THE BEHREND BEACON, FEBRUARY 4, 2000, PAGE
WORLD NEWS
Pilots struggled for control of jet before it plunged into ocean
by Nita Lelyveld
and William R. Macklin
Knight-Ridder Tribune
February 02, 2000
OXNARD, Calif. For six min
utes, the pilots of Alaska Airlines
Flight 261 struggled to maintain con
trol of their descending jetliner after
reporting a jammed stabilizer and ad
vising controllers that they thought
they could make it to the Los Ange
les airport. Then they fell silent, and
moments later the plane plunged
17,000 feet into the Pacific Ocean,
investigators said.
All 88 people aboard the Boeing
MD-83 were presumed killed when
it went down Monday, January 31,
in turbulent seas nearly three hours
into a flight from Puerto Vallarta,
Mexico, to San Francisco and Se
attle.
National Transportation Safety
Board investigators sought to inter
view the pilots of four other aircraft
including a second Alaska Air
lines jet who may have witnessed
the crash off Port Mugu, about 40
miles northwest of Los Angeles In
ternational Airport.
As the crash probe focused on the
possible failure of the MD-83's hori
zontal stabilizer a winglike struc
ture on the plane's tail that helps keep
the aircraft from bucking up and
down weary rescue workers re
luctantly surrendered hope of find
ing survivors.
"It happened with so much vio
lence. You can see that," said Nick
Worobieff, 41, who was among the
commercial fishermen and charter
boat operators who joined the search
Monday night and Tuesday.
Worobieff, who made two trips to
the debris field that by Tuesday af
ternoon covered a 36-square-mile
area, said he saw dozens of body
parts in the water, some with cloth
ing still attached.
He described seeing a sneaker, just
like one his father has same size,
McCain wins first primary
by Jodi Enda
Knight-Ridder Tribune
February 02, 2000
NASHUA, N.H. Republican
Sen. John McCain won a landslide
victory over Gov. George W. Bush in
New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation
Presidential primary Tuesday, hand
ing Bush a significant loss in their
first head-to-head contest and guar
anteeing a harder and longer fight for
the Republican nomination.
In the Democratic race, Vice Presi
dent Al Gore defeated former Sen.
Bill Bradley for the second time in
eight days, but Bradley vowed to
"continue the fight" into the next con
test, the possibly decisive 15-state pri
mary March 7.
With 83 percent of the precincts re
porting, Gore led Bradley 52 percent
to 48 percent. McCain had accumu
lated 49 percent of the vote, leading
Bush by 18 percentage points. Maga
zine publisher Steve Forbes was far
behind in third place and radio com
mentator Alan Keyes came in a dis
tant fourth.
In a victory speech, McCain char
acterized his win as a triumph of the
little guy over Washington's power
ful special interests. As he prepared
to leave New Hampshire, he declared
that "a great national crusade" had
begun.
"It is the beginning of the end, be
cause today the Republican Party has
recovered its heritage of reform,"
McCain declared to a cheering crowd
in a hotel ballroom here. Then, turn
ing his attention and some vitriol
to Democrats, he added, "And it
is the beginning of the end for the
truth-twisting politics of Bill Clinton
and Al Gore."
McCain's victory is a setback for
Bush and is bound to raise new con
cerns among voters and the Texas
governor's financial backers about
his ability to win in a general elec
tion campaign against the Democratic
nominee. Though Bush won the lowa
caucuses last week, McCain did not
campaign there and they were not
viewed as a test of his strength.
Exit polls of New Hampshire vot
ers showed McCain beat Bush in
practically every demographic group
same style floating in the waves,
with a leg still attached.
"I feel so, so sorry for everyone,"
Worobieff said, rubbing an
unshaved, windburned cheek.
Hoping
against all odds
that mild
weather and
calmer seas
would aid an
unlikely rescue,
Coast Guard
Vice Adm. Tom
Collins said
during a news
conference that
he would not
decide until
Wednesday
morning
whether to call
off the search
for survivors
So far, the
rescue effort
has yielded
only wreckage;
personal ef
fects, and hu-
man remains.
Four bodies
A Coast Guard boat, left, pulls alongside a squid boat to off-load debris picked up in the area where
Alaska Airlines flight 261 crashed Monday evening off Anacapa Island. All 88 passengers and crew died
when the plane crashed January 31.
an infant, two
women, and a
been recovered
as of Tuesday afternoon, Collins
said.
