Airplane collision at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport in 1990

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Northwest Airlines aircraft collision in 1990
Northwest Airlines DC-9-14; N8903E, May 1995 (5864486591) .jpg

An identically constructed Douglas DC-9-14 from the NWA
Accident summary
Accident type Collision on the ground
place Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport , Michigan , United StatesUnited StatesUnited States 
date 3rd December 1990
Fatalities 8th
Injured 10
1. Aircraft
Aircraft type United StatesUnited States Douglas DC-9-14
operator United StatesUnited States Northwest Airlines
Mark United StatesUnited States N3313L
Departure airport Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport , Michigan , United StatesUnited StatesUnited States 
Destination airport Pittsburgh International Airport , United StatesUnited StatesUnited States 
Passengers 40
crew 4th
Survivors 36
2. Aircraft
Aircraft type United StatesUnited States Boeing 727-251 Adv.
operator United StatesUnited States Northwest Airlines
Mark United StatesUnited States N278US
Departure airport Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport , Michigan , United StatesUnited StatesUnited States 
Stopover Memphis International Airport , Tennessee , United StatesUnited StatesUnited States 
Passengers 146
crew 8th
Survivors 154
Lists of aviation accidents

The aircraft collision of Northwest Airlines in 1990 occurred on December 3, 1990, when in dense fog on the Detroit Metropolitan Airport in Detroit a takeoff Boeing 727-251 Adv. That the Northwest Airlines Flight 299 (Flight number: NW299 ) to Memphis International Airport , crashed into a Douglas DC-9-14 that was to be flying Northwest Airlines Flight 1482 (flight number: NW1482 ) to Pittsburgh International Airport and the crew of the aircraft accidentally rolled onto the Boeing runway in the fog was. Eight people on board the DC-9 were killed and ten others injured in the accident. All other people involved survived the incident unharmed.

First airplane

Douglas DC-9-14, flight 1482

The first aircraft involved was a 24-year-old Douglas DC-9-14 , which was finally assembled at the McDonnell Douglas plant in Long Beach , California and which was rolled out on November 22, 1966. The machine with factory number 45708 was the 77th fully assembled machine of this type. The delivery to the first operator Delta Air Lines followed on December 30th of the same year, the DC-9 went into operation there with the fleet number 281 and the aircraft registration N3313L , which it kept until the end. On August 30, 1973, the machine was taken over by Southern Airways , where it was given the fleet number 981 . After this airline was merged with North Central Airlines to form Republic Airlines , the machine was transferred to the new owner on July 1, 1979, where it received the new fleet number 181 . Finally, Northwest Airlines took over Republic Airlines and let them go in. The machine was eventually transferred to the Northwest Airlines fleet with the new fleet number 9181 . The twin- engined , narrow -body aircraft was equipped with two Pratt & Whitney JT8D-7B engines. At the time of the accident, the DC-9 had completed 62,253 flight hours, which accounted for 88,255 take-offs and landings.

Passengers and crew

There was a four-person crew on board the DC-9, consisting of a flight captain, a first officer and two flight attendants. Flight NW1482 from Detroit to Pittsburgh had 40 passengers that day. The passengers also included a flight attendant from Northwest Airlines who was not on active duty and who later assisted with the evacuation of the machine.

The 52-year-old DC-9 captain William "Bill" Lovelace was first hired by Pacific Air Lines on August 1, 1966 . He initially flew in the position of first officer with machines of the type Fokker F-27 . Over the course of his career, he was promoted to captain, review captain, and eventually senior review captain. After his airline was merged with West Coast Airlines and Bonanza Air Lines to AirWest on April 17, 1968 , the captain continued to fly for this airline, which was renamed Hughes Airwest in 1970 . On December 27, 1978, the pilot was licensed to captain the Douglas DC-9. On October 1, 1980, Hughes Airwest was taken over by Republic Airlines , whose workforce included the captain from then on. In February 1984, the pilot had to interrupt his piloting career for the time being due to health problems caused by kidney stones . From October 1, 1986 Republic Airlines was in turn in the Northwest Airlines, for which the captain flew after a medical certification from October 11, 1990. By the time of the accident, the pilot of the DC-9 had flown a total of 23,000 flight hours, of which he had completed 4000 in cockpits of Douglas DC-9 machines.

The 43-year-old first officer of the DC-9, James "Jim" Schiffers was a United States Air Force pilot until October 31, 1989 . During this time he had been first officer, master and test captain on board the Boeing B-52 . He had also been a test captain on board Northrop T-38 Talon fighter jets . He had 4685 hours of flight experience, 185 hours of which he had flown in the cockpits of Douglas DC-9 aircraft operated by Northwest Airlines, with which he had been employed since May 25, 1990.

The senior flight attendant had been employed by Northwest Airlines since June 17, 1988. She was assigned an older colleague who was hired on March 15, 1968 by North Central Airlines, which later merged with Republic Airlines, which in turn eventually merged with Northwest Airlines. The additional flight attendant present as a passenger in the machine had been employed by Northwest Airlines since March 10, 1990.

