Jetliners Collide; 19 Die : 2 Northwest Planes Hit on Detroit Runway

Two jets taxiing for takeoff at the Detroit airport collided today, and one of them, a DC-9 with 39 passengers, burned to a blackened hulk. At least 19 people were killed, officials said.

The two Northwest Airlines planes were a DC-9 bound for Pittsburgh with 39 passengers and five crew members, and a Boeing 727-200 headed for Memphis with 146 passengers aboard, the airline said.

Alan Moncaster, vice president of communication for Northwest in Egan, Minn., confirmed the 19 fatalities.

An undetermined number of people were injured, some with severe burns, authorities said. All the severe injuries and deaths were believed to be among people on the Pittsburgh-bound plane, authorities said.

It was foggy at the time of the crash, and a winter storm had moved through the area earlier.

“Apparently the right wing of the 727 hit the aft section, the engine, of the DC-9, taking the engine off,” Moncaster said. “That resulted in the fire. That at this point is all we know.”

He said that the airport had been closed to inbound traffic because of fog but that they were allowing planes to take off.

Edward McNamara, Wayne County executive, said that there were at least some survivors on the DC-9 and that the only injuries on the Boeing were those that occurred during the evacuation of the plane.

Linda Kalinsky of Taylor Ambulance Co. said, “We were told that there were 50 or 60 injuries” including some burn victims.

After the accident, one of the planes could be seen surrounded by emergency vehicles, smoke pouring from what appeared to be a burned fuselage, tail blackened by fire. The fuselage appeared to be hollowed out as if by flames.

Romulus, where Detroit Metropolitan Airport is located, is about 10 miles west of Detroit.

It was the site of the second worst air crash in U.S. history, the Aug. 16, 1987, crash of a Northwest MD-80 on takeoff in which 156 people were killed.

Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board were to be dispatched to the scene.