CREW HEARD LOUD SOUNDS BEFORE CRASH PUBLIC MEMORIAL HELD AS LOCAL COMMUNITY MOURNS.

Byline: Jason Kandel Staff Writer

PORT HUENEME - Moments before Alaska Airlines Flight 261 crashed, the crew heard two loud sounds from the tail section, officials said Friday, raising the possibility that something beyond the stabilizer trim went wrong.

Investigators said the crew had lost control of the plane for about 90 seconds and then, shortly after recovering control, a flight attendant is heard on the cockpit voice recorder telling the pilots she heard a loud noise from the rear of the jet.

Slightly more than a minute after the second loud sound, the jetliner lost radio contact and dove nose-first into the ocean some nine miles off Point Mugu, according to a preliminary analysis of the cockpit voice recorder released Friday.

As National Transportation Safety Board investigators worked to reconstruct the last minutes of Flight 261, families and friends of the 88 crew members and passengers prepared for a final, private memorial today at Pepperdine University in Malibu.

On Friday, a group of American Indians conducted a ``cleansing ceremony'' on Point Mugu, and a public memorial held at St. Anthony's Catholic Church in Oxnard drew 400 people.

Speaking to those in the church, Oxnard fire Chaplain Dan Green praised the local community.

``You have helped families that you have never met, or probably never will meet, tenderly and compassionately. You took a hold of their belongings and possessions,'' Green said. ``You have even held in your hands the remains of their loved ones. I have watched and I have been touched.''

``Because of this tragedy so close to our shores, it is our family by the providence of geography,'' St. Anthony's pastor George Sullivan said.

The findings released Friday hinted at the terrifying events before the plane flipped over and corkscrewed into water more than 700 feet deep. Investigators continue to pore over two hours and 45 minutes of recordings, but released summaries Friday of the crew's last moments inside the cabin of Flight 261.

``About 12 minutes before the end of the recording, there was an apparent loss of vertical control,'' said John Hammerschmidt, a NTSB investigator.

He said the crew then recovered control of the plane within 90 seconds. ``After the recovery, a flight attendant advised the crew that she heard a loud noise coming from the rear of the plane. The crew acknowledged that they heard it too.''

A second loud noise was heard on the cockpit recorder, after which the plane appears to go out of control, Hammerschmidt said.

``No stall warning was heard during this event,'' he said. ``We will not try to interpret any of this information at this point.''

Investigators also said the flight voice recorder detailed conversations between the doomed flight crew and maintenance workers in Seattle regarding the plane's stabilizer.

The NTSB is now focused on examining that stabilizer.

U.S. Navy vessels continue mapping the wreckage. Hammerschmidt described the underwater debris field as the size of a football field.

He said the tail structure was broken into multiple pieces between three feet and six feet. The largest piece seen thus far was a section of fuselage that is five windows long - about 10 feet long. A front section of the horizontal stabilizer measuring about five feet also was spotted in the debris field.

Hammerschmidt said workers will continue to look for debris and bodies using side-scan sonar equipment. He said investigators have expanded their search perimeter a mile beyond the debris field.

Investigators continued to interview air traffic controllers at Palmdale and Los Angeles International airports. NTSB officials have interviewed a witness who was 16 miles from the crash site.

More than a dozen American Indians gathered near Point Mugu on Friday for a ceremony in honor of victims including Morris Thompson, a prominent American Indian leader in Alaska who died in the crash. They burned sage to cleanse spirits and recited tribal chants.

Meanwhile, at the memorial, Al Bautista of Oxnard said he came ``to pay tribute to the 88 people whose souls went down into the ocean.

``Hopefully, the services tonight will help heal the hurting that we have been feeling since Monday.''

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Photo: A group of American Indians gathers near Point Mugu during a prayer service Friday.

Andy Holzman/Staff Photographer