JET CARRYING 293 CRASHES, BURNS IN IOWA; 166 SURVIVE
A crippled United Airlines DC-10 crashed a half-mile short of a runway while trying to make an emergency landing Wednesday afternoon, bursting into a cartwheeling fireball that broke into what one eyewitness described as "15,000 pieces" and killing at least 123 of the 293 passengers and crew members on board.   Remarkably, as many as 166 persons survived the violent crash, according to Richard Vohs, a spokesman for Iowa Gov. Terry E. Branstad. The fate of four others was not immediately known.     Tail Engine Explodes   The plane's tail engine exploded before the crash but it was not immediately clear how the explosion contributed to what a Federal Aviation Administration spokesman called "complete hydraulic failure," an occurrence regarded as extremely rare in the wide-bodied DC-10, which has three independent hydraulic systems that operate all the plane's control surfaces on its wings and tail, and landing gear and brakes.   As rescuers worked underneath floodlights to remove bodies from the crash site, original estimates of the death toll -- one as high as 190, which would have made the crash the second worst in U.S. history -- were reduced.   "We don't have a firm count" of the dead, Vohs acknowledged at a press conference seven hours after the crash. "But right now, the number (of survivors) confirmed is 166."   The survivors of Wednesday's United Flight 232 from Denver to Philadelphia via Chicago included several dozen passengers who managed to walk out of a dark, smoke-filled, upside-down section of the jet after it broke off and came to rest in a tall cornfield off the runway.   "I walked out (through the back of the plane) and found myself in the cornfield," passenger David Landsberger told Cable News Network. "We were all walking around in shock. I just walked through it like it was a dream. I was a little dazed."   "It's the goddamndest thing I ever saw in my life," said Charles Mertz of Castle Rock, Colo., another of those who walked away.   Suitcases, paper, mail, clothes, chunks of burning metal and bodies were strewn over the inactive runway at Sioux Gateway Airport, where the plane crashed after desperately circling for a half-hour.   One hundred ambulances, fire trucks and helicopters from as far away as South Dakota plucked out the victims. The search for bodies was difficult because some of them were scattered in the cornfield. Many of the survivors were listed in critical condition with burns or broken bones.   United Airlines declined to comment on the number of survivors or to release the names of the 282 passengers and 11 crew members.   Eyewitnesses said pieces of the 15-year-old airplane -- one of the oldest airliners in United's fleet -- were falling off as far as 75 miles from the site of the crash.   A team of National Transportation Safety Board investigators left Washington Wednesday night for Sioux City.   The hydraulic system that disintegrated Wednesday works the same way a power steering system operates in a car. By forcing liquid through a tube, the system provides enough power for a pilot to move an airliner's huge tail rudder and elevators, and wing panels known as flaps and ailerons -- all needed to steer an aircraft.   Some aviation experts, speculating on why Flight 232 crashed after completing less than half of its scheduled 930-mile trip to Chicago, suggested that the explosion of the tail engine sent shards of metal through the tail section, somehow destroying common lines that serve the three hydraulic systems.   There were reports from passengers and observers that the plane's right-wing engine also failed before the crash.   In what survivors described as a heroic effort that nearly succeeded, the plane's Seattle-based captain, A. C. Haynes -- a 33-year veteran of the airline who along with the other 10 crew members survived the crash -- struggled for a half-hour to maintain control of the wobbling plane. Radio transmission indicated the plane's maneuverability was limited to right-hand turns.   At one point, Haynes attempted a landing on Highway 20 near Cushing, Iowa, but chose not to touch down there in favor of trying to make Sioux City, a farming and livestock center of 82,000 in the northwest corner of Iowa along the Missouri River.     Preparing for Crash Landing   "Then they said we were preparing for a crash landing. They said it would be about 30 seconds, but it was about five minutes," another passenger said.   Haynes brought the plane into the airport's 9,000-foot-long southwest runway, surrounded by corn, soybeans and pasture with some trees seven miles outside downtown Sioux City.   At about 4 p.m. CDT, the plane made its final approach.   Onlookers watched hopefully.   "We thought it was going to make it," said Glen Olson, city editor of the Sioux City Journal.   It didn't.   Shortly before touchdown the plane's right wing began to dip and the nose began to fall.   The wing hit the ground a half-mile before the runway. The impact caused the aircraft to turn over several times as it slid down the runway, "breaking up very badly," catching on fire and then exploding, according to Bob Raynesford, an FAA spokesman.   "I think it turned over a couple of times. I think it landed upside down," said passenger Melanie Cincala of Toledo, Ohio, who said the plane burst into flames after she got off.   A large piece of the fuselage barreled onto the runway. Huge clouds of smoke and flames billowed upward as firemen sprayed foam over the wreckage. Rescue helicopters hovered overhead.   "We were sitting there upside down and it began to fill up with smoke," said Cliff Marshall of Columbus, Ohio, who was returning home from Denver.     'Push Little Girl Out'   "Then God opened a hole in the basement (the bottom of the plane) and I pushed a little girl out. I grabbed another, kept pulling them out until they didn't come no more."   Marshall said he thought he helped a half-dozen out and then he ran.   Dr. Romaine Bendixen, clinic commander of Iowa National Guard's 185th tactical fighter group, said he was the first doctor on the scene, about three minutes after the crash. He had just landed in another plane.   He said the living were scattered among the dead.   "In one group of six seats, a woman sitting in the middle was barely injured, her husband beside her was dead and two behind her were dead," Bendixen said.   He said rescuers pulled out three of the flight crew alive.
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