FAMILIES GRIEVE FOR VICTIMS OF PLANE CRASH\

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As federal investigators Monday tried to figure out why a cargo plane slammed into a Virginia mountainside, two Triad families began planning for futures much different than they once envisioned.

``As hard as it's going to be, Santa's still coming tomorrow night,' Gina Athey said. ``If he didn't, I'd have two very upset little boys.' Her 39-year-old husband, Kenneth Athey, and five other men died Sunday evening when an Airborne Express DC-8 crashed during a round-trip test flight from Greensboro to Ohio.The Atheys, who were married for 11 years, have two children: Stephen, 7, and Patrick, 3. They have lived in Winston-Salem for almost five years. ``I didn't know he was going on the test flight, which was fine with me,' Gina Athey said. ``I didn't want to know. I always worried.'

Lynn Scully didn't know either.

She and her husband, Brian Scully, and their two children moved to Walkertown earlier this year. They came to this area when Brian Scully, 36, started work as a mechanic for Triad International Maintenance Corp., which had modified the jet for Airborne Express.

``We're just really going to miss Brian,' said Lynn Scully's sister, Debbie Weichold, who flew to Greensboro Monday to be with her.

``The kids are asking where he is now. What do you tell them?'

Weichold said her sister and the two children, Erin, 7, and Thomas, 4, will likely move back to New York to live closer to family.

As the families grieved, federal investigators said Monday they recovered the bodies of Scully, Athey and the four other men.

The National Transportation Safety Board found two key pieces of evidence in the wreckage - the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder, NTSB spokesman Matthew Furman said. The devices were shipped to Washington, where technicians will examine instrument readings and voice recordings in hopes of finding clues to what happened.

``By the end of the day (Tuesday), I'm sure they will have analyzed the preliminary data,' Furman said. He said more details will emerge ``in a week or so.'

According to investigators and officials with two companies connected with the crash, ABX Air had bought the used DC-8 recently. ABX Air is a subsidiary of Airborne Freight Corp., which operates the nation's third largest overnight delivery company under the name Airborne Express.

ABX Air hired TIMCO, an aircraft repair company based at the Piedmont Triad International Airport, to perform maintenance work and modify the 30-year-old plane. TIMCO converted the plane's interior cargo-handling system to meet Airborne Express specifications.

Officials with TIMCO and its parent company, Primark, declined to talk about specifics of the work on the aircraft. They did say they would cooperate fully with federal investigators.

The four-engine DC-8 is one of the nation's oldest commercial airplanes. Douglas, which later became McDonnell-Douglas, produced the first DC-8 in 1955. The jet is 187 feet long and has a wingspan of 148 feet. It can carry 64,500 pounds of cargo.

The plane left Piedmont Triad Airport Sunday at 5:40 p.m. for a test flight to Wilmington, Ohio and back. During a test flight, the crew conducts tests of all on-board systems, including the hydraulic and electrical systems, landing gear and radar.

Conditions in Greensboro on this moonlit night were near perfect - there was only a slight breeze from the southwest, and visibility was unlimited. The control tower cleared the DC-8 to fly at between 13,000 and 15,000 feet all the way to Ohio. There, 6,000 people work at Airborne Express' huge cargo hub.

Making its way north, the plane ran into a steady rain. At 6:06 p.m., while over the densely wooded Jefferson National Forest, the plane fell into a steep dive and the pilot made a distress call.

``They were already in an emergency descent and they said they were passing 8,000 feet,' said Bob McIntosh of the National Transportation Safety Board.

At 6:11 p.m., the plane crashed 3,400 feet up White River Mountain.

Monday, federal investigators scoured the wreck site, located 15 miles east of Bluefield, W.Va. and three miles northwest of Narrows, Va., population 2,000.

McIntosh declined to comment on the cause of the crash until the data from the recorders are analyzed.

Reporters who visited the crash site Monday for the first time said the jet gouged into the mountainside a crater five feet deep and 30 feet across. Its fireball blackened a wide area of brush and trees around the crater and scattered wreckage over two acres. The plane's wings clipped trees the girth of utility poles. Scorched sheet metal was wrapped around tree trunks and blown into the upper branches of some trees.

The plane's engines dislodged upon impact and came to rest about 1,000 feet from the initial impact point.