Twelve boxes of debris had been
collected, picked up by the Coast
Guard, Navy, and civilian vessels,
but some of the twisted metal and
personal belongings that littered the
ocean Monday evening had been
swallowed by the waves.
"They've found things like a
Bible, a child's teddy bear, a wallet,
personal things," said a spokesman
for the Salvation Army at Port
Hueneme, north of Malibu.
As questions about what befell
Flight 261 deepened, investigators
reported hearing the pinging noise
he won with every age group, he
won with high school graduates and
college graduates, he won with Prot
estants and with Catholics, he won
with the affluent and with the less
than affluent. Significantly, he also
got more support from women than
did Bush, a candidate who has shown
himself to be popular with women
in national polls.
Bush conceded just 20 minutes af
ter the last polls closed, saying he had
called McCain to congratulate him
for running "a really good race and a
strong race.
"New Hampshire has long been
known as a bump in the road for
front-runners, and this year is no ex
ception," Bush said. "The road to the
Republican nomination and the
White House is a long road. Mine
will go through all 50 states and I
intend it to end at 1600 Pennsylva
nia Avenue."
From here, the Republican contest
moves to Delaware, where McCain
is not competing, and South Carolina,
a state with a large military presence
in which the former war hero has
been campaigning heavily.
Despite his sizable victory Tues
day, McCain faces an uphill battle
against a candidate with much more
money and much deeper support
within the Republican establishment.
On the Democratic side, Gore, who
weeks ago had trailed Bradley in
statewide polls, compared his victory
to Sunday's Super Bowl game, not
ing that unlike the Tennessee Titans,
who lost by falling short of a touch
down in the final seconds of the
game, he had persevered.
"During the day today, some
people thought this might be like the
Super Bowl, they thought that we
might fall a yard short," said Gore, a
former senator from Tennessee. "But
let me tell you this Tennesseean is in
the end zone and it feels great," he
said, punching the air for emphasis.
"And you ain't seen nothing yet.
We've just begun to fight."
Still, Bradley's ability to deny
Gore a major victory in New Hamp
shire assures that the former New Jer
sey senator will stay in the race until
at least March 7, when voters in New
York, California, and 13 other states
characteristic of the plane's flight re
corders. The data and voice devices
could hold valuable information, and
NTSB investigators said they were
using video equipment on robotic
submersibles to try to locate the re
corders in about 700 feet of water.
What is already clear from the
plane's final radio transmissions is
that something went terribly wrong
shortly after air controllers at Los
Angeles International Airport
cleared it at 3:55 p.m. (6:55 p.m.
Philadelphia time) to continue north
to San Francisco at 31,000 feet.
At a news conference Tuesday at
a makeshift rescue center at Port
Hueneme, John Hammerschmidt of
the NTSB summarized those trans
missions, describing a cockpit crew
that first reported control difficulties
at 4:10 p.m., dropped through 26,000
Two dogs, Curtis, right, and Tailore, left, confront each other outside a
polling station in Hancock, New Hampshire last Tuesday. Tailore is
wearing a McCain sticker and Curtis a Bradley blanket. New Hamp
shire voters went to the polls Tuesday in the state's Presidential
primary election.
weigh in. Political experts had
warned that a loss here could be
deadly to Bradley, coming a week af
ter his loss in the lowa caucuses by a
2-1 margin.
But by staying close to Gore, Bra
dley was able to escape the embar
rassment of a second drubbing. And
with the money to carry on, he could
make life difficult for Gore even
though he trails in national polls.
Bradley's advisers have said he
could withstand a close defeat in New
Hampshire, in part because he ap
pears to be strong in New York, where
he remains known for playing with
the New York Knicks, and because
he has at least a shot at winning Cali
fornia, where he has shown strength
in fund raising.
"We have made a remarkable turn
around but there is still a tough fight
ahead," Bradley told his supporters
Tuesday. "Al Gore has run a strong
race and I congratulate him. But we
are smarter and better prepared and
we're ready and eager to continue the
fight."
Before the results were known,
Bradley challenged Gore to weekly
debates, starting this weekend.
