Hole Found in Engine in Fatal Jet Crash : Compressor Blades Missing in the Same Area, Investigator Says

National Transportation Safety Board investigators, using a heavy-duty skip-loader, on Monday hauled away the scarred remains of a 4,000-pound engine of a Midwest Express jetliner as part of their probe into the plane’s crash here Friday.

The engine lost power in the seconds before the aircraft plunged into a forest preserve a half-mile beyond the runway, killing all 31 aboard. The twin-engine DC-9 had just taken off from Gen. Billy Mitchell airport.

Hole Four Inches Square

Jim Burnett, chairman of the safety board, said investigators had found a hole about four inches square near the top of the Pratt & Whitney JT8D engine directly over a point where some of the engine’s compressor blades were missing.

Burnett said the hole was apparently ripped in the engine casing while the plane was still in the air.

Compressor blade fragments from a JT8D engine were found Saturday and Sunday beside the runway, and Burnett said that, although those fragments had not been definitely linked to the doomed jetliner, “you can draw your own conclusions.”

Investigators continued to comb the crash site Monday, looking for possible evidence that the disintegrating engine might have hurled fragments that damaged the plane’s control systems.

But, by Monday night, investigators had not found evidence that any of those crucial control surfaces--flaps, rudder and ailerons--were damaged or torn off while the jet was still in the air.

Burnett said Monday that, judging from the position of the tear near the top of the engine, any compressor parts blown through it probably would have missed the plane’s fuselage.

An analysis of oral and written statements taken from about 80 witnesses to the takeoff and crash of the ill-fated flight showed a remarkable diversity in what people saw, Bob Benzon, head of the safety board’s interviewing team, said Monday night.

Although there was general agreement that the plane banked sharply to the right and crashed nose-down, some witnesses said it landed upside down, others said it landed right side up.

Some said they heard a popping noise as the plane lifted off the runway, but most said they heard no such noise. A few reported smoke or flame trailing from an engine, most did not.

Recorders Being Analyzed

Burnett said Monday that he could not provide information on whether further review of the tape from the plane’s cockpit voice recorder has disclosed the final comments of the pilot and other members of the cockpit crew.

The recorder was recovered from the charred debris on Saturday and flown to Washington for analysis.