(B)Mass murderer David Burke. What never heard of him?

[*marbusfeld]

Murderpedia - David Augustus BURKE

Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 1771

Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 1771 was a British Aerospace 146-200A, registration N350PS, on a scheduled flight from Los Angeles, California to San Francisco. On December 7, 1987, it crashed in Cayucos, California, as a result of a murder–suicide by one of the passengers. All 43 passengers and crew aboard the BAe 146 died, five of whom were shot dead before the plane crashed, including the two pilots. The man who caused the crash, David A. Burke, was a disgruntled former employee of USAir, the parent company of PSA. A dramatization of the incident was portrayed on the TV documentary series Mayday.

http://tomatobubble.com/flight_1771.html

43 murdered


David Burke

The incredible*revenge-mass murder-suicide*drama*of Flight 1771 and the subsequent investigation are the stuff of*Hollywood movies. The tragic 1987 event was, at that time, the 2nd worst mass murder event in US History*(just 2 shy of the 1927 Bath, Michigan school bombing). Flight 1771 remains the worst incident of mass murder in the history of California.

☆☆☆☆☆
NY Times Archives /*December 8, 1987

California Plane Crash Kills 44; Gunshots Are Reported in Cabin

By ANDREW POLLACK, Special to The New York Times / Page A-1

NY Times Archives /*December 9, 1987

4 Chevron Officials Died in Air Crash*

By LAWRENCE M. FISHER, Special to the New York Times*/ P

NY Times Archives /*December 11, 1987

Threatening Note Is Found at Site of Fatal Jet Crash*

By RICHARD WITKIN /**P

NY Times Archives /*December 11, 1987

NY Times Archives:*Kin of Suspect Defiant and Contrite

By JUDITH CUMMINGS, Special to the New York Times*/*P
☆☆☆☆☆
*
But for some strange reason, the amazing story began to fade away from the media's radar, literally within 24 hours of the event. An archival review of The New York Times*(aka the "paper of record")turns up just 4 short and incomplete*stories over a*4 day period. The headlines are listed below, followed by our rebuttal.*Stay with this piece because there is a shocking*twist at the end; a twist which will tie in 'the Big Picture' of things.

As a lifelong 'news junkie' with an elephantine memory, your intrepid*reporter here at*The Anti-New York Times*still recalls the first CNN reports of the 1987 crash of Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 1771. I can also recall having a small sense of wonder as to why the*mysterious*crash had faded from the News so quickly. This was during my pre-Enlightenment / pre-Internet college days. So I thought nothing more of the suddenly spiked story, subconsciously storing it in my memory banks and moving on to the next event of the day, or the next pretty co-ed to catch my eye.

It was only just yesterday that I chanced across an Internet comment about the mysterious event and its even more mysterious media burial. In an 'a-ha moment' state, I*thought to myself,*"Yes! That's right! I do remember that*crash and how the story just faded away."*Within minutes, the older and wiser Mike King went to work to dig up and summarize the truth; a truth which shocked even this veteran reporter. The following true narrative was confirmed by Flight Data Recordings, Cockpit Voice Recordings, crash site forensics, and logically sound*inference.

In early December of 1987,*a ticket agent named David Burke was*fired by USAir*(which owned Pacific Southwest Airlines)*for petty theft of $69 from in-flight cocktail receipts.**On December 7th, Burke met with Raymond*Thomson, his supervisor, in an unsuccessful appeal*of his firing. Burke stormed out of Thomson's office muttering a cryptic threat, aimed at Thomson, to the secretary.

Frustrated and angry,*Burke then purchased a ticket on PSA Flight 1771, a daily flight used mostly by executives,*flying from**to*. Raymond Thompson was a regular passenger on the flight.*Using his un-surrendered US Air credentials, Burke bypassed the normal security checkpoint at LAX while carrying a concealed*.44 Magnum revolver. After boarding the plane, Burke wrote a message on an air-sickness bag. It is probable, though not known for certain, that he*gave the message to Thomson to read just before going to the lavatory, and then re-emerging moments later. The air bag note, later discovered*near the crash site, 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."

