Crash Panel Studies Faulty Escape Door
Inadequately trained aircraft mechanics had serviced an escape hatch that failed to open on a DC-9 jetliner that collided on a runway with another Northwest Airlines plane, a supervisor said Friday.
Eight of the 44 people aboard the DC-9 died of smoke inhalation after it collided with a Boeing 727 at fog-shrouded Detroit Metropolitan Airport on Dec. 3, 1990. All 153 people aboard the 727 escaped serious injury.
The handle on the escape hatch door broke when someone apparently tried to open it, preventing several passengers and crew members from escaping the burning plane.
“You have to pull it straight up,” Northwest maintenance foreman Frank Valentz said of the door handle during a National Transportation Safety Board hearing. “If you pull it out or off center, it will break.”
Valentz said the mechanics who had worked on the Northwest DC-9 did not have formal training on the maintenance of DC-9s or airplane tail cones. The escape hatch was in the DC-9’s tail cone.
He said also that nine of the 11 mechanics who serviced the DC-9 were new on the job.
Charles Lewis, a Northwest inspector, testified that the escape hatch had initially failed a test but passed his inspection on Nov. 19.
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