Jets Collide on Detroit Runway; 8 Die, 21 Hurt

Two Northwest Airlines jets collided on a fog-shrouded runway at Detroit Metropolitan Airport Monday as one accelerated for takeoff, igniting a cabin fire in the second plane that killed eight passengers and injured 21 others.

All of the casualties were aboard the Pittsburgh-bound DC-9, which burst into flames after it was clipped by a Boeing 727 accelerating for liftoff on its flight to Memphis, Tenn., authorities said.

Passengers from the DC-9 used emergency chutes or jumped from the wing, and took refuge on a slush-covered runway infield as flames quickly ravaged the cabin, stripping off its roof and blackening the entire upper length of the plane.

The collision, which came just two weeks before the airline industry’s peak holiday travel season, occured near the site of the second-worst air crash in U.S. history. On Aug. 16, 1987, a Northwest MD-80 crashed on takeoff, killing 154 people on board and two on the ground. A 4-year-old girl was the only survivor of that crash.

A Northwest spokesman said that the collision occurred shortly after 1:45 p.m. near Concourse A of the airport, in suburban Romulus, about 10 miles west of Detroit. The DC-9 was carrying 39 passengers and four crew members, while the 727 had 146 passengers and a 10-member crew aboard.

There were early reports that as many as 19 people had died, trapped in their seats in the smoldering DC-9. But county officials later scaled back fatality reports when they learned that 11 passengers unaccounted for earlier had escaped the flames.

Both Northwest officials and federal aviation authorities indicated that pilot confusion and thick fog and slush-slickened runways may have played roles in the collision.

Northwest officials said that the right wing of the 727, almost airborne as it roared down one runway at nearly 150 m.p.h., struck the right fuselage of the DC-9, which had clearance to fly to Pittsburgh and was taxiing toward another runway.

The 727’s wing sliced through the DC-9 just below cabin level and severed at least one of its engines, igniting the fire, Northwest officials said. The collision, they added, snapped off at least 10 feet of the 727’s wing.

“The fog made visibility difficult,” said Northwest spokesman Robert Gibbons. The spokesman said that the collision “appeared to have been head-on--based on the right wing striking the right fuselage.”

The two planes were on the same 8,500-foot runway, heading almost directly for each other when they collided, said Robert Braun, the county’s director of airports. Although the 727 was cleared for takeoff on that runway, there was uncertainty over whether the DC-9 also had permission to be there.

Northwest officials said the DC-9 was to have left on an adjacent runway, but Braun said the plane was due to leave on the runway used by the 727.

Adding to the confusion, a spokesman for the National Air Traffic Controllers Assn. said that early reports from the scene indicated that “the DC-9 pilot became lost on the runways.”

The controllers’ spokesman, Tom Dresden, said that “the (DC-9) pilot gave the ground controller erroneous information about his position and turned right onto the runway where the 727 was taxiing. The DC-9 pilot discovered at the very last moment where he was, and so the ground controller told him to immediately get off that runway, but it was too late.”

Northwest officials acknowledged that visibility was hampered by the fog--preventing pilots from seeing more than a quarter-mile in front of them, according to National Weather Service accounts. A snowstorm had passed through the Detroit area earlier in the day, but by midday, precipitation had stopped and temperatures rose above the freezing point, leaving the airport draped in fog.

Wayne County Executive Edward McNamara said that the weather was “a very serious factor” in the collision.

The fog was so thick, he said, that fire trucks responding to the crash initially drove right past the burning DC-9.

Passengers aboard both planes said they heard a thunderous noise as the two planes collided. John H. Izzo, 41, an engineer who was dozing aboard the DC-9 en route from South Bend, Ind., to Pittsburgh, thought that the engine had blown up.

“I felt a thud and I heard a blast,” said Izzo, who had been sitting in the sixth row of the plane. “I felt shrapnel fly past my head. I looked to my right and saw flames and heard people screaming. People panicked and were running for the front of the plane.”

On his way to the front of the cabin, Izzo said, he saw at least two passengers fatally burned by the fast-spreading fire. “I saw people whose fingertips were melted off,” he said.

Izzo said he and several other passengers opened the emergency door above the left wing. The passengers then began tumbling out onto the pavement. Izzo managed the fall without injury. He said he turned back to the plane to help others who had injured themselves and were sprawled in the slush.

After the crash, Northwest officials said that only one of the plane’s two emergency chutes opened. Kevin Whelan, an airline spokesman, said that a chute on the right side of the plane--where the fire started--failed to open, but could not give a reason.

Fearing further explosions, Izzo and an off-duty stewardess, Kay Bolin, helped injured DC-9 passengers get away from the burning wreckage. “We kept hearing hissing sounds, so we kept pulling them back farther from the plane,” Izzo said.

On the 727, filled to capacity with passengers, Robert Karp, 60, a marketing professor at Jackson State University in Jackson, Miss., heard a noise that sounded “like we had a tire blown out.” Several seconds later, over the plane’s loudspeaker, the pilot advised “everybody to stay in their seats. Everything is OK.”

But a private pilot sitting across the aisle from him, Karp said, looked out the window and shouted: “Geez, we hit another plane. Half our left wing is gone! Jet fuel is just pouring out!”

Rod Nacker of Sterling Heights, Mich., another passenger aboard the 727, said that it appeared that the 727’s pilot “didn’t even see the other plane. The other plane was in a lot worse condition than ours. We were losing a lot of aviation fuel. They foamed both planes. We couldn’t see out the windows.”

Despite their anxiety, passengers waited in the cabin another 15 to 20 minutes, Karp said, while emergency vehicles sprayed foam on the fuel. They then exited from the rear of the plane, descending on portable steps.

He complimented the crew for keeping their plane under control. “It was very calm,” Karp said. “I don’t think we realized how lucky we were until we got off the plane and saw the other aircraft. We saw smoke billowing up and we saw the midsection with the top blown off,” he said.

For nearly an hour after the accident, smoke continued to pour from the DC-9’s fuselage and from a jagged slit where the roof of the cabin had been. By dusk, as the already overcast sky grew dark, emergency workers wheeled in a mammoth bank of portable lights to provide illumination for firefighters, investigators, paramedics and medical examiners.

The airport was closed for about two hours after the accident. The airport had already been closed to inbound traffic when the crash occurred, aviation officials said.

Driving in heavy rain squalls, ambulances ferried at least 22 passengers to three hospitals in Detroit and Ann Arbor. Most of the deaths and injuries appeared to have been caused by fire and toxic fumes, authorities said.

National Transportation Safety Board investigators said they will analyze tape recordings of cockpit conversations as well as all communications between federal air traffic controllers in the tower and planes on the ground and in the air around the airport.

“Planes are not supposed to move on the ground unless air traffic controllers say they can,” said NTSB spokesman Ted Lopatkiewicz. “The tower has direct control.”

Flights to Detroit from Los Angeles International Airport were halted for about two hours Monday afternoon until aviation officials determined that they could again proceed safely.

Researcher Amy Harmon in Detroit also contributed to this story.

BACKGROUND

Last October, the National Transportation Safety Board placed the issue of ground-based collisions high on its list of “most wanted” safety improvements, urging quick steps to prevent such collisions. Aviation’s worst disaster was just such an accident. Two Boeing 747s, one operated by Pan Am and the other by the Dutch airline KLM, collided in fog on a runway at Tenerife in the Canary Islands in 1977, killing 581 people.