Second plane

The involved Boeing 727-251 Adv. After its repair in December 1993

Boeing 727-251 Adv., Flight 299

The second machine involved was a Boeing 727-251 Adv., Which was 15 years and one month old at the time of the accident. The machine was the work of Boeing on the Boeing Field in the state of Washington finally assembled and completed on November 7, 1975 its first flight before it was delivered new eleven days later at the Northwest Airlines. The aircraft had the factory number 21157 , it was the 1173. Boeing 727 from ongoing production. The machine was registered with the aircraft registration N278US and had the fleet number 2278 . The three - engine narrow -body aircraft was equipped with three Pratt & Whitney JT8D-15A engines. By the time of the accident, the machine had completed a total of 37,310 operating hours, which accounted for 27,933 take-offs and landings.

Passengers and crew

There was an eight-person crew on board the Boeing 727, consisting of a flight captain, a first officer, a second officer (flight engineer) and five flight attendants. Flight NW299 from Detroit to Memphis had taken 146 passengers that day.

The 42-year-old captain of the Boeing 727, Robert "Bob" Ouellette flew for Northwest Airlines since May 9, 1983. He had 10,400 hours of flight experience, 5400 of which he had completed in the cockpit of the Boeing 727.

37-year-old First Officer William "Bill" Hagedorn had been employed by Northwest Airlines since September 1985. His cumulative flight experience was 5400 hours, of which he had completed 2350 in the cockpit of the Boeing 727.

Second Officer (Flight Engineer) Darren Owen, 31, joined Northwest Airlines in July 1989. Of his 3,300 hours of flight experience, he had 900 hours in the cockpit of the Boeing 727.

the accident

The badly damaged Boeing 727
The destroyed Douglas DC-9

On December 3, 1990, there was heavy fog in the vicinity of Detroit Airport. The DC-9 crew was cleared to taxi to runway 03C, but missed the junction to runway Oscar 6 and instead ended up on the outer runway. In order to correct their mistake, the pilots should have rolled to the right onto the X-Ray runway ; instead, at 1:45 p.m., they got onto runway 03C behind it. When they recognized the error, they stopped the machine on the left edge in its taxiing direction and contacted the air traffic control, which gave them the instruction to leave the runway immediately. Five seconds later they met the Boeing 727 taking off. The right wing of the Boeing slashed the DC-9 just below the cabin window lengthways from the cockpit to the end of the cabin and sheared off its right engine.

After the collision

The pilots of the Boeing 727 were able to stop their machine on the remaining length of the runway, all of their occupants were uninjured. The kerosene escaping in the stern of the DC-9 caught fire and an immediate evacuation was initiated. Captain Lovelace left his aircraft through the left sliding window in the cockpit. Of the remaining 35 survivors, 18 people left the aircraft via the emergency exit above the left wing, 13 via the front left cabin door and four jumped out through the right front door opening.

Victim

All the passengers who sat in the window seats on the right were either dead or seriously injured. The flight attendant who had been sitting on the rear jump seat and a passenger in the stern died from inhaling fire gases in the rear of the aircraft.

Ten of the surviving passengers were seriously injured, while 23 suffered no or only minor injuries. The three surviving crew members were also slightly or uninjured.

Accident investigation

The accident investigation revealed poor crew resource management in the cockpit of the DC-9. The composition of the cockpit crew was unfavorable, as both pilots had little knowledge of the structure of Detroit Airport. The captain had only returned to work as a pilot for a few weeks after a six-year health-related break, and the first officer had only been flying for Northwest Airlines for six months. When listening to the recordings of the cockpit voice recorder , the investigators came to the conclusion that the master had relied on the first officer to navigate him to the runway, as he erroneously assumed that he was particularly familiar with the airport. The roles of the pilots in the cockpit were reversed under these circumstances, since the captain was acting as a learner.

When she found out about the DC-9 on the runway, taxi control stopped all of the taxiing machines at the airport. The crew of the Boeing 727 had already changed the radio frequency at this point, so that they could no longer receive this instruction.

The tower controller on duty testified that he had not warned the crew of the Boeing 727, believing that the aircraft had already taken off when the Douglas DC-9 rolled onto its runway. He had given the go-ahead a minute earlier. It turned out that the Boeing pilots delayed the take-off because they only went through the take-off checklist after the take-off clearance. In the meantime the fog over the runway had become thicker and visibility had deteriorated so much that the prescribed quarter mile of visibility was no longer possible. The crew of the Boeing 727 had nevertheless instructed the take-off.

It was also found that the signage and markings at Detroit Airport were inadequate and misleading. There were no warning lights and the signs pointing to the turn-off to taxiway Oscar 4 were placed so that they could only be seen after the machine had rolled past the exit.

Whereabouts of the machines

The DC-9 had to be written off as a total loss. It was brought to Airforce Plant 31 , Willow Run , in Ypsilanti, Michigan , and scrapped there in April 1995. The badly damaged right wing of the Boeing 727 was repaired and the machine remained in the Northwest Airlines fleet until 1995. The machine was then converted into a freighter and taken over on November 7, 1995 by Kitty Hawk Aircargo , which had it in operation until it was scrapped in 2011. The machine completed its last flight on November 4, 2011 and was deleted from the registration register on December 9, 2011.

media

The Canadian documentary series Mayday - Alarm im Cockpit deals with this accident in the second episode of the twentieth season under the title "Horrible Collision".

See also

swell

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ https://www.fernsehserien.de/mayday-cdn/haben/20x02-entsetzliche-kollision-1349256

Coordinates: 42 ° 12 ′ 45 "  N , 83 ° 21 ′ 12"  W.