A flight recorder revealed that pilots of a UPS cargo jet that crashed short of a runway at Birmingham's airport received warnings about their rate of descent seconds before impact, investigators said Friday. 
 
 Investigators scour a hillside looking for evidence in the fatal crash of a UPS cargo plane in Birmingham, Ala., on Friday, Aug. 16, 2013. The twin-engine Airbus A300 aircraft went down on Aug. 14 during... (Associated Press) 
 
 The National Transportation Safety Board and FBI scour a field Friday, Aug. 16, 2013, north of the Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport where UPS flight 1354 crashed on Wedesday, in Birmingham,... (Associated Press) 
 
 National Transportation Safety Board member Robert Sumwalt told reporters during a briefing that a recorder captured the first of two audible warnings in the cockpit 16 seconds before the sound of an impact, either with trees or the ground. 
 
 The warnings indicated the A300 cargo plane was descending at a rate outside normal parameters given its altitude, Sumwalt said, but investigators haven't made any determination on the actual cause of the crash into an Alabama hillside. 
 
 "We haven't ruled anything in, haven't ruled anything out," he said. 
 
 The aircraft went down less than a mile from the end of Runway 18 at Birmingham's airport before dawn Wednesday. UPS has identified the victims of the crash as Capt. Cerea Beal, Jr., 58, of Matthews, N.C., and First Officer Shanda Fanning, 37, of Lynchburg, Tenn. 
 
 Landing on the runway can be tricky for pilots, an expert said, particularly those flying big jets like the twin-engine UPS cargo carrier. Sumwalt said the plane was being flown by the captain _ who had 8,600 hours of flight experience, including 3,200 hours in an A300 _ but investigators don't know whether Beal or Fanning had ever before landed on Runway 18. 
 
 "We're going to do our best to find out," he said. 
 
 Sumwalt said investigators will analyze the airplane's weight to determine whether it should have attempted a landing on the runway, the shorter of two runways at Birmingham Shuttlesworth International Airport. 
 
 With a large hill and trees at one end, the runway lacks the electronics for a full instrument landing. That forces pilots to make key judgments about altitude while aiming a descending aircraft at a runway that's 5,000 feet shorter than the airport's main runway, which was closed for maintenance work at the time of the crash. 
 
 Some pilots simply avoid landing on Runway 18 when possible, said veteran commercial pilot Ross Aimer. 
 
 "When I heard they were using Runway 18 it caught my attention because of that hill," said Aimer. "It's sad, but it didn't surprise me." 
 
 Aimer, a retired United Airlines captain, is now chief executive of Aero Consulting Experts, a firm based in Los Angeles. 
 
 The NTSB previously said a preliminary investigation didn't reveal any evidence of engine failure before the plane struck trees about one mile away from the end of the runway. It crashed into the bottom of a hill less than a quarter mile after hitting the trees. 
 
 The A300, which weighs about 172,700 pounds when empty, was at the end of a 45-minute flight from Louisville, Ky., to Birmingham when it went down. A flight summary from flightaware.com, which tracks airplanes, shows the aircraft made a descent in steps, which Aimer said is a "dive and drive" method common on runways with the same navigational guidance as Runway 18. 
 
 Sumwalt said the aircraft went down during its first landing attempt. Sumwalt said investigators have not found any problems with the runway's lights or navigation system, which typically provides pilots with information about their lateral position but not about their altitude, unlike those on runways where pilots can land using only instruments. 
 
 National Weather Service records from the morning of the crash show the plane would have descended through overcast conditions to only a few clouds at 1,100 feet. Within seconds after the plane hit a tree and at least one turbine sucked in wood, the twin-engine plane crashed. 
 
 It hit the base of that large hill mentioned by Aimer, who said he had landed on Runway 18 about a half-dozen times, including on some flights as a cargo pilot. 
 
 Located near the southern tip of the Appalachian foothills, Birmingham's airport is nestled in a low spot between Red Mountain to the south and hills that lie at the northern end of Runway 18, which is 7,000 feet long. The main runway is 12,000 feet long and runs east and west, meaning pilots don't have to negotiate the rough terrain. 
 
 The NTSB said the longer runway was closed for maintenance work on its lights early Wednesday, leaving the shorter runway as the only path to the ground. Runway 18 is an approved runway with a valid approach, Aimer said. 
 
 "It is definitely legal, but it I had a choice I'd use another runway first," he said. 
 
 A key task for investigators will be determining why the UPS jet was low enough to hit trees. The impact sheared off pieces of the aircraft and sent them crashing onto two homes along with large pieces of limbs. 
 