``There was a big orange fireball that lasted 10 to 15 seconds,' said Stan Akers, who lives nearby and was one of the first to reach the crash site Sunday night. ``The mushroom cloud reminds you of the pictures of Hiroshima.'

Authorities sent the bodies of the three crew members and three maintenance employees to a local funeral home.

``There will be an attempt to identify the remains, using fingerprints and dental records,' said Steve Davis, captain of the Giles County, Va., Rescue Squad.

Airborne Express identified five of the dead as its employees. They were Athey; Garth Avery, 48, of Dayton, Ohio; William Keith Leming, 37, of Lebanon, Ohio; and Terry Waelti, 52, and Edward Bruce Goettsch, 48, both of Wilmington, Ohio.

Scully worked for TIMCO as an avionics technician, a specialist in the type of advanced electronic systems found in cockpit controls and instruments.

The three-man flight crew included Leming, Avery and Waelti. The Federal Aviation Administration said Leming and Avery both were licensed to fly DC-8s. Both men had passed their most recent physical examination to get medical clearance. Waelti was certified as a flight engineer and a mechanic, the FAA said.

Authorities have not yet said who was flying the plane when it crashed.

Brian and Lynn Scully met at Plattsburgh Air Force Base in New York. Both were in the U.S. Air Force - he was a mechanic who held the rank of senior airman, and she was a sergeant and computer operator. They were married 10 years ago this month.

Like Scully, Garth Athey had spent many years around planes. A Hampton, Va. native, he worked for the now-defunct Eastern Air Lines in Miami and for Lockheed Aeromud Inc. in Greenville, S.C.

In April 1992, Athey moved his family to Winston-Salem to take a job with Airborne Express. He was a maintenance representative, supervising mechanics who work on the planes.

``He knew everything about (airplanes),' said Gina Athey, who said her husband was an avid golfer who loved the outdoors. ``He could talk to me and really get into them, and I would nod and not know what he was talking about.'

Last Friday, Gina Athey asked her husband if he was ever scared when he went on test flights.

``He said, no, he had no reason to be,' she recalled.

``He would not get on a plane if it wasn't safe. He wouldn't put me or the children on the plane if it wasn't safe.'

A spokesman for TIMCO's parent company, Primark Inc., said the mood at TIMCO's local facility was somber Monday. But work continued on the other planes being serviced in the company's three hangars.

``We are going to participate in a complete and thorough investigation' of the crash with federal investigators and Airborne Express, Primark spokesman Jim Flanagan said Monday.

Because of that investigation, Flanagan said he would not discuss the work TIMCO was performing on the airplane or the kind of tests being performed during Sunday's flight.

Flanagan did say test flights with both TIMCO and client officials on board are standard procedure. He said this is the first crash of a plane ever serviced by Timco.

``We are deeply saddened to learn of this accident, which claimed the lives of six people, including one of our employees,' said TIMCO chief executive Charles Bell in a written statement. ``All TIMCO employees join me in sending out thoughts and prayers to the families and friends of the victims. We will do whatever it takes to assist in a thorough and comprehensive investigation into the cause of the accident.'

Bell did not return repeated telephone calls to his office Monday.

What the crash means for TIMCO is uncertain. The company has grown swiftly in its six-year history.

TIMCO's services include aircraft maintenance, modifications, cabin refurbishments and reconfigurations. The company does not perform engine repair.

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COMPANY PROFILES

TIMCO:

Full name: Triad International Maintenance Co.

Parent company: Primark Corp., headquartered in Waltham, Mass., which primarily is a global provider of information services.

Founded: In 1990, with 125 workers, TIMCO's payroll now stands at 1,300 employees.

Facilities: TIMCO maintains a 45-acre, three-hanger complex at Piedmont Triad International Airport. The hangars provide more than 400,000 square feet of work space.

Services: The company provides aircraft maintenance, modifications, cabin refurbishments and reconfigurations. Its clients include Airborne Express, Emery Air Freight, Continental Airlines and Northwest Airlines.

AIRBORNE EXPRESS:

Parent company: Airborne Freight Corp.

Base: In Seattle; Airborne is an international air express and air freight forwarder. Airborne Express is the third largest express carrier in the U.S., behind Federal Express and UPS.

Facilities: Airborne's primary hub and sorting facility is in Wilmington, Ohio. It also has 10 regional hubs in the United States.

Employees: The company employs more than 20,000 people worldwide.