Pilot Says He Missed ‘Hold Line’ on Foggy Taxiway Before Crash

The pilot of a DC-9 testified Thursday that he never saw a warning sign or the taxiway “hold line” advising him to stop before his plane strayed onto a runway and into the path of a Northwest Airlines jet in heavy fog last December.

The approaching Boeing 727, accelerating for a takeoff at more than 100 m.p.h., struck the DC-9 in a collision that killed eight and injured 21, all on board the DC-9.

The testimony of William Lovelace, 52, captain of Flight 1482, concluded the second day of National Transportation Safety Board hearings into the accident.

Lovelace agreed with his co-pilot James Schifferns, 43, who also testified, that they became disoriented at least twice in the fog while taxiing for a scheduled flight to Pittsburgh, Pa., with 44 on board.

Their first error was caught by air traffic controllers, who couldn’t see the plane in the fog, but figured out where it was from Schifferns’ reports of what taxiway signs he could read. The second time they were not so fortunate.

“Visibility was probably less than 150 feet, maybe less than 100 feet,” Lovelace testified. “It was pretty bad. . . . I did not see the (runway) sign. I did not see the hold line . . . I thought ‘I’m heading the right way.’ ”

Lovelace said that in his confusion, he made a wrong turn, taxiing onto the runway in front of the accelerating 727.

A split second later, Flight 299 struck the DC-9, ripping open its fuselage before spinning to a halt about 2,000 feet down the runway. The DC-9 burst into flames.

Lovelace said he found the cockpit door blocked by panicked passengers, so he climbed out a window, jumped to the ground and assisted in the evacuation.

Despite testimony by several witnesses that visibility frequently dipped to a few hundred feet or less around the time of the crash, air traffic controllers--making visual estimates using known reference points--said it never dipped below the one-quarter of a mile necessary for takeoff.

While cockpit voice recordings show that the co-pilot of the 727 warned as the takeoff run began that visibility was “definitely not a quarter mile,” the pilot, Robert J. Ouellette, 42, testified Tuesday that he considered it adequate--”barely adequate”--for takeoff.