 Keenen Brown, 17, said he witnessed the crash while getting ready for work before dawn. Brown, who lives with relatives across the street from the crash site, said it was unusual to see such a large aircraft attempting to land on the runway. 
 
 "I saw the sky turn orange and I looked up and I saw it in the air on fire," Brown said. "I watched it hit the ground and dirt flew up. This whole area just shook." 
 
 Aimer said the flames could have been shooting from the plane after it struck the trees. ||||| Story highlights There was no distress call from the pilots prior to impact, the NTSB says 
 
 NTSB investigators unable to immediately retrieve plane's recorders, official says 
 
 The pilot and co-pilot of the UPS plane die in the crash 
 
 A photograph shows the jet's crumpled front end resting amid debris 
 
 The pilot and co-pilot of a UPS cargo plane did not issue a distress call prior to crashing while on approach Wednesday to Birmingham's airport, a National Transportation Safety Board official said. 
 
 While UPS said the status of its crew remained unconfirmed, Birmingham Airport Authority Chairwoman Gaynell Hendricks and the city's mayor confirmed the pilot and co-pilot died in the crash. 
 
 "It's a grim scene," Hendricks told CNN affiliate WBRC 
 
 The plane, an Airbus A300-600F, broke into pieces, spreading the majority of the debris over an area of about 300 yards, said Robert Sumwalt of the NTSB. A photograph provided by city officials shows the crumpled front portion of the plane resting in a debris-strewn field. 
 
 The plane, which took off from Louisville, Kentucky, went down around 4:45 a.m. on a street that runs parallel to the Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport, Mayor William Bell said. 
 
 Photos: Photos: UPS cargo plane crash Photos: Photos: UPS cargo plane crash UPS cargo plane crash – The pilot and co-pilot of a UPS cargo flight died Wednesday, August 14, when their Airbus A300 crashed on approach to Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport in Alabama. Hide Caption 1 of 5 Photos: Photos: UPS cargo plane crash UPS cargo plane crash – The plane, which took off from Louisville, Kentucky, went down about 4:45 a.m., according to airport officials. Hide Caption 2 of 5 Photos: Photos: UPS cargo plane crash UPS cargo plane crash – What caused the jet to crash was unclear. The weather was calm at the time, according to Mayor William Bell. The National Transportation Safety Board said it was sending a team of investigators to the site. Hide Caption 3 of 5 Photos: Photos: UPS cargo plane crash UPS cargo plane crash – Fire crews investigate where a UPS cargo plane lies on a hill about a half-mile from the runway. Hide Caption 4 of 5 Photos: Photos: UPS cargo plane crash UPS cargo plane crash – Debris burns in front of the crash site. Hide Caption 5 of 5 
 
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 The location is about a half-mile north of the runway, FAA spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen told CNN. 
 
 NTSB investigators have yet to retrieve the cockpit and voice recorders of the plane because the wreckage is still smoldering, Sumwalt said. Once the fire is out, authorities will retrieve the recorders, he said. 
 
 Even so, investigators have begun working to piece together what led to the crash. 
 
 The crew did not issue a distress call, Sumwalt said, confirming what the mayor said earlier. 
 
 The crew did not report any trouble, Bell said, citing conversations with control tower officials. Light showers and a visibility of 10 miles were reported in the area of the airport at the time of the crash, according to CNN meteorologist Dave Hennen. 
 
 A spokesman for Bell, the mayor, confirmed late Wednesday morning that no buildings were hit and no one on the ground was injured. 
 
 Alabama Power cut electricity to about 140 buildings near the crash site as a precaution, utility spokesman Michael Sznajderman told CNN. 
 
 Witness Peter Torres, a Civil Air Patrol member who said he is a former airline mechanic, said he thought he heard what sounded like a backfire from the jet's engines as the plane passed overhead. He rushed to his window. 
 
 "I saw the flash," of an apparent explosion, he said, followed by a "boom" that shook his home. 
 
 Airport neighbor Sharon Wilson told WBRC the plane seemed lower than usual for flights into the airport and sounded like it was sputtering as it flew overhead. 
 
 "We heard this loud boom, like, jump up out of your bed," she told the station. 
 
 The plane was one of two flights UPS sends to Birmingham each day, company spokesman Mike Mangeot told CNN affiliate WBRC 
 
 "This incident is very unfortunate, and our thoughts and prayers are with those involved," UPS Airlines President Mitch Nichols said in a statement. 
 
 The plane that crashed Wednesday was built in 2003 and had 11,000 hours in the air spread over 6,800 flights, Airbus said in a news release. 
 