*As the aircraft cruised at 22,000*ft over the California coast, the cockpit voice recorder*of the relatively small plane*recorded the sound of someone entering, and then exiting the lavatory. The timing of the lavatory door sounds, Burke's seating proximity to Thomson, and the two quick gun shots heard just after the*2nd door closing sound,*suggest that Burke entered the lavatory in order to discreetly draw his*gun. The captain and the co-pilot were speaking to air traffic control when the Cockpit Voice Recorder*(CVR)*picked up the sound of the first two shots being fired.

*The most plausible theory as to what happened was deduced from the pattern and audible volume of the shots on the CVR. It appears that Burke first shot Thomson twice. Though Thomson's own seat was never recovered,*part of a serial numbered seat that was identified from the wreckage as being directly behind Thomson's was found to have two bullet holes in it. Due to the power of the Magnum .44, the bullets must have traveled through Thomson's body, his seat, and then through the seat behind.

The co-pilot immediately reported that a gun had been fired and no further transmissions were received from the crew. At that point, the CVR recorded the cockpit door opening and a female flight attendant telling the pilots,*"We have a problem!"*The captain replied,*"What kind of problem?"*A shot was heard as Burke shot the flight attendant dead, and announced*"I'm the problem."*He then fired two more rounds. Most likely, he shot the pilot and copilot once each, incapacitating or killing them on the spot. Several seconds later, the CVR picked up increasing windscreen noise as the airplane pitched sharply downward and accelerated. The remains of the flight data recorder (FDR) indicated Burke had pushed the control column forward into a dive.

Dramatization of the descent into death* /* All Flight recorders recovered (unlike 9/11, but I digress)

A final gunshot was heard followed not long after by a sudden silence. It is believed that Burke killed the airline's chief pilot, who was also on board as a passenger and may have been trying to reach the cockpit to save the aircraft. There was some speculation that Burke actually shot himself, though this seems unlikely because a fragment of Burke's fingertip was lodged in the trigger when the investigators found the revolver. This indicated that he was alive and*gripping his gun right up until the very moment of impact. After descending for about 1 minute at a very steep angle, the plane crashed into the hillside of a cattle ranch in the Santa Lucia Mountains near Paso Robles and Cayucos.

The plane was estimated to have crashed at around 770*mph, disintegrating instantly. Flight 1771 struck a rocky hillside, leaving a crater 2 feet deep and 4 feet across, presumably where the landing gear struck the ground. The high-speed impact compressed the soil, which almost immediately rebounded, throwing fragments and sheets of paper*(including the note by Burke)*back into the air. The force of impact meant that human remains were very small, the largest being feet in shoes. Forty three died in all and the remains of 27 passengers were never identified.

Dramatization of the descent into death* /* All Flight recorders recovered (unlike 9/11, but I digress)

A final gunshot was heard followed not long after by a sudden silence. It is believed that Burke killed the airline's chief pilot, who was also on board as a passenger and may have been trying to reach the cockpit to save the aircraft. There was some speculation that Burke actually shot himself, though this seems unlikely because a fragment of Burke's fingertip was lodged in the trigger when the investigators found the revolver. This indicated that he was alive and*gripping his gun right up until the very moment of impact. After descending for about 1 minute at a very steep angle, the plane crashed into the hillside of a cattle ranch in the Santa Lucia Mountains near Paso Robles and Cayucos.

The plane was estimated to have crashed at around 770*mph, disintegrating instantly. Flight 1771 struck a rocky hillside, leaving a crater 2 feet deep and 4 feet across, presumably where the landing gear struck the ground. The high-speed impact compressed the soil, which almost immediately rebounded, throwing fragments and sheets of paper*(including the note by Burke)*back into the air. The force of impact meant that human remains were very small, the largest being feet in shoes. Forty three died in all and the remains of 27 passengers were never identified.


