Northwest Airlines Flight 255 , McDonnell Douglas MD-82, crashed shortly after takeoff from Detroit Metropolitan Airport on August 16, 1987, at about 8:46 pm. EDT (00:46 UTC 17th August), killing all six crew members and 148 of 149 passengers, along with two people on the ground. The only survivor was a 4-year-old girl, Cecelia Cichan, who suffered serious injuries. It was the second deadliest flight accident of the time in the United States. It was also the deadliest accident involving MD-82 until 2005, when West Caribbean Airways Flight 708 crashed in Venezuela, killing all 160 people inside.
Video Northwest Airlines Flight 255
Aircraft and crew
The aircraft involved in the crash were the McDonnell Douglas MD-82 twin engines (registration number N312RC ) derived from McDonnell Douglas DC-9 and part of the McDonnell Douglas MD-80 series of aircraft. Jet was manufactured in 1981, entered service with Republic Airlines and acquired by Northwest Airlines in a merger with the Republic in 1986. At the time of the accident, the aircraft was painted with a hybrid pattern between Northwest Airlines and Republic Airlines, featuring a blue striping Republic with the Northwest red and white tail.
Flight Captain 255 is John R. Maus, 57, from Las Vegas, Nevada. Maus is an experienced pilot who has worked for the airline for 31 years. Another pilot who flew with Maus described him as a "competent and capable pilot" who had a reputation for operating "by-books".
The first flight officer was David J. Dodds, 35, from Galena, Illinois. Dodds has recorded 8,044 flight hours during his career, and has worked for the airline for over eight years. In addition to one training report during his probation, all the airline captains with which Dodds has flown rated him as average or above average. Another pilot who recently flew with Dodds then described his performance in favorable conditions.
Maps Northwest Airlines Flight 255
Accident
The flight crew began Aug. 16, 1987, by operating the incident plane as Northwest Flight 750 from Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport, flying to MBS International Airport in Saginaw, Michigan. Departing from Saginaw, the crew operates the same aircraft as Flight 255, flying to John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana, California, with a mid-term stop at Detroit Wayne County Airport in Romulus, Michigan (outside Detroit, Michigan), and Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix, Arizona. In addition to the small problems that slid into the arrival gate, the flight from Saginaw to Detroit did not happen.
Around 20:32 EDT, Flight 255 left the gate in Detroit with 149 passengers and six crew members. Delivery packages provided by airlines include performance data on take-off based on 21L or 21R runways. However, flights are cleared for takeoff at 3C Detroit runway, the shortest runway available.
Flight 255 made the rolls take off on the 3C Detroit runway at around 20:44 pm, with Maus in control. The aircraft lifted the runway at 170 knots (195 mph, 315 km/h), and began rolling from side to side below 50 feet (15 m) above the ground. The MD-82 climb rate was greatly reduced as a result of the non-extended flap, and about 2.760 feet (840 m) past the end of the 3C runway, the left wing of the plane hit a lamppost in many airport rental cars. The impact left the wings begin to disintegrate and burn. The plane rolled 90 degrees to the left, striking the roof of the Avis car rental building. The plane (now out of control) crashes overturned onto Middlebelt Road and attacks the vehicle north of its intersection with Wick Road, killing two people on the ground in the car. It then broke, with the plane sliding across the road, crumbling and burning when it hit a flyover and a flyover on Interstate east 94 (I-94).
Passenger
The crew and all but one passenger were killed in the crash.
Seven passengers who died live in Orange County, California, and four additional people have Orange County as their destination.
One of the passengers in Northwest 255 is Nick Vanos, an NBA center for the Phoenix Suns. Two riders near Middlebelt Road also died and five people on the field were wounded, one serious. The corpse was transferred to the Northwest hangar at the airport, which served as a temporary morgue.
The only survivor of the accident was a four-year-old Cecelia Cichan (who later married a man with Crocker's last name) from Tempe, Arizona. Romuli firefighter found him still tied in his seat (face down) covered in blood and soot. She was found several feet from her mother's body, Paula Cichan, her father Michael and her six-year-old brother, David. Cecelia suffered severe burns and fractures to her skull, collarbone, and left leg. He arrived at the hospital initially in critical condition, but later managed to make a full recovery. After the accident, Cecelia lives with his mother's aunt and uncle (who protect him from public attention) in Birmingham, Alabama.
Aftermath
Investigation
The National Transportation Safety Agency conducted an investigation into the accident.
The cockpit voice recorder (CVR) provides evidence of the negligence of the cabin crew from the taxi checklist. Although the kiosk alert was notified, the researchers determined from the CVR that the aural lift warning was not announced by the warning system. NTSB can not determine the cause of power failure in Central Aural Warning System (CAWS):
The failure of the takeoff alert system is caused by the loss of 28V dc input. electric power between dc left plane. bus and CAWS units. The interruption of the input power to CAWS occurs in the P-40 circuit breaker. Interrupt mode can not be determined.
