Today in History: Pilot error leads to crash that kills 156 people
The plane crashed moments after failing to take off, with the cause of the accident being pilot error.
The plane crashed after lifting barely 10m off the ground, killing 154 on board the plane, and two in a car on a highway not far from the airport.
Northwest Flight 255 was headed to California with a stopover in Phoenix when it pulled away from the gate in Detroit on 16 August, 1987. While the DC-9 Super 82 taxied out to the runway, the pilot and co-pilot failed to conduct their pre-flight checks according to procedure and, as a result, the takeoff-warning system was never turned on.
Later, there was speculation that the pilots may have been rushing the checks to avoid incoming bad weather. A lack of communication between the pilot and co-pilot turned into a deadly mistake when neither extended the wing flaps prior to takeoff.
The extended flaps work as a lifting surface on the leading edge of the wings. As the plane rushed down the ±2000m long runway, it only lifted 12m off the ground when it should already have been ±182m in the air.
At the end of the runway, the plane hit lampposts and a rental-car office. It then crashed onto a road less than a kilometre away. On the Interstate 94 Bridge in Romulus, the plane hit a car and killed both people in the vehicle.
The fiery crash that ensued killed 154 other people. Remarkably, one person survived the accident – four-year-old Cecelia Cichan of Tempe, Arizona.
Here’s some footage from the scene:
The National Geographic Channel show Air Crash Investigation even did a segment on the crash. Here’s the introduction to the segment:
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