Airplane Accidents Colorado

A B-1B bomber carrying six crew members crashed Monday in the Colorado prairie after birds were sucked into the aircraft's engines and possibly triggered a fire. Three crew members parachuted to safety, authorities said, but three others were killed. It was the first crash of a production model of the $270-million B-1B. The survivors were reported in good condition with minor injuries at the U.S. Air Force Academy hospital in Colorado Springs. "The other three crew members . . .

The anxious pilots strained to see through a swirling snowstorm before their chartered jet from Los Angeles crashed while attempting to land at Aspen Airport last March, cockpit recordings released by federal officials showed Thursday. "Can you see?" the pilot in command, Robert Frisbie, asked the co-pilot, Peter Kowalczyk, as the Gulfstream III jet descended into the steep, mountainous terrain surrounding the Colorado ski resort. "I'm looking, I'm looking,' Kowalczyk replied. "I . . . No."

Many were friends, brought together by a group of talented young men who had met as kids and over the years continued to play together as adults. The men had invited relatives, girlfriends and colleagues for a birthday celebration and ski weekend in the Rocky Mountains. On Friday, relatives and friends of the 18 people who died when their chartered Gulfstream III crashed near Aspen struggled with their loss.

The families of three people who died in a March 29 plane crash in Aspen, Colo., filed wrongful-death lawsuits in Los Angeles Wednesday against the owner and operator of the jet. The parents of Elena Bernal and Yevgeny Kaplansky and the husband of Maria Ramona Cota sued Airborne Charter Inc., the company to which the jet was registered, and Avjet Corp., which housed the plane in a hangar at Burbank Airport.

Skiers who fly in here for white-knuckle experiences offered by the downhill slopes may well get their first serious adrenaline rush as their aircraft land in this high-mountain bowl. Unlike the long, measured approaches pilots can take at flatland airports, the ones who fly into the Aspen airport must begin a series of quick "step-downs" as soon as they clear a mountain range to the west.

A chartered jet out of Burbank and Los Angeles airports slammed into a hillside in snowy weather near Aspen, Colo., Thursday evening, killing all 18 people on board. Breaking into pieces, the plane hurtled over a culvert before smashing into a bluff just short of the runway at Aspen-Pitkin County Airport, authorities said. Rescuers arrived within minutes as local residents climbed over fences and tried to find survivors in a field, but were turned back by spilled fuel and flaming wreckage.

A chartered jet that crashed near this ski resort, killing all 18 aboard, had abandoned its initial approach to the mountainous airport and was circling through steady snowfall for a second attempt to land when it exploded into a hillside, sources close to the investigation said Friday. Two other chartered jets--one immediately ahead of the doomed plane and one right behind--also missed their first passes at the landing strip, pulling out at the last moment, several sources told The Times.

Confusion over how to best approach the tricky mountain valley airport here is of growing significance in the probe into the crash of a charter jet from Los Angeles that claimed 18 lives last week, federal investigators said Sunday.

The mysterious crash of a Boeing 737 jetliner in Colorado 10 years ago probably was caused by rudder problems similar to those that brought down another 737 near Pittsburgh about four years later, federal officials finally concluded Tuesday. In both cases, the pilots pushed pedals to move the rudder in one direction, but the rudder moved in the opposite direction, the National Transportation Safety Board said.

A freak collision with a large bird--probably a 15- to 20-pound pelican--brought down a $280-million B-1B bomber on a test flight over Colorado last September, the Air Force said Wednesday in its official investigation report on the accident. The bird slammed into the plane as the craft was traveling at 600 m.p.h. and the bomber's thin aluminum skin was ruptured just above the right engines, ripping a critical hydraulic line and starting a 3,000-degree fuel fire that doomed the giant jet.

The mysterious crash of a Boeing 737 jetliner in Colorado 10 years ago probably was caused by rudder problems similar to those that brought down another 737 near Pittsburgh about four years later, federal officials finally concluded Tuesday. In both cases, the pilots pushed pedals to move the rudder in one direction, but the rudder moved in the opposite direction, the National Transportation Safety Board said.

Electronic warnings sounded in the cockpit a few seconds before a chartered jet from Los Angeles crashed while attempting to land at the Aspen airport last week, federal investigators said Friday. Although such warnings alone are not indicators of an imminent crash, a veteran pilot said the pilots of the Gulfstream III jet may have had less margin for error than they realized.

The crash of a charter jet from Los Angeles last week in Aspen has revealed potential shortcomings in the Federal Aviation Administration's handling of flight safety advisories. At issue: possibly confusing wording and an apparent breakdown in the handling of an FAA advisory, called a "Notice to Airmen," that concerned new restrictions on night landings at Aspen. The advisory, known as a NOTAM, went out two days before the Thursday crash.

The busiest days of the year are over for Bill Hancock. Now come some of the hardest. "I'm a little worried about what will happen next week," said Hancock, director of the men's basketball tournament for the NCAA. "I've always thought work was a good antidote for any kind of pain." Hancock's oldest son and namesake, Will, was one of 10 people killed Jan. 27 when a small plane carrying passengers associated with the Oklahoma State basketball program crashed in Colorado.

Confusion over how to best approach the tricky mountain valley airport here is of growing significance in the probe into the crash of a charter jet from Los Angeles that claimed 18 lives last week, federal investigators said Sunday.

The chartered jet that slammed into a hillside here Thursday night was cleared for an instrument approach by air traffic controllers even though such an approach required a circling procedure that the Federal Aviation Administration had banned earlier in the week, crash investigators said Saturday.

These are the 20 passengers and five crew members killed when Flight 585 crashed: Passengers Bonnie Bachman, Phoenix; Dan Birkholz, 35, Colorado Springs; Andy Bodnar, Toronto; Mildred Brown, Copperas Cove, Tex.; Dr. Bill Crabb, 51, Colorado Springs; Clay Crawford, 72, Colorado Springs; Jo Crawford, 65, Colorado Springs; Robert Geissbuhler, 39, Colorado Springs; Pam Gerdts, 39, Colorado Springs; Fred Hoffman, 40, Colorado Springs; Herald Holding, Colorado Springs; Maurice Jenks, Littleton, Colo.

After learning Sunday that a United Airlines jet had crashed as it approached the airport in Colorado Springs, Colo., Mike Moran, the U.S. Olympic Committee's director of public information and media relations, said he was virtually certain his telephone would ring soon with tragic news about someone he worked with or knew.

Skiers who fly in here for white-knuckle experiences offered by the downhill slopes may well get their first serious adrenaline rush as their aircraft land in this high-mountain bowl. Unlike the long, measured approaches pilots can take at flatland airports, the ones who fly into the Aspen airport must begin a series of quick "step-downs" as soon as they clear a mountain range to the west.

A chartered jet that crashed near this ski resort, killing all 18 aboard, had abandoned its initial approach to the mountainous airport and was circling through steady snowfall for a second attempt to land when it exploded into a hillside, sources close to the investigation said Friday. Two other chartered jets--one immediately ahead of the doomed plane and one right behind--also missed their first passes at the landing strip, pulling out at the last moment, several sources told The Times.