University Daily Kansan / Tuesday, November 17, 1987
11
Nation/World
Jet crash causes stress for board
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The Continental Airlines crash in Denver yesterday strained the resources of the National Transportation Safety Board, which was about to begin a public hearing into last August's Northwest Airlines crash in Detroit when word of the new accident came.
The safety board, one of the government's smaller agencies with a $21 million budget and 320 employees, immediately shifted geares.
Its chief aviation investigator, John Schleede, and another investigator left Detroit and flew to Denver. Six other investigators — four from Washington, one from Texas and another from Alaska — also converged on the Denver crash site, as did NTSB Chairman Jim Burnett.
"We're coping. We're running full tilt," board spokesman Michael Benson said in Washington, where he was handling media queries alone.
In a laboratory down the hall technicians began to analyze the "black boxes," the cockpit voice and flight data recorders, from the Continental jet. They had been flown in from Denver early in the day.
The safety board has two senior technicians who are experts in getting information from the critical recorders. One of the technicians was in Detroit taking part in the Northwest hearing, while the other took charge of the work on the Continental boxes.
Veteran NTSB employees could not recall a major airline crash investigation coming at the same time a public hearing is under way in another major air accident. Such hearings normally require a large chunk of the agency's resources, including most of the senior aviation investigators.
The hearing into the Aug. 16 crash of a Northwest jet that killed 156 people began without a hitch at a hotel near the Detroit Metropolitan Airport just as other NTSB officials began probing the snow-covered wreckage at Denver's Stapleton Airport.
Both the Detroit and Denver
crashes occurred on a Sunday. In both cases, NTSB "go teams" received telephone calls sending them to airports for flights to the crash sites.
Agency investigators are accustomed to such late-night calls and routinely have their bags packed when on the "go team" rotation list.
The agency is responsible for investigating all commercial aviation accidents as well as major train wrecks, bus accidents, marine accidents and even pipeline explosions. At the same time, it has kept close tabs on the operations of the air traffic control system with several special investigations this year into incidents that posed safety questions.
The board is nearing completion of complex investigations into the January 1986 Amtrak passenger train crash near Baltimore and aerial collisions in Utah and Florida. About 60 percent of the agency's resources are devoted to aviation matters.
Monday was not the first time things have been hectic at the NTSB. Agency veterans recall January 1982, for example.
That month the board was called out to investigate two major airline accidents — an Air Florida crash in Washington, D.C., and a World Airways crash in Boston — along with a commuter plane crash in New York state, an aerial collision in Texas, a subway accident in Washington, D.C., two train accidents and a pipeline elosion.
Just as investigators were focusing in on the crash of Continental Flight 1713 in Denver and the hearing in Detroit on Monday, the agency had to dispatch a field team to Fort Atkinson, Wis., where the crash of a charter plane killed eight people.
"It don't recall it being quite this way before with a major hearing, another major field accident and another accident," said spokesman Benson. "It will put extra demands on people."
Investigators based in Chicago were assigned the Wisconsin accident.
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In Washington, the board has eight senior investigators who can be put in charge of specific air accident probes. All but one of the eight were in either Denver or Detroit on Monday. An additional 33 investigators also are on call and most were at work on one of the two new accidents.
NTSB investigation teams are divided along specialties with one chief investigator in charge of the probe. Other Washington-based investigators are responsible for such areas as aircraft systems, power plants, structures, human factors and air traffic control.
Press spokesmen are dispatched from Washington to deal with the extensive media attention any major accident attracts.
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Families still await word on jet crash
The Associated Press
BOISE, Idaho — Relatives and friends of passengers aboard a Continental Airlines jet that crashed during takeoff in Denver waited yesterday for word of loved ones.
flight 1713, bound for Boise,
crashed on a runway at Stapleton
International Airport about 2 p.m. on
day, killing 26 people and injuring
54.
The passengers included cross-country runner Arthur Guerra, his coach, Bob McAlpine, and the coach's son, Jeff McAlpine, who had traveled to Overland Park for a meet.
Guerra and Jeff McAlpine were hospitalized, said Jeff mother, Sharon. "I know my son's OK," she said. "But nobody knows Bob is."
