[2] The flight crew consisted of Captain Gregg Lindamood (43) and First Officer James Howard Nunn (48), who had been working for the airline since 1973 and March 1987 respectively.

[6] USAir, which had recently purchased Pacific Southwest Airlines (PSA), terminated David A. Burke, a ticketing agent,[7] for petty theft of $70 from in-flight cocktail receipts; he had also been suspected of involvement with a narcotics ring.

Thomson was a passenger on the flight, which he regularly took for his daily commute from his workplace at LAX to his home in the San Francisco Bay Area.

[10] Using USAir employee credentials that he had not yet surrendered, Burke, armed with a Smith & Wesson Model 29 .44 Magnum revolver that he had borrowed from a coworker, was able to bypass the normal passenger security checkpoint at LAX.

[8][12][13]The exact sequence of events remains undetermined, though some details were able to be determined based on information from the aircraft's cockpit voice recorder (CVR).

As the aircraft, a four-engined British Aerospace BAe 146-200, cruised at 22,000 feet (6,700 m) over the central California coast, the CVR recorded either Captain Lindamood or First Officer Nunn asking air traffic control about reports of turbulence.

Fifteen seconds later, the CVR picked up the sound of the cockpit door either opening or closing, as well as increasing windscreen noise as the airplane pitched down and accelerated, indicating that either Burke pushed the control column down and forced the plane into a dive or the Captain or First Officer were slumped against it.

[15] The most probable victim was an off-duty pilot that was working for PSA, Douglas Arthur, who was likely trying to enter the cockpit in an attempt to get the plane out of the dive.

Based on the deformation of the titanium black box data recorder case, the aircraft experienced a deceleration of 5,000 g (49,000 m/s/s) when it hit the ground.

[19] Other evidence connected Burke to the flight, such as an answering machine message he had left for his estranged girlfriend, and part of his body that was recovered from the crash site.

[24] Also killed were three officials of Pacific Bell, prompting many large corporations to create policies to forbid travel by multiple executives on the same flight.

[25] In the "Garden of Hope" section of the Los Osos Valley Memorial Park, a granite and bronze marker honors the 42 victims of Flight 1771, and a number of the passengers and crew are buried in that cemetery.

[26] An episode of the Canadian documentary TV series Mayday: Air Disasters titled "I'm the Problem" ("Murder on Board" for UK broadcasts) on Smithsonian Channel, chronicled the events of Flight 1771 and its ensuing investigation.