 Only UPS and FedEx fly the A300 in the United States, according to its manufacturer, Airbus. While it was once used for commercial passenger flights in the United States, the plane is now used only for cargo flights. UPS has 53 of the planes, according to Airbus. 
 
 Wednesday's crash is the second involving an A300 in the United States. In 2001, an American Airlines A300 crashed in the Belle Harbor neighborhood of Queens, in New York City, shortly after takeoff from John F. Kennedy International Airport. 
 
 All 260 people on board the plane, as well as five people on the ground, were killed. 
 
 The cause was ultimately attributed to pilot error, according to the NTSB, which said the first officer put excessive pressure on the rudder pedal, causing the separation of the vertical stabilizer. 
 
 The Birmingham crash is the second fatal accident involving a large jet in the United States since early July, when an Asiana Airlines Boeing 777 crashed on landing at San Francisco International Airport. Three people died. 
 
 Wednesday's crash comes nearly three years after UPS's last major incident, the crash of a Boeing 747 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, that killed two crew members. 
 
 Investigators traced the crash to a large fire in the cargo hold, which included a number of flammable lithium batteries, according to the country's General Civil Aviation Authority. 
 
 In 2006, a McDonnell Douglas DC-8 flown by UPS caught fire after landing at Philadelphia International Airport. Three crew members on the plane evacuated with minor injuries, according to NTSB records. Most of the cargo was destroyed. ||||| SAN FRANCISCO—The Asiana Airlines jet that crashed while landing at San Francisco International Airport, killing two Chinese teenagers and injuring 182 others, was descending at a dangerously slow speed and pilots apparently ran out of time to correct their approach, investigators said Sunday. 
 
 While stopping short of pinpointing pilot error as the likely cause of the fiery crash Saturday, National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Deborah Hersman's comments indicated investigators were focused primarily on why the cockpit crew allowed speed to decay to such an extent—and failed to take decisive action until the Boeing 777 was less than two seconds from impact. 
 
 The overnight flight from Seoul, with 307 people on board, including 16 crew members, hit a rocky sea wall, which sheared off its tail and landing gear, then slammed onto the runway, skidded, spun off the tarmac and erupted into flames. 
 
 Some passengers and witnesses said it looked as if the aircraft was too close to San Francisco Bay as it approached the runway. 
 
 "There was no feeling of anything wrong. No announcement. Then suddenly the plane went bam, bam, bam, bam," said Fawen Yan, a 48-year-old resident of the San Francisco Bay area who was sitting in economy class. 
 
 Remarkably, 123 passengers walked away without major injuries after exiting from emergency slides or leaping from gaping holes in the burned body of the plane. 
 
 China's Ministry of Education said 70 of those aboard were Chinese students or their teachers bound for U.S. precollege exchange programs. Among them, according to Asiana and Chinese officials, were Wang Linjia and Ye Mengyuan, who were killed in the crash. 
 
 In the first on-scene briefing by the NTSB, Ms. Hersman said a preliminary readout of the plane's flight-data and cockpit-voice recorders indicated that everything was normal—with no discussion of any onboard problems or concerns about the visual approach in good weather—until just seven seconds before impact. 
 
 At that point, she told reporters, the cockpit crew realized the plane was flying too slowly. "The speed was significantly below" the designated approach speed of roughly 160 miles per hour. 
 
 Three seconds later, a stall-warning activated in the cockpit, indicating the jet was losing aerodynamic lift, Ms. Hersman said. The crew didn't act to sharply increase engine thrust and try to climb away from the runway—conducting what is called a "go-around"—until 1.5 seconds before impact, she said. 
 
 The safety board believes "the engines appear to respond normally" to those commands, Ms. Hersman said, but by then it was too late to recover and portions of the lumbering jet slammed into the sea wall in front of the strip. 
 
 Ms. Hersman stressed that there was "no prior distress call" from the cockpit crew, which should have been able to rely on both ground-based and onboard landing aids to "establish an approach path" to safely reach the beginning of the runway. 
 
 Since the jet was on a visual approach in excellent weather, "you don't need instruments to get into the airport" safely," Ms. Hersman said. 
 
 In another significant disclosure, she said investigators "haven't identified any specific similarities" between Saturday's crash and the 2008 belly landing of another Boeing 777, operated by British Airways, on final approach to London's Heathrow International Airport. Investigators determined the British jet's engines were starved of fuel after chunks of ice blocked its fuel system. Nobody was injured, but the incident prompted changes to the 777's fuel systems. 
 
 Taken together, the preliminary data and Ms. Hersman's early description strongly suggest investigators are leaning away from mechanical or other system failures as the likely culprit. 
 
