Detroit Crash Points To Growing Fears Of Runway Collisions

Federal safety experts warn that runway collisions such as the one that killed at least eight people at Detroit yesterday are a rising danger at increasingly congested U.S. airports.

``Runway incursions'' - when an airplane taxis onto a runway without authorization - peaked nationwide in 1987, when 382 were recorded. The number declined sharply after that, but there has been a new surge. By one estimate, the total will hit nearly 250 by year's end.

``We're worried so much about mid-air collisions that we're not paying that much attention to ground collisions,'' asserted C.O. Miller, an aviation-safety consult and former federal aviation investigator.

The National Transportation Safety Board, frustrated that many of its key accident-prevention recommendations have never been implemented, voted in October to give the runway-collision issue added urgency by placing it high on its list of ``most wanted'' safety improvements. The numbers ``are of increasing concern to us,'' said Michael Benson, a spokesman for the NTSB in Washington. ``That's why we've made that safety area one of our `most wanted' recommendations.''

A blinding fog, a wrong turn and a flash fire contributed to the

eight fatalities in yesterday's Detroit collision, when a Northwest Airlines 727-200 screaming toward takeoff hit a Northwest DC-9 that had strayed onto its runway.

Nearly 200 other passengers and crew members on the two jets narrowly escaped death when the planes avoided head-on impact.

National Transportation Safety Board investigators are expected to ask:

-- Should the planes have been permitted to take off in yesterday's weather? Fog made visibility poor at the airport, where the tower personnel could not see the area of the runway where the collision occurred. The ground also was wet from a morning snow and sleet storm that delayed flights.

-- Is the ground warning system at Detroit able to prevent runway crashes?

-- Was it critical that rescue workers went first to the less damaged plane and that one escape chute did not open?

-- Were communications clear between tower and cockpits?

The dead were all on Northwest Flight 1482, the DC-9 bound for Pittsburgh that caught fire after the crash. The pilot may have missed a turn onto a taxiway, rolling instead onto Runway 3-Center, where the crash occurred.

The plane was hit by Northwest Flight 299, the 727 that was lifting its nose into the air headed for Memphis, Tenn. The 727, with 156 people aboard, came to a safe stop after the impact, but the DC-9 burst into flames.

Some of the 43 passengers and crew aboard the DC-9 were able to make their way to safety, but others were trapped in the flames. At least 20 people were reported injured, and seven remained in hospitals today.

Northwest reported today that a flight attendant, Heidi Joost, 43, of Dearborn, Mich., died; and both pilots of the DC-9, Capt. William Lovelace, 52, of Phoenix, and First Officer James Schifferns, 43, of Spokane, were believed to be hospitalized.

Northwest spokesman Bob Gibbons said Lovelace is a 24-year veteran of the airline who had been on a medical leave for kidney stones for the past five years. Flight 1482 was Lovelace's 13th since returning to work. Five of the flights were from Detroit.

Just before the crash, the DC-9 crew radioed the control tower that they were lost, said an airport maintenance worker on the scene. When the controller realized where the jet was and ordered it to clear the runway, the worker said, the DC-9 began veering left.

It was too late.

Wayne County and airline officials said the right wing of the 727 hit the fuselage of the DC-9 just behind the co-pilot's seat. One witness said fuel spilled out of both planes ``in buckets'' before the DC-9 erupted in flames.

If the DC-9 had not begun turning, the planes ``would have collided nose-to-nose and everybody would have died,'' the maintenance worker said.

Tony Dresden, a spokesman for the National Air Traffic Controllers' Association, a union representing air controllers, confirmed that preliminary reports from Detroit controllers indicated that ``the DC-9 pilot became lost on the runways.''

``The pilot gave the ground controller erroneous information about his position and turned right onto the runway where the 727 was taxiing,'' Dresden said.

Dan Kerber, deputy director of operations at Metro, said the fire was out ``within three minutes'' after the crash was reported at 1:45 p.m. But Wayne County Sheriff's deputies who assisted survivors said several told them the DC-9's left side emergency exit was briefly stuck shut and that the escape chute did not deploy from that side as the plane burned.

Wayne County Executive Edward McNamara said the fog was so thick at the time of the crash that firefighters failed to see the damaged plane after reaching the spot where the 727 rolled to a halt after aborting its takeoff.

He said he was told by officials that visibility was about 100 feet.

None of the 727 crew, led by Capt. Robert Ouellette of Dallas, was from the Pacific Northwest.

The crash prompted the Airline Pilot's Association (ALPA, the pilots' union) to criticize the Federal Aviation Administration for not moving faster in equipping airports with a sophisticated ground radar system that some experts said might have prevented yesterday's crash.

One version of the system, known as Airport Surface Detection Equipment, has been used in a few airports for about 10 years. But the FAA is testing a more effective version at Pittsburgh International Airport.

Once the bugs are worked out, the system will be installed in 30 other airports - including Metro - within three years, said Fred Farrar, an FAA spokesman.

Seattle-Tacoma International Airport was scheduled to get the new radar system next summer, but installment has been delayed by at least six months, said FAA spokesman Mitch Barker. Sea-Tac has had the older ground-radar system since 1961, and ``so far as we know it's working fine,'' Barker said.

Unlike Detroit Metro, which has three parallel runways crossed by a fourth, Sea-Tac has two parallel runways that do not intersect. But planes still taxi across runways to reach terminals.

Kerber said the Metro airport had ground radar, but he would not comment on the type or whether it was in use at the time of the crash.

It was a runway collision that caused aviation's worst disaster. Boeing 747s operated by Pan Am and the Dutch airline KLM, collided on a foggy runway in the Canary Islands on March 27, 1977, killing 581 people.

The safety board first addressed the runway-incursion issue after three near-collisions between June 1978 and February 1979.

In 1986, the safety board asked the FAA to:

-- Require air-traffic controllers to get confirmation from pilots, who would read back instructions they received from the tower, of all hold, takeoff or crossing clearances and all clearances for access onto an active runway.

-- Revise and enforce requirements to investigate and report operational or pilot errors that lead to runway incursions and to attempt to learn how they occur.

-- Determine the most effective signs, markings and procedures to prevent ``pilot induced'' runway incursions.

The FAA says it is considering the read-back requirement.

-- Compiled from material by Times staff reporters Polly Lane and Kate Shatzkin, Chicago Tribune, Associated Press and Knight-Ridder Newspapers.