
Surviving passengers told police that Williams, 40, of Brooklyn, had dozed off several times, waking up after hitting the roadway rumble strip, right before the bus careened out of control.
Williams, who passed a Breathalyzer test, arrived at the Mohegan Sun casino in Uncasville, Conn., about 11 p.m. on Friday and took a nap in the parking lot, casino staffers told the state police. A Mohegan Sun staffer woke him up about 3 a.m. on Saturday to take the ill-fated group back to Manhattan, a source said.
The 1999 World Wide Travel bus left the casino at 3:45 a.m. and was headed to Chinatown when tragedy struck at 5:35 a.m. as most of the 31 passengers slept.
The bus slammed into a guardrail, toppled on its side near the Hutchinson Parkway exit ramp and skidded 480 feet into a freeway signpost that acted like a can opener and sheared off most of the roof.
Eight men and six women, most of them Chinese-Americans, were killed, while 14 were injured, six critically.
Hart said NTSB investigators had interviewed two passengers but had yet to speak to Williams, who was released from the hospital last night after being treated for scrapes and a neck injury.
Officials of World Wide Travel met with NTSB and state police investigators Sunday, said company spokesman and general counsel Eric Brodie.
"We are fully cooperating," said Brodie, who refused to elaborate on orders of the NTSB.
The company has been cited five times for "fatigued driving" and investigated for at least two crashes in the past two years, according to records from the federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.
"Many aren't able to communicate," the mayor said. "Patients who can communicate have family at their bedside."
He said he spoke to one female victim with the help of a Cantonese interpreter.
"She was optimistic and strong, and while badly hurt, the doctors said she's going to be fine," Bloomberg said.
Hospital officials said six survivors are on life support, including a 50-year-old man whom they were still trying to identify last night.
"He is not able to speak," said hospital spokeswoman Hannah Nelson, explaining the man has a breathing tube down his throat.
Dr. Sheldon Teperman described the controlled chaos as bloodied passengers filled the Jacobi emergency room.
"We performed abdominal surgeries, chest surgeries," Teperman said. "There was every type of blunt force trauma that you can imagine."
While survivors battled for their lives, other frequent customers of the discount-bus line were thankful to have dodged death.
"I was supposed to be on that bus. I go every night," said Nick Chinakul, 50, of Jersey City, waiting on the Bowery near Canal St. for last night's $15 World Wide Travel bus to Mohegan Sun.
"I take it every night, but on Friday night, I missed it," Chinakul said. "I was late so I had to take a different bus there and a different bus back Saturday morning. When I heard the news, I thought it could have been me."
Chinakul said he knew at least one of the people who died.
"She was the ticket lady," he said. "She wasn't a gambler. She worked for the ticket company. Her name was Ada. She was a typical Chinese lady, going by the book, selling the tickets. She had a lot of friends."