By 1987, Jesse Jack-Ass, Al Charlatan, and Eric the Red Holder had already been exalted by the media-gods as prominent "civil rights leaders". There was not a peep from them about the racist mass murder that took place aboard Flight 1771!





Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 1771 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Southwest_Airlines_Flight_1771

Post #500
555 PM

 

[Arheel's Uncle]

If I must, I must.

David Burke: I am the Problem

Burke had a penchant for violence and a mean temper. These things always seem obvious in retrospect, but David Burke was also a dangerously self-centered opportunist. Though he never married, he fathered seven children by four women. Apparently, nobody could stand living with the guy for very long.

www.gunsamerica.com

David Burke: I am the Problem​

ON March 12, 2022 BY Will Dabbs

This guy was behind the second-worst episode of mass murder in California history.
David Augustus Burke was born in 1952 to Jamaican parents living in the UK. At some point, Burke’s family moved to the United States. He eventually took a job with USAir in Rochester, New York.


The capacity to control one’s emotions is the single most reliable predictor of success in life. David Burke struggled with his.
Though popular with his co-workers, Burke had a penchant for violence and a mean temper. These things always seem obvious in retrospect, but David Burke was also a dangerously self-centered opportunist. Though he never married, he fathered seven children by four women. Apparently, nobody could stand living with the guy for very long.


Successful drug smugglers can make vast amounts of money. Such potentially lucrative returns bring out the worst in folks.
While working for USAir, Burke purportedly used his Jamaican contacts to smuggle cocaine in from the islands through Rochester via the airline. Though he was never formally charged, this episode hopelessly sullied his reputation in New York. After 14 years in Rochester, Burke moved to Los Angeles to start afresh.

The Setting​

Air travel in the 70s and 80s was unrecognizable from what it is today. I’m digging the groovy orange go-go boots.
Burke got a job with Pacific Southwest Airlines (PSA) in short order. USAir had recently purchased PSA, so Burke knew the system. In 1987 Burke was working as a ticketing agent with the airline.

It has been estimated that Burke actually stole several thousand dollars from the airline. A modest $69 theft caught on camera is what finally did him in.
Everybody likes money, and few people ever feel like they have enough. In Burke’s capacity as a ticket agent, he also helped manage the receipts from the cash transactions from these commuter flights. This meant that modest amounts of cash passed through his hands on a daily basis. $69 turned up missing, and Burke was caught on a surveillance camera taking it.
After Burke was fired his boss wished him a good day. Burke ominously responded, “Oh, I’m going to have a very good day.”
After an appropriate investigation, David Burke was fired for theft. He had an impassioned meeting with his boss, Ray Thomson, wherein he attempted to gain reinstatement. However, the evidence was compelling, and rumors of his involvement with the Rochester drug ring had filtered over to the West Coast by then as well. David Burke was toast.

Background​

These guys mean well and work hard. However, I suspect most of the folks they catch trying to sneak prohibited items onboard airplanes are just dumb.
Security, particularly in airports, is an illusory thing. The Transportation Safety Administration posts photos of the weapons confiscated at American airports on their website. Many of them are admittedly fairly egregious. Swords, hatchets, demilled military ordnance, and handguns by the hundreds make the wall of shame. However, these are not typically wielded by bloodthirsty terrorists bent on destruction. The vast majority of the people trying to carry stuff like that onto airplanes are either stupid or forgetful.


The TSA confiscated 3,257 firearms during the airport screening process in 2020. 83% of them were loaded. That’s roughly ten guns per million passengers.

Some rocket scientist tried to sneak this thing onto an airplane. Maybe he was a Klingon.

Everybody by now should appreciate that you cannot get onto a modern commercial airplane with a machete in your carry-on. However, I carry a gun every time I’m not asleep or in the shower. In America, I have plenty of company. That’s one of several reasons why my tiny little Southern town is very, very safe. A certain small percentage of folks like me simply forget to leave their guns at home until it is too late. While I’m sure the TSA nails the occasional rare genuine terrorist, most folks caught with guns in American airports are simply inattentive. On December 7, 1987, however, David Burke was not one of those people.