Gore's campaign said they would
consider the challenge. Gore has re
peatedly asked Bradley to debate him
twice a week, and to eliminate tele
feet and down to 23,700, then ad
vised that it had "kind of stabilized"
the situation
Minutes later, the pilots Capt.
Ted Thompson. 53, and First Officer
William Tansky, 57 specified
that their horizontal stabilizer was
jammed and that they were having
trouble maintaining altitude.
At 4:16 p.m., controllers cleared
the aircraft to land at Los Angeles
International Airport. The pilots ac
knowledged the clearance and asked
for a block of altitudes in which to
That was Flight 261's last trans
mission. Five minutes later, the
plane and 83 passengers and five
crew members disappeared from ra
dar.
Both pilots were Alaska Airlines
veterans. Thompson, hired in 1982,
vision commercials in at least one
state, but Bradley has declined, say
ing that as the underdog he needs ads
to make himself known.
The popularity of McCain and Bra
dley and the difficulty that many
voters said they had in choosing be
tween them is the strongest indi
cation to date that voters are paying
as much attention to questions of in
tegrity as to candidates' positions on
issues.
After the Clinton sex scandal and
at a time of national prosperity, vot
ers here and in lowa have said that
more than anything else they want a
President who can restore dignity to
the Oval Office. Working in their fa
vor was a New Hampshire election
rule that allows independent voters to
vote in the primary for candidates of
either party.
Nancy Trask and her husband, Fred
Daniels, had so much trouble choos
ing between Bradley and McCain that
the two independent voters decided
to split their vote. She voted for
McCain, he voted for Bradley, said
Trask, a human resources director for
a high-tech company.
"We want to see new people,"
Trask said as she emerged from the
voting booth at the Amherst Street El
ementary School here. "We don't
want politics as usual.
had flown 10,400 hours with the air
line. Tansky, hired in 1985, had
8,047 flying hours with Alaska.
In addition to the crew, more than
30 of those lost in the crash were em
ployees of Alaska
Airlines or their
friends and fam
ily returning from
vacation, having
flown on free em
ployee .standby
passes.
It's been
"pretty brutal,"
said Alaska
spokesman Jack
Evans. "I think
the impact still
hasn't hit us."
ers gathered
Tuesday near the
crash site. As the
sun shone
brightly over the
wide expanse of
Silver Strand
Beach in Oxnard,
dozens gathered
on the edge of a
pier to stare out at
Anacapa Island,
the small Channel
Island where a
park ranger saw
the plane plunge nose down into the
Pacific. Many carried videocameras.
Some had binoculars.
At one end of the beach, a bou
quet of wildflowers was wedged into
the sand below a locked-up green
lifeguard station. At the other, local
residents had erected a simple make
shift shrine a driftwood cross
hung with necklaces of shells, a ro
sary, red silk flowers. Surrounding
it were birds of paradise, candles,
and ferns.
Sobbing, Janelle Davis knelt at the
base of the cross, where she placed
a bouquet of purple and pink daisies
and wildflowers, a white candle, and
Woman swindled by fake man
by Chris Krewson
Knight-Ridder Tribune
February 02, 20(X)
BELLEFONTE, Pa. The 52-year
old Boalsburg, Pa., woman never met
the man she fell in love with over the
CB radio four years ago. Although
Linda Vongehr said she didn't have a
lot of money, she borrowed from
whomever and wherever she could to
help him his CB handle "Cowboy"
and real name Randy Dillard.
Last week in Centre County Court,
Vongehr now bankrupt testi
fied in a preliminary hearing against
Barbara Morrow, who police said in
vented Dillard as part of a confusing
swindle that netted nearly $1(10,(XX).
Morrow, 45, is charged with theft by
deception and related charges.
Vongehr said she first met Dillard in
February 1995 over the CB radio, and
they began talking two to three times a
day, sometimes on the telephone.
Dillard told her of many troubles, in
cluding a custody fight for his daugh
ter in Texas.
"I asked him if we could meet. I
wanted to see what he looked like, what
it was like to be around him," Vongehr
said. But Dillard said he couldn't, as
part of a custody battle for his daugh
ter, Vongehr said. "He said he'd signed
an affidavit that said he could not have
sex or be with a woman for one year,"
she testified.
