CHARLOTTE, N.C., July 3 -- Twenty-six people are now confirmed dead in the wake of the crash of USAir flight 1016 in Charlotte, N.C., an airline representative reported Sunday. Eleven other passengers were listed as missing and presumed dead. The representative said 20 other people, including the DC-9 jetliner's five-person crew, remained hospitalized in Charlotte area hospitals. One survivor had been treated and released. The airliner, with 52 passengers on board, crashed at about 6:50 p.m. EDT Saturday as it attempted to make a second approach to the Charlotte- Douglas International Airport. Its first landing attempt was aborted. None of the aircraft's crew was killed in the crash. A USAir representative said the pilot and his crew were only 'slightly injured. ' The pilot was identified as Cpt. Michael R. Greenlee, 38, of St. Paris, Ohio. First Officer James Haynes, 41, from Woodstock, Ga., and flight attendants Richard Demary, 28, of Coraopolis, Pa., Shelly Markwith, 28, of Annapolis, Md., and Karen Forcht, 27, of New Brighton, Pa., were the other crew members on the flight. Greenlee had become a DC-9 Captain in January 1990, and had 8,065 total flying hours on his record. Jerry Orr, director of the Charlotte-Douglas International Airport, reported workers at the crash site had recovered the jetliner's 'black box' recorder and had turned it over to National Transportation Safety Board investigators for examination. Orr said he did not know what was contained on the recording. 'I only know the pilot was on approach and elected to go around.
I don't know why,' said Orr. Investigators also said wind shear equipment was in operation but they did not know whether any wind shears had been detected prior to the crash. Thunderstorms and lightning were reported in the Charlotte area at the time of the crash, but officials do not yet know if the accident was weather-related. Kathleen Bergen of the Federal Aviation Administration in Atlanta said visibility was one mile with haze, and that other aircraft had landed safely just prior to the crash. Witnesses said the plane appeared to be flying normally and that its wings were level immediately before the crash. Some reported that the aircraft's wings clipped the tops of utility poles as it went down. Most of the injured suffered from burns, smoke inhalation, traumatic abdominal and chest injuries, and injured limbs, according to a spokesman for Carolinas Medical Center, which received 14 patients who were admitted to the intensive care unit. Heavy equipment had been brought in Sunday to lift pieces of the fuselage as rescue workers searched for the remaining victims. The flight had departed from Columbia, S.C., at 6:10 p.m. EDT and was due to arrive in Charlotte at 6:52 p.m., said Marietta Neyland, an administrative representative for USAir.