The Approach​

Human beings are tribal, and PSA was a sort of family. It just turned out that David Burke’s part of the family was fairly dysfunctional.
Burke and Thomson’s daily lives orbited around the airline. Though he worked at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), Ray Thomson actually maintained his home in San Francisco. PSA ran a daily flight between the two cities, and Thomson typically commuted aboard the plane every day to get to and from his workplace. This flight lasted about 72 minutes. Additionally, David Burke was a familiar face to the flight crews, maintenance staff, and security personnel. That becomes pertinent in a minute.

Nowadays anybody with Photoshop can work for the Secret Service, the local hospital, the neighborhood daycare, or the CIA.
David Burke planned his crime in shocking detail. In the days immediately following his dismissal he still retained his airline credentials. Though Burke apparently did not himself own a gun, he approached a coworker and borrowed a Smith and Wesson Model 29 .44 Magnum revolver along with a handful of cartridges. Using his familiarity with the system and security measures around LAX, Burke cleared the obligatory security checkpoint without having his carry-on bag searched.


The British Aerospace 146-200A is an undeniably adorable airplane. The smiley face on the front is a nice touch.
The final impediment to his gaining entrance to the airplane in question, a British Aerospace 146-200A titled The Smile of Stockton, was a locked crew door. Unfortunately, the access code that deactivated the lock was scratched into the paint above the panel. With minimal effort, David Burke had gotten aboard the plane with his borrowed weapon intact. Also onboard were another thirty-seven passengers and five crewmembers. Among those thirty-seven passengers was Burke’s manager, Ray Thomson.

David Burke used a barf bag like this as an improvised notepad.
The specifics of what happened next are drawn predominantly from conjecture and a subsequent forensic analysis. Apparently once Burke got settled into the airplane he wrote a note on an airsickness bag that said, “Hi Ray. I think it’s sort of ironical that we end up like this. I asked for some leniency for my family. Remember? Well, I got none and you’ll get none.”

The Crime​

The resulting crash was unimaginably violent. However, both the data recorders were recovered sufficiently intact to be usable.
A detailed analysis of information taken from the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) showed that someone, presumably Burke, entered the airplane’s forward lavatory. It is assumed that Burke used the opportunity to retrieve his revolver. This delay should also have given Thomson a chance to read the note scribbled on the airsickness bag. Burke then apparently approached Thomson while he was seated and shot him twice from the front. Thomson’s seat was never identified, but the seat behind him was known to be vacant. It was recovered bearing two bullet holes. Apparently, the powerful .44 Magnum rounds passed through Thomson, his seat, and the next seat behind as well.

It is always chilling to appreciate how terrorists can be so heartless. This is flight attendant Deborah Neil. David Burke likely knew this young lady fairly well before he murdered her along with a whole planeload of innocent people.
It would seem at this point pandemonium ensued. The First Officer reported to air traffic control that a firearm had been discharged on board the airplane. This was the crew’s last transmission. According to the CVR the flight attendant, Deborah Neil, opened the cockpit door and shouted, “We have a problem!”

CPT Gregg Lindamood was likely the second person on board the plane to be targeted.
The pilot-in-command of the aircraft, Captain Gregg Lindamood, then asked, “What’s the problem?” The feed from the CVR then records David Burke responding cryptically, “I’m the problem.” There followed two more gunshots.

It is postulated that Burke killed this man, CPT Douglas Arthur, to prevent him from recovering the aircraft.
Burke apparently shot each of the flight officers once. The sound of a final gunshot was also captured on the CVR. This likely represented Burke’s shooting Douglas Arthur, PSA’s chief pilot in Los Angeles who was aboard the plane as a passenger. It is suspected that he was killed trying to get into the cockpit to save the aircraft.

