Poor Pilot Procedure Ruled Cause of Crash Fatal to 156

The failure of two Northwest Airlines pilots to follow required checklist procedures before takeoff led to the crash last August at Detroit’s airport that killed 156 people, a federal report concluded Tuesday.

Northwest Flight 255 crashed after it failed to gain proper lift because the plane’s flaps had not been properly set, the National Transportation Safety Board found.

The board blamed poor cockpit discipline that included skipping critical parts of preflight checklists for the accident, in which 4-year-old Cecelia Cichan was the only survivor.

The “overwhelming evidence” was that the two pilots--Capt. John R. Maus, 57, of Las Vegas, and first officer David J. Dodds, 35, of Galena, Ill.--forgot to set the flaps and slats while taxiing before takeoff, the safety board said.

Union Attacks Report

The Air Line Pilots Assn., which represents 40,000 commercial pilots, including those at Northwest, attacked the report and accused the safety board of not going far enough to definitely rule out a possible mechanical problem with the flap system.

The union also said the board gave too little consideration to the failure of the McDonnell Douglas MD-80’s aural warning system that should have told the flight crew that flaps and slats were not properly extended to give the plane sufficient lift for takeoff.

“They (the board) fell short,” said pilot Steven Kramer, the union’s representative at Northwest Airlines. “The facts will eventually show there’s a gremlin running around in the MD-dash-80.”

Kramer alluded to the claim by the pilots union, one largely discounted by the safety board investigators and disputed by McDonnell Douglas Corp., that there may be inherent problems in the plane’s flap system and alarm system.

Although acknowledging that the accident might have been averted if the alarm had sounded, the safety board said the failure of the alarm because of an unexplained interruption in electrical power at a circuit breaker was only a contributing factor.

Safety Investigation

Nevertheless, the safety panel called on the Federal Aviation Administration to begin a safety investigation to determine the reliability of such breakers and determine if failures within the system can cause such a power shortage.

The thrust of the safety board’s findings, however, were aimed at the performance of the two pilots as they prepared for their flight from Detroit to Phoenix on the evening of Aug. 16, 1987.

As the plane was taxiing, the captain failed to maintain discipline in the cockpit and did not go through the preflight checklists, a formal proceeding that requires the co-pilot to orally acknowledge that each task is performed, the board said.

The cockpit voice recorder shows that the procedure was not followed and no mention of setting flaps as well as performing several other tasks could be found, the board said.