December 23, 1995
Web posted at: 12:45 a.m. EST (0545 GMT)
BUGA, Colombia (CNN) -- Investigators on Friday recovered the flight recorder from an American Airlines flight that went down in the Colombian Andes two nights ago, killing all but a handful of the 164 people aboard. The black box, found nestling in the rocky terrain, is expected to explain why Flight 965 en route from Miami from Cali, Colombia, strayed from its path and crashed into a mountain. (360K QuickTime animation)
The National Transportation Safety Board in Washington said the Colombian government has asked the agency's labs to conduct a read-out from the device. The recorder is expected to arrive in Washington on Saturday.
The flight data recorder should reveal the plane's airspeed and altitude at the time of the crash and other vital information, aviation experts said. It also should indicate whether the plane's nose was up or down.
The cockpit voice recorder, which should contain the last 30 minutes of conversation among the crew and between the plane and ground controllers, is yet to be recovered.
On Friday, rescue teams began airlifting bodies from the mountain site of the crash, and transported them to a temporary morgue in the nearest town, Buga, so that family members could identify the bodies.
Four people on the Boeing 757 survived the crash, according to the military commander in charge of rescue operations. Two of the survivors were Americans. The commander said five people had been pulled alive from the wreckage, but one had succumbed to their injuries.
Three of the survivors, including a 10-year-old girl, were in critical condition, officials said.
Teams searching for the wreckage initially found only its tail section on the side of a mountain, officials said. After a lengthy search they came upon the body of the plane. A rescue official said an aerial view of the wreckage resembled "little pieces of paper scattered across a mountain top."
Aviation authorities said Thursday that the crash site is about 13 miles East of the normal flight path for the plane, which had been scheduled to land in Cali on a direct flight from Miami, Florida. Cali is Colombia's second-largest city.
State Department spokesperson Nicholas Burns said at least 48 of the people on the flight were U.S. citizens, but added that determining a precise number was difficult because many passengers were dual nationals.
Most of the passengers were apparently Colombians headed home for the holidays in Cali.
The crash was the deadliest involving a U.S. airliner since a Pan Am flight went down over Lockerbie, Scotland, on December 21, 1988. That crash, blamed on terrorists, killed 270 people.
Rescue workers pushing their way through the dense forests, where much of the wreckage landed, were slowly losing hope Friday about chancing upon more survivors.
The bodies of a woman and a boy were found still strapped in their seats. Hugging the bushes like ornaments on a Christmas tree were items of luggage: a stuffed rabbit, a Scholastic Aptitude Test guide book, a doll -- all intact.
Investigators from the FBI, the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board were in Colombia to determine the cause of the crash.
Alvaro Cala, director of Colombian civil aviation, said there was no evidence of an explosion on the plane and that all ground radar and radio systems were operating normally. He said a probe would take at least six months.
The aircraft went down in an area dominated by leftist guerrillas, who three years ago sabotaged the area's navigation system.
Ground navigational aids were functioning normally Wednesday
People seeking information about passengers on Flight 965 can call an American Airlines help number at 1-800-245-0999.
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