Family members in Melba, Idaho had heard from all but three girls and one adult among the 10 chapter members of Future Farmers' America who were returning from a convention in Kansas City, Mo.
Ray Miller of Red Cross Disaster Services in Boise said members of the Red Cross and Salvation Army arrive at the airport helping the families.
"What we're doing is lending moral support to the families," Miller said. "It's frustration because no one knows anything. All we can do is hold a hand."
Miller said that his agency would assist any people who eventually need professional help.
"We can offer support and assistance with any arrangements and point them toward professionals who can help us deal with a psychological trauma." Miller said.
Those aboard the flight knew something was wrong when the plane started to take off, passenger Lisa Farro told her father Sunday evening.
Crash of commuter plane kills all on board
The Associated Press
FORT ATKINSON, Wis. — A twinengine turboprop slammed into a wooded hillside yesterday, killing everyone on board, authorities said.
"The pilot was on his descent toward Baraboo when he radioed, 'Mayday, mayday' several times," Frelstein said.
The King Air 200 model, a 10-seater made by Beech Aircraft Corp., was on its way from Chicago to Barabo, Wis. Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Mort Edelstein said in Chicago.
Fort Akinson Fire Chief Robert Stray put the death toll at from two to four people, although Jefferson County Sheriff Keith Muller said the pilot's flight plan indicated that eight were on board.
No one survived, said sheriff's Chief Deputy Mike Sullivan. Witnesses said the bodies were badly dismembered.
"We were in the shop, we heard a
Debris was scattered across a wooded hillside about three miles northwest of Fort Atkinson and 23 miles southeast of Madison.
whiz and a bang and walked outside. All we could see was a stream of smoke, and we could smell raw fuel oil in the air. About 15 minutes later, we heard a big explosion," said Tom Beane, who owns the farmland where the plane crashed.
One engine was found a short distance away. Another engine hit some nearby woods, and one wing was visible. Bits of torn metal and paper littered the area.
About 50 police and rescue workers were at the scene, she said.
Debra Cunningham, a dispatcher for the Jefferson County sheriff's department, said the plane crashed near Fort Atkinson near Highway 12.
"It was in bed," mar-Jean Dahlgren, who lives across the road from where the plane crashed. Of a sudden, I heard this loud boom.
"It it lost its wing before it hit the woods," her husband John Dahlgren added.
Light rain was falling, and visibility was 8 miles when the plane went down. Edelstein staid.
He said the plane left Chicago's Meigs Field at 7:51 a.m. CST yesterday and lost contact with Chicago radar 23 miles southeast of Madison, where the plane crashed.
No commuter flight into Barbao municipal airport was scheduled, according to Dave Kuschman, who works at the airport. He also said he did not know whether the plane was a charter or private plane.
Edelstein said the plane seated 10, had eight people listed on its flight plan and belonged to Danpant Aviation in Wilmington. Del.
However, directory assistance had no listing for DanaPax Aviation in Wilmington.
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Argument over wing flaps begins Flight 255 hearings
The Associated Press
ROMULUS, Mich. — Wing flaps on a Northwest Airlines plane that crashed, killing 156 people, were in the proper takeoff position, but the jet took longer to get off the ground than expected, a witness testified yesterday as hearings into the crash opened.
A federal investigator, however, said evidence compiled in the nation's second deadliest air disaster extended to 10 states and extended in preparation for takeoff.
The conflicting testimony came on the first day of hearings by the National Transportation Safety Board into the Aug. 16 crash of Flight 255. The only survivor was 4-year-old Cecelia Clehan, who parents and brother were among those killed.
Douglas Allington, a first officer
with Northwest, now based in Memphis. Tenn., testified that he thought the airplane could have become airborne if it had not hit a light pole in a rental-car parking lot.
Other witnesses have told investigators that the plane appeared to wobble to the left and right before its wings flattened out to a level position just after it lifted off from runway 3 Center at Detroit Metropolitan Airport.
Allington said he was in the cockpit of an airplane parked on a taxiway perpendicular to runway 3 Center, watching Flight 255 from the time it began its acceleration to the time it disappeared in flames behind the building.
"The flaps and slats were extended." Allington testified.
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