The Gun​

The Smith and Wesson Model 29 .44 Magnum is indeed a beast of a handgun.
Call me a heretic if you must, but I think the Smith and Wesson Model 29 .44 Magnum revolver is kind of ridiculous. Inspired by the esteemed gun writer Elmer Keith, the .44 Magnum round was originally intended for hunting and defense against dangerous game. In 1955 Smith and Wesson launched an N-frame revolver chambered for this manly cartridge. Two years later they adopted the formal designation Model 29. At the time the Model 29 was indeed the most powerful production handgun in the world. There the weapon languished.

It’s hard to imagine, but John Wayne, Frank Sinatra, Burt Lancaster, Steve McQueen, and Paul Newman were all considered and discounted or refused the role of Dirty Harry Callahan before Clint Eastwood strapped on the iconic .44 Magnum.
In 1971 Clint Eastwood introduced the American public to Dirty Harry Callahan. A truly hard-core cop and all-around bad man, Dirty Harry packed a Model 29 .44 Magnum with a six-inch barrel in a shoulder holster. In a country awash in real crime, Harry’s exploits stopping criminals on the big screen by any means necessary resonated. Gun shops couldn’t keep the Model 29 in stock.

From left to right we have the .22LR, the 9mm Parabellum, the .45ACP, and the .44 Magnum.
I own one of these guns myself, and I don’t much care for it when stoked with full-power .44 Magnum rounds. Recoil and muzzle blast are prodigious, though the downrange performance of the .44 Magnum cannot be disputed. I killed my first whitetail wielding a Ruger rifle in this caliber. However, the Model 29 will also fire lower-powered .44 Special rounds that are pure joy on the range. Regardless of your position on magnum revolvers, the Model 29 is undeniably rugged, beautiful, and accurate.

The Rest of the Story​

PSA Flight 1171 broke the sound barrier before impacting the rocky California countryside.
The Flight Data Recorder (FDR) showed that the control column was pushed far forward. Investigators suspected that either Burke had shoved it forward or one of the pilots had slumped against it. This sordid episode began at 22,000 feet. By the time the plane impacted the ground, it was traveling 770 miles per hour or slightly faster than sound. The aircraft struck a rocky hillside at a 70-degree nose-low attitude.

The dying airplane didn’t leave much of a hole in the underlying rock, but it was well and truly pulverized.
The impact area was pure stone. The massive screaming aircraft left a crater a mere two feet deep and four feet across. The decelerative force produced by the crash was on the order of 5,000 G’s. The end result was simply a mess. Everyone obviously perished. Only eleven passengers were ever positively identified.

The largest pieces of the airplane were not more than a few feet long. However, investigators still gleaned a great deal of useful information from the wreckage.
Amidst what little was identifiable from the plane was found the remains of a .44 Magnum revolver with a fragment of fingertip still in the trigger guard. The weapon contained six fired cartridge cases. The FBI was able to retrieve a partial fingerprint from the fragment that was positively identified as that of David Burke. It was therefore assumed that Burke had not shot himself but was rather alive and still holding the gun at the moment of impact. The details are all conjecture.

The flight crew perished in the crash along with several local executives from various firms. A prominent visiting scientist from West Germany named Wolfgang Studeman died as well.
Investigators recovered the airsickness bag with the note and subsequently discovered a farewell message Burke had left on his girlfriend’s answering machine. Also killed in the crash were James Sylla, the CEO of Chevron USA, along with three other senior Chevron executives. Three executives of Pacific Bell died in the crash as well.

There are always lessons to be learned in sordid tragedies such as these. In the case of David Burke, he was just a horrible person with a death wish and a grudge.
In the aftermath of the crash, policies were changed that mandated that airline employees be subjected to the same screening processes as regular passengers. There was also a federal law enacted that mandated seizure of airline credentials immediately upon an employee’s termination. All that stuff might make the less durable among us feel a little bit safer, but those in the know appreciate that such policies will only catch the stupid criminals. Your truly dedicated homicidal psychopaths like David Burke will always find a way.