Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 1771
 Illustration of N350PS, The Smile of Stockton[1] | |
| Hijacking | |
|---|---|
| Date | December 7, 1987 |
| Summary | Deliberate crash |
| Site | Cayucos, California +35° 30' 56.73", -120° 51' 19.72" |
| Aircraft type | British Aerospace 146 |
| Operator | Pacific Southwest Airlines |
| Registration | N350PS |
| Flight origin | Los Angeles International Airport |
| Destination | San Francisco International Airport |
| Passengers | 38 |
| Crew | 5 |
| Fatalities | 43 |
| Injuries | 0 |
| Survivors | 0 |
35°30′57″N 120°51′19″W / 35.51583°N 120.85528°W
Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 1771 was a commercial flight that crashed near Cayucos, California, United States on December 7, 1987 after an incident of air piracy. All 43 people on board the aircraft died, including the man who caused the crash, an angry former employee of USAir, the parent company of PSA.
Cause
David Burke (born May 18, 1952) was a former employee of USAir, the airline that had recently purchased, and was in the process of absorbing, Pacific Southwest Airlines (PSA). Burke had been terminated by USAir for petty theft of $69 from in-flight cocktail receipts and, after meeting with his supervisor in an unsuccessful attempt to be reinstated, he purchased a ticket on Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 1771, a daily flight from Los Angeles, California to San Francisco. Burke's supervisor, Raymond F. Thomson, took the flight regularly because he lived in San Francisco but worked at Los Angeles International Airport.[2]
Using his USAir credentials, Burke, armed with a loaded .44 Magnum revolver[3] that he had borrowed from a co-worker, was able to bypass the security checkpoint at Los Angeles International Airport. After boarding the plane, Burke wrote a message on an air-sickness bag. The note read:
- Hi Ray. I think it's sort of ironical that we ended up like this. I asked for some leniency for my family. Remember? Well, I got none and you'll get none.[4]
As the plane, a four engine British Aerospace BAe 146-200, cruised at 22,000 feet (6700 m) over the central California coast, the cockpit voice recorder recorded the sound of two shots being fired in the cabin. The cockpit door was opened and a female, presumed to be a flight attendant, told the cockpit crew "We have a problem". The captain replied, "What kind of problem?" Burke then announced "I'm the problem", then fired three more shots that incapacitated the pilots.
Several seconds later, the cockpit voice recorder picked up increasing windscreen noise as the airplane pitched down and began to accelerate. A final gunshot was heard and it is speculated that Burke shot himself. The plane then descended and crashed into the hillside of a cattle ranch at 4:16 p.m. in the Santa Lucia Mountains near Paso Robles[5] and Cayucos. The plane was estimated to have crashed nose first at a speed of around 700 miles per hour (1100 km/h, 600 kn), disintegrating instantly. The force of the impact meant that 27 passengers were never identified.
It was determined several days later by the FBI (after the discovery of both the handgun containing six spent bullet casings and the note written on the air-sickness bag) that Burke was the person responsible for the crash. FBI investigators were also able to lift a print from a fragment of finger sandwiched in the pistol's trigger guard, which positively identified Burke. In addition to the evidence uncovered at the crash site, other factors surfaced: Burke's co-worker admitted to having lent him the gun, and Burke had also left a farewell message on his girlfriend's telephone answering machine.
Previously, Burke had worked for an airline in Rochester, New York, where he was a suspect in a drug-smuggling ring that was bringing cocaine from Jamaica to Rochester via the airline. He was never officially charged. [6]
Consequences
Several federal laws were passed after the crash, including a law that required "immediate seizure of all airline employee credentials" after termination from an airline position. A policy was also put into place stipulating that all airline flight crew were to be subject to the same security measures as passengers.
See also
- List of notable accidents and incidents on commercial aircraft
- Pacific Air Lines Flight 773 - May 7, 1964
- EgyptAir Flight 990
Notes
- ^ PSA Oldtimer's history website 25/02/2009
- ^ "Gun-toting fired employee linked to PSA plane crash; ex-boss was also on flight," Los Angeles Times, December 8, 1987
- ^ "Security badges lost," Houston Chronicle
- ^ "Note of doom found in PSA jet wreckage; message apparently written by fired USAir employee supports FBI's theory of vengeance," Los Angeles Times, December 11, 1987
- ^ "Ex-worker's badge found," Houston Chronicle
- ^ "Kin of Suspect Defiant and Contrite," The New York Times, December 11, 1987