Tape Released From Golfer's Crash
It has been more than five months since the Learjet carrying golfer Payne Stewart and five others crashed, killing all aboard. The cause of the accident still has not been determined.
But Wednesday, the Federal Aviation Administration made public three hours of audio tape from the day of the October crash.
An increasingly worried crew of air traffic controllers can be heard trying in vain to reach the plane, and trying to get other pilots to help as the Stewart plane flew on autopilot.
Both civilian and military pilots were able to see the Learjet as it flew steadily on, but none could get an answer from the pilot.
The last radio message from the plane: "Three nine zero bravo alpha," the simple acknowledgment that he had been cleared to climb to 39,000 feet, came at 11:27 a.m.
Six minutes later, air traffic control at Jacksonville, Fla., radioed the plane, getting no response. Another try three minutes later got no response and controllers quickly became concerned as the craft rose above its assigned altitude.
At 11:38 a.m., a Cubana airliner tried to raise Stewart's plane but advised the controllers he also got no answer.
"OK, thank you," the controller responded. "I think we got a dead pilot up there. He's through his altitude and off course now so we don't know what's going on."
It was not clear whether the controller thought the pilot was dead or meant his radio had gone dead. The FAA made no comment about the tapes.
While the National Transportation Safety Board has yet to determine the cause of the October 25 crash near Aberdeen, S.D., there is some speculation.
Some aviation analysts believe Stewart's plane suffered from depressurization that incapacitated those on board after the plane took off from Orlando, Fla. The plane then continued on a northwest course, apparently on autopilot.
As time wore on, American Airlines and Delta Air Lines planes were asked to try to contact the plane when it was near them. Neither they nor military pilots could get an answer. Some reported seeing the plane.
The controller thanked the other pilots for their help in looking for "this guy that's unresponsive, climbing and ... probably going to die."
The tape was studied by the NTSB in its analysis of the disaster and then returned to the FAA. Its release is a routine post-crash step.
The tape does not include any sounds inside the cabin of the plane. However, the safety board previously reported that alarms were heard on the cockpit voice recorder tape, which also was reviewed. One that signals cabin pressure problems was sounding when the plane crashed in South Dakota. No one was heard talking on the 30-minute cockpit tape from the Learjet 35.
The human body has a limited ability to function above 10,000 feet because there is less oxygen in the air and there is less pressure to force that oxygen through the lungs. Airplanes are pressurized so that the atmoshere inside never feels higher than about 8,000 feet even if the aircraft is flying much higher.
The FAA has reported that Stewart's plane climbed as high as 51,000 feet during its flight across the nation's heartland. The jet, which was supposed to have gone to Dallas, instead flew four hours -- some 1,400 miles -- to South Dakota before running out of fuel and crashing.