Hand Soap Fouls Hydraulics In Jets At Northwest Airlines

MINNEAPOLIS - Northwest Airlines says it was an honest mistake, not sabotage, that led ground workers in Atlanta to fill the hydraulic systems of two DC-9 jets with a mixture of hand soap and hydraulic fluid.

``It was certainly inadvertent and nothing suspicious,'' Northwest spokesman Bob Gibbons said yesterday.

Fifty flights were canceled around the country yesterday and 12 DC-9s were grounded for inspections of their hydraulic systems.

Northwest spokesman Doug Miller said today that all 12 planes were returned to service and no more cancellations were expected.

Miller said tests showed that two of the 12 grounded planes contained the mixture of hydraulic solution and hand-soap.

``Those two systems were flushed last night and replaced and those planes are back on the flying line as well,'' he said.

``I don't think there was great peril. We didn't suffer hydraulic problems as a result of it,'' he said.

But Gibbons said there could have been danger if the problem had not been detected by a mechanic who was servicing one of the planes and noticed that the fluid was an unusual color. The planes had been flying with the contaminated fluid no longer than 10 days, he said.

``If you kept it in there for a long time you might cause overheating of hydraulic pumps, but we didn't reach that condition,'' Gibbons said.