But Dillard said Vongehr should
meet a friend in town named Barbara
Morrow. A few days later, Vongehr said
she met Morrow. "She knocked on my
door with flowers in her hand," she tes
tified. "She said they were from
Randy."
Morrow told Vongehr that Dillard's
father was rich, and owned several
banks and oil wells in Dallas, Vongehr
testified. Dillard's father hated him, but
an uncle was more kind, Vongehr said.
Soon after, Dillard began asking for
money to help in the custody battle. But
any assistance had to be delivered in
cash to Morrow for if Dillard's fa
ther found out someone was helping his
son, Vongehr could be in danger, she
testified.
So Vongehr said she gave the money
to Morrow, who was supposed to take
it to the University Park airport where
Dillard's uncle would fly into town in
a private jet. Morrow would pass the
two photographs. She said her sis
ter, whom she declined to identify,
had been on the plane, heading to
Seattle.
"You never know when it's going
to happen to a family member," she
Davis said the family had recently
had a sort of reunion in Puerto
Vallarta. "We were down there three
weeks ago all of us," she said.
One of the photographs showed nine
women posing in a room decorated
in bamboo furniture. All smiled
broadly, including Davis.
Linda Quintero, 37, said she was
drawn to the beach, not to stare, but
to send prayers. "Somebody's got
to hold out hope for the people," she
said. "I keep thinking, 'Maybe there
are some people in an air pocket.
Maybe it's like that little boy Elian.
If he could survive out in the water,
maybe somebody can here. Maybe
we'll have a miracle.—
Mourn-
Quintero, who grew up in Oxnard,
said she had trouble reconciling the
tragedy with her hometown a
place of blue waters, white beaches
and sprawling strawberry farms.
She said she heard about the crash
Monday afternoon, when her 10-
year-old son, Eric, came running to
ward her in the house. The cartoon
he had been watching was inter
rupted, she said, with an announcer
saying that there was breaking news
and that children should go get their
parents.
"We've been saving to go to Ha
waii, and Eric said he doesn't want
to go anymore," Quintero said. "But
I told him we can't live in fear."
Just before dusk Tuesday, as the
setting sun glowed orange over Port
Hueneme, about a dozen family
members of the dead approached the
shore. As police kept a watchful eye,
some waded into the chilly ocean
waters. Others filled plastic cups
with water and sand. On the beach
behind them, candles flickered and
bouquets lay nestled in the sand.
cash onto him, Vongehr testified.
Dillard's uncle would then fly back to
Dallas with the money, she testified.
"And all the money I gave to Randy
was a loan," Vongehr said. "Randy said
he'd pay all the money back."
The amount of money increased as
Dillard's problems did his custody
battles caused stomach problems, and
Dillard couldn't pay the medical bills,
she testified. So Vongehr said she
started sending cash, via Morrow, to
Dillard for those bills. But the money
wasn't enough, and eventually Dillard
was sent to jail, Vongehr said she
learned from Morrow and messages
Dillard sent from prison.
Vongehr sent more and more money,
with the final count just shy of $99,000.
And after a particularly large amount
the remaining $52,00 of Vongehr's
divorce settlement Dillard said he
needed still more to get out of prison
and get his daughter back. "He said
'Do you have any money left?' I said
yes," Vongehr said. "He said any you
can send will help get me out . . . he
said I could trust him to pay it back."
Morrow eventually moved out of the
area, and Vongehr said she started to
get suspicious. But it wasn't until the
police investigation prompted af
ter Vongehr's bankruptcy lawyer
couldn't find a Randy Dillard in Texas
that Vongehr knew Dillard didn't
exist, she testified.
"Understand that [Morrow) devas
tated this woman, emotionally and fi
nancially," said Lance Marshall, the
assistant Centre County district attor
ney who is prosecuting the case.
A search warrant police served on
Morrow's trailer yielded about $5,000
in cash, still bundled, packed away
there, Marshall said. But he said it will
be difficult to get more restitution, es
pecially if Morrow goes to jail for her
crimes.
Morrow faces at least seven years per
felony charge, and there are 21 14
of theft and seven of receiving stolen
property.
Margaret Spicer and Wendy Owens,
both of State College, Pa., said after the
hearing that they were friendly with
Morrow, and that she had impersonated
men before to meet women. Owens,
who said she knew Morrow for more
than 20 years, said she lost track of how
many different aliases Morrow used.