 A young co-pilot with significantly less experience than the captain of the aircraft was at the controls of the Boeing 777 when it crashed, according to people familiar with the situation. 
 
 The co-pilot was following a routine visual approach. None of the pilots radioed flight controllers about any onboard problems or declared an emergency, according to preliminary reports. 
 
 There were four pilots in the cockpit during the approach: the captain, co-pilot, a "relief pilot" and a fourth pilot, who may not have been on duty at the time. None of the pilots sustained any significant injuries, said people familiar with the situation. 
 
 After spending the night at the airport, the pilots checked into a San Francisco hotel Sunday. NTSB and Korean investigators tentatively scheduled interviews with the crew for Monday. 
 
 The last major U.S. air accident occurred in 2009, when a Bombardier Dash-8 Q400 flown by regional carrier Colgan Air crashed on approach to Buffalo Niagara International Airport, killing 50 people. 
 
 At a news conference in Seoul midafternoon Sunday, Asiana President Yoon Young-doo and a group of executives bowed in apology. Mr. Yoon called the accident "regretful." 
 
 The airline doesn't believe the accident was caused by an engine or mechanical problem, Mr. Yoon said, but added that all facts related to the investigation would be announced by the NTSB. Mr. Yoon also said the pilots on the flight were veterans with around 10,000 hours of flying time each. 
 
 One issue likely to come under review is the overall experience and hand-flying skills of the pilots, who couldn't rely on all elements of an airport instrument-landing system as a backstop. Since last month, pilots landing at the busy airport have been warned that one type of approach aid has been temporarily turned off while work is under way to improve the strip. Alternate ground-based aids were functioning as the Asiana jet descended with both engines on idle. 
 
 In the cockpit, according to investigators and industry safety experts, there also should have been alerts if a landing plane is descending too quickly or its trajectory threatens to take it short of the runway threshold. 
 
 If onboard flight-control and speed management systems were working normally as the safety board suggests, then "guidance was available to the crew" about an approach that was becoming dangerously slow and low, said safety consultant John Cox, a former airline pilot and accident investigator. 
 
 While visual approaches typically don't require any assistance from instrument-landing systems, safety experts said some airlines prefer to have pilots rely on them as an additional safeguard under nearly all circumstances. 
 
 Investigators also are expected to examine if pilot fatigue or flight-control problems contributed to the accident, and whether air-traffic control instructions may have been a factor. 
 
 The aircraft should have been flying roughly 100 or 150 feet above the airport's surface when its tires or tail apparently smacked into a stretch of the sea wall and the jet began breaking apart, experts said. Large pieces of the tail section and scrape marks were visible near the sea wall, and both left and right portions of the landing gear were found hundreds of yards away from the main wreckage. 
 
 Despite the Asiana jet losing both left and right landing gear, its rear bulkhead, portions of the wings and at least one engine, early reports indicated that the crew and airport emergency officials quickly evacuated most passengers, before an intense fire melted its aluminum skin and left a giant gash in the top half of the middle of the fuselage. 
 
 The Boeing 777 has had a nearly unblemished record, and previously was among a small group of long-range jets from Boeing and Airbus to have never sustained a fatality in passenger service. 
 
 —William Harless, Jason Dean, Cassandra Sweet, Jon Ostrower, Alastair Gale, Kanga Kong and Liyan Qi 
 
 contributed to this article. 
 
 Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A1 
 
 A version of this article appeared July 7, 2013, on page A1 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Pilot Error Examined in Crash.
– The pilots killed in this week's crash of a UPS plane in Birmingham got two automated warnings that they were coming in too low, says the NTSB. But they didn't have much time to process them—the first came 7 seconds before impact, reports the Wall Street Journal. Three seconds after the first "sink rate" alarm sounded in the cockpit, one of the two pilots said the runway was in sight, but the plane soon clipped power wires and slammed into a hill. A veteran pilot was at the controls: Cerea Beal had 8,600 flying hours with UPS—3,000 alone in A300 cargo planes, the type that went down—and before that served as a Maine helicopter pilot. But it's unclear whether he had ever landed at this particular runway before at Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport. Authorities say it's tricky because it's not equipped with the electronics for a full instrument landing and thus requires a visual approach. The crash occurred in the pre-dawn dark, while it was raining. "When I heard they were using Runway 18, it caught my attention because of that hill," a commercial pilot tells AP. "It's sad, but it didn't surprise me." A longer runway at the airport with a more modern landing system had been closed for maintenance. The co-pilot was previously identified as 37-year-old Shanda Fanning.