Another Jet Catches Fire at Detroit as Probe Continues : Aviation: Blaze on the wing of a Northwest plane is put out quickly and no one is injured. The cause of Monday’s fatal collision has still to be pinpointed.

As federal investigators continued to study Monday’s fatal runway collision of two passenger jets, a small fire erupted on the wing of another Northwest Airlines jetliner Wednesday morning at Detroit’s Metropolitan Airport. The blaze was quickly extinguished and there were no injuries.

The National Transportation Safety Board, which is conducting the investigation of the collision that occurred in dense fog and killed eight persons and injured 21, said it was still too early to pinpoint the cause of Monday’s accident.

However, evidence indicates that one of the planes got lost in the fog and strayed into the path of the other, which was speeding down a runway on a takeoff run.

The new incident Wednesday occurred at about 6 a.m. as Northwest Flight 582, a Boeing 727 heading from Seattle to Newark, N.J., was taxiing toward a terminal gate during an interim stop here.

Northwest spokeswoman Christie Clapp said residual fuel in an auxiliary power unit apparently ignited, starting a blaze in the plane’s right wing.

Ground crews snuffed out the flames at the gate, and Wayne County fire crews lathered the plane with foam to prevent any flare-ups.

The 69 passengers and 6 crew members used normal exits to leave the plane.

Wednesday’s incident occurred less than 48 hours after Northwest Flight 1482, a DC-9 bound for Pittsburgh, Pa., with 40 passengers and a crew of 4, lost its way while taxiing across the airport in the fog.

Unofficial transcripts of conversations between the cockpit crews and air traffic controllers show that when the tower asked the DC-9 where it was, the co-pilot said he wasn’t sure, but it “looks like we’re on (Runway) 21-Center.”

The controller then said to “exit the runway immediately, sir.”

The pilot, William Lovelace, told investigators he never heard his co-pilot, James Schifferns, report that they had strayed onto the runway.

Lovelace, who was steering the aircraft, said that had he realized that, he would have “gone for the weeds” immediately.

Controllers in the airport tower said that when they heard Schifferns’ report that he might be on the active runway, the tower supervisor shouted an order to “Stop all aircraft!”

But the controller handling the runway traffic said it was too late--that moments earlier he had cleared Northwest Flight 299, a Boeing 727 heading for Memphis with 153 aboard, to begin its takeoff run.

Seconds later, the two planes collided.

The 727 sustained little damage, and none of those aboard were injured. But the DC-9 caught fire, and the Wayne County coroner’s office said Wednesday that the eight who died succumbed to burns, impact injuries and toxic fumes from the inferno that swept through the cabin of the plane.

Seven of the dead were passengers:

--Mary Ellen Blankenship, 37, a mother of two from Windsor, Ont., who was the general manager of information systems for the H. J. Heinz Co. of Canada, Ltd.

--Mauro Bottigliome, 23, a native of Caracas, Venezuela, who had been working in Pittsburgh.

--Kingsley A. Brown, 30, of Pittsburgh, where he served as a management consultant for McKinsey & Co.

--John Burke, 30, of Houston, Tex.

--Thomas Kopriva, 50, of Germantown, Tenn.

--Daniel Loughnane, 44, of Memphis.

--Fred Zitto, 59, of Germantown.

The eighth fatality was Heidi Joost, 43, of Dearborn, Mich., who had served as a flight attendant with Northwest for 22 years.

John Lauber, the NTSB member heading the investigation of Monday’s accident, said runway and taxiway lights and identifying signs were being studied Wednesday to determine if they might have contributed to the confusion of the DC-9 crew. Records indicate that pilots have complained of confusion in the past.

Metropolitan Airport is not equipped with ground radar, and controllers must rely on pilots’ position reports when visibility is too restricted to see aircraft on the ground. That was the case on Monday.

Lauber said reports indicate the fog conditions were fluctuating rapidly at the time of Monday’s accident, but National Weather Service records indicate that visibility was one-fourth of a mile--the minimum required for takeoffs--both immediately before and after the collision.

Northwest says all the crew members in Monday’s accident were highly competent and fully qualified, but questions have been raised as to whether the DC-9 crew was adequately experienced--individually or in tandem--to handle Monday’s difficult weather conditions at Metropolitan Airport.

Lovelace, 52, the captain, has 20,000 hours of experience as a pilot. However, Monday’s flight was only the 13th time he had been at the controls of a Northwest jet since returning from a five-year medical leave for kidney stones.

Co-pilot Schifferns, 43, had only 150 hours’ experience as a Northwest pilot after a 20-year career as an Air Force pilot and flight instructor.