NTSB also can not determine whether the circuit breaker has tripped, accidentally opened, or if an electric current fails to flow through the breaker to CAWS while the breaker is closed:
Because the P-40 circuit breaker is badly damaged during an accident, it is impossible for the Safety Council to determine its pre-impact condition in a positive manner. There are three possible conditions that will cause power to interrupt the P-40 circuit breaker: the circuit breaker is accidentally opened by the crew or maintenance personnel, the circuit breaker tripped because of the temporary excess and the crew did not detect the open circuit breaker, or the circuit breaker does not allow the current to flow to the CAWS power supply and not to announce the condition by tripping.
Conclusion NTSB
NTSB published its final report on May 10, 1988, which concluded that the accident was caused by a pilot error:
The National Transportation Safety Council determined that the probable cause of the accident was a flightcrew failure to use the taxi checklist to ensure that flaps and blades were extended for take-off. Contribute to the accident was the absence of electricity to the aircraft's take-off warning system which thus did not warn flightcrew that the aircraft was not properly configured for take-off. The reason for the absence of electric power can not be determined.
Similar events
In 2008, Spanair Flight 5022 crashed near Adolfo SuÃÆ'¡rez Airport Madrid-Barajas because of the incorrect flap arrangements made by the negligence of the taxi checklist and the failure of the warning system. In the accident, involving the same type of aircraft as Flight 255, 154 people were killed.
Memorials
To commemorate the victims, a black granite monument was erected in 1994; he stood (surrounded by blue fir trees) at the top of a hill on Middlebelt Street and I-94, where the accident occurred. The monument has a dove with a ribbon in its beak, "Their soul is still alive in..."; below are the names of those killed in the crash. Another monument to the victims (many of whom are from the Phoenix area) is standing next to Phoenix City Hall.
On August 16, 2007, the twentieth anniversary of the accident, a memorial service was held at the site. For some people affected by the incident, it was their first return to the site since the accident.
After the Northwest crash followed the standard procedure; airlines no longer use 255 as flight numbers. From late 1987 until the company joined Delta Air Lines in early 2010, the last nonstop flight from Detroit to Phoenix was numbered back as Flight 261. Delta resumed 255 by Northwest; in 2014, there is no Delta 255 flight.
On August 16, 2012 (25th anniversary of the accident), a warning service was again held at the crash site. Families and friends of the victims and others from across the Detroit Metro (including local media) were present, and a local priest read each victim's name aloud. Many participants have seen recent local media footage of Cecelia Cichan Crocker (the only survivor), and few know their whereabouts or conditions after the accident.
On August 16, 2017 (30th anniversary of the accident), another warning service was once again held at the crash site. This time, Cecilia Cichan Crocker is present. He was interviewed by one of the local Detroit news stations and revealed that he and his family originally booked on different flights, but were converted to a 255 flight at the last minute.
Media coverage
The disaster story is featured in the ninth season episode of the Canadian/National Geographic series/May Day (known as Air Emergency) or Air Disasters in the US < i> Mayday in Ireland and Air Crash Investigation in the UK and around the world). This episode is entitled "Worrying Silence" (broadcast in some countries as "Cockpit Chaos"). It explores the events surrounding the accident and its investigations, with interviews of rescue workers, investigators, and other MD-80 pilots.
Cecelia Cichan Crocker appeared in the 2013 Sole Survivor documentary about four survivors of a plane crash. He did not speak publicly about the accident until 2013, when the documentary was released. Crocker has an airplane tattoo on his wrist as a warning and says he is not afraid to fly.
Around the weekend of NASCAR August near Michigan International Speedway, Tom Higgins posted his memories of Northwest 255. Higgins, then from The Charlotte Observer, and fellow NASCAR beat journalists Steve Waid and Gary McCredie (from Grand National Scene) arrived at a hotel near Detroit Metropolitan Airport awaiting Monday morning flight to Charlotte, North Carolina, after completing the 400-hour Champion Spark Plug later that afternoon, and witnessed a plane crash.
See also
- British European Airways Flight 548
- Delta Air Lines 1141 Flight
- LAPA Flight 3142
- List of accidents and incidents involving commercial aircraft
- List of people who survived the accident or flight incident
- Lufthansa 540 Flight
- Flight of Mandala Airlines 91
- Spanair Flight 5022
References
External links
- Website Northwest Flight 255 Memorial
- Pre-crash N312RC photo at Airliners.net
Source of the article : Wikipedia
0 Comments