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Wednesday, Aug. 19, 1987/University Daily Kansan
Relatives amazed crash victim survived
The Associated Press
ANN ARBOR, Mich — The 4-year-old lone survivor of a jetliner crash showed improvement yesterday, and relatives marveled at her good fortune as they despaired at the loss of her parents and her 6-year-old brother.
The girl's grandfather said he had set aside his grief over the deaths of his son, daughter-in-law and grandson long enough to come from Pennsylvania to identify her.
Cecilia Cichan, of Tempe, Ariz. was upgraded from critical to serious condition yesterday afternoon at C.S. Mott Children's Hospital, a spokeswoman said. The girl's breathing was being assisted by a respirator, which may be disconnected today, the spokeswoman said.
Cecilia was the only person aboard
Northwest Airlines Flight 255 to survive the crash that killed 154 people on board the plane and at least three people on the ground Sunday just outside Detroit Metropolitan Airport.
"After a few seconds, I knew it had to be our little Cecilia. Up until I saw her I didn't know if we had lost three family members or four.
- Anthony Cichan survivor's grandfather
Cureton said doctors expected Cecilia to live. She was responding to stimul yesterday and was unconscious but not comatose, they said.
ken collarbone, concussion and burns over 30 percent of her body. She underwent surgery for the broken bones.
Cureton said no additional surgery was planned except for possible skin grafts on her burned arms and hands.
Cecilia suffered a broken leg, bro
The girl's identity had remained a mystery until 24 hours after the crash, when her grandfather, Anthony Cichan, 59, of the Philadelphia suburb of Maple Glen, Pa., arrived at the hospital with a son and another relative and went to her bedside.
"After a few seconds, I knew it had to be our little Cecilia," Cichan said during a news conference yesterday. "Up until I saw her I didn't know if we had lost three family members or four."
Killed in the crash were Cecilia's
The girl's family had been visiting the elder Cicanda and Paula Cican's parents, Anthony and Pauline Cia maichela, of Warminster, Pa.
father, Michael, 32; her mother, Paula, 33; and her 6-year-old brother, David.
Michael Cichan was a professor of botany at Arizona State University, said Margaret Cichan, his stepmother. His wife held a nursing degree but was a full-time homemaker. Mrs. Cichan said.
Cichan said he was able to identify Cecilia by her chipped tooth, purple nail polish and a description of her braided hair. He said her maternal grandmother, Mrs. Ciaamichela, had applied the nail polish and braided her hair Sunday before the family flew from Philadelphia to Detroit to change planes on the way to Arizona.
Cichan said he learned from news
reports that a 4-year-old girl, apparently shielded by a woman's body, was found in the wreckage.
"Her mother, I know, shielded her." he said.
"In the seconds after the crash, she had to get out of her seat and put her body around little Celia and shield her from the heat and flames. The real hero of this life-saving process is her mother, Paula. Anyone who knew her would know she'd give up her life to save Cecilia."
Cichan said he, his wife and the Ciamaichelas had not decided who would raise Cecilia, but said, "We'll do everything in our power to see she has a normal life."
"We're thankful to the good Lord for giving us the miracle that he did. We're depressed over the loss of three beautiful human beings."
Jet had engine difficulties
Authorities say problems not linked to accident
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The ill-fated Northwest Airlines jet that crashed near Detroit was plagued with engine problems on at least three previous flights, forcing pilots to turn back each time, according to Federal Aviation Administration records.
But in two of the incidents, the troubled engines were replaced for repair and likely were not involved in today's crash, the records indicated.
Northwest Airlines issued a statement yesterday saying the engines that were on the plane when it crashed were not the same engines that were involved in the previous engine failures in 1985 and 1986. The airline said it had no record of a third incident that FAA records show occurred in January 1987.
In each of the three previous incidents, which occurred between November 1985 and last January, the troubled engines were shut down and the planes landed safely on the remaining engine.
The McDonnell Douglas MD-80 is designed to fly on one engine.
The MD-80 that crashed seconds after taking off from the Detroit airport was purchased in 1982 by Republic Airlines, which merged with Northwest Airlines last year.
Records at the FAA's Aeronautical
Center in Oklahoma City show a total of eight in flight incidents involving the plane since 1984, including two engine turbine blade failures in the Pratt & Whitney JTBD 200 series engines and one incident involving low engine oil pressure.
The other incidents reported to the FAA involved a blown tire, a malfunctioning sensor on the main landing gear, defective warning lights or switches on the cockpit control panel, and problems with the cabin oxygen mask system.
The three most serious incidents, however, involved engine problems, according to the "service difficulty" reports filed with the FAA.
On Nov. 15, 1985, the jetliner, flying as Republic Airlines Flight 300 returned to Minneapolis shortly after takeoff after the left engine failed. The plane landed safely after 18 minutes, using its right engine. The left engine was replaced and mechanics later attributed the problem to a broken turbine blade.
On April 1, 1986, the jetliner, this time flying as Republic Flight 342, encountered a similar problem with its right engine shortly after taking off from San Francisco. The plane again landed safely on one engine. The faulty engine was replaced and later the failure was again blamed on a broken turbine blade.
to return to Memphis, Tenn., because of low oil pressure in the right engine. Mechanics later replaced several engine parts.
Northwest spokesman Bob Gibbons said the airline had no record of the Memphis incident and contended that it did not occur. He said he could not explain why the FAA records showed the plane was involed in the incident.
The airline said the MD-80 involved in the accident had its right engine changed in April 1986 and its left engine in October 1986.
Last January, the plane was forced
Redmond Tyler, another spokesman for Northwest Airlines, emphasized that the previous engine problems likely had no bearing on Sunday's accident.
"The first engine may be on another airplane somewhere else in the world so . . . you cannot think of it as a continuing unit." said Tyler
Pratt & Whitney spokesman Ed Cowles defended the JTBD 200-series engines as having "an outstanding safety record." They carry millions of passengers a day safely." He said there are 816 JTBD 200-series engines on 408 planes, all of them MD-80 inleters.
Canadian airline reports near miss
The Associated Press
BOSTON — An Air Canada pilot reported a near collision yesterday between his DC-9 and a single-engine plane about 20 miles northwest of Kingston, N.Y., said a Federal Aviation Administration snookerman.
It was the second such report filed by an Air Canada pilot within four days, said FAA spokesman Mike Ciccarelli.
On Saturday, the pilot of Air Canada Flight 807 from Boston to Toronto reported a near collision with a twin-engine Cessna about sixteen miles north of Boston. The pilot of that jet put its nose down to avoid the smaller craft, Ciccarelli said.
"As a result, two flight attendants struck their heads and they reported sore necks," Ciccarelli said.
He said yesterday's Flight 734 was en route to Newark, N.J. when the incident occurred. He did not know where the flight originated.
Ciccarelli said he did not know how many passengers were on either flight.
yards horizontally of an unknown Piper-type single-engine airplane, Ciccarelli said, adding that the weather was good.
He said the incident occurred about 12:30 p.m. while the Air Canada jet was tracked by the FAA's air route traffic control center at Nashua, N.H. The pilot of the single-engine plane was under visual flight rules and wasn't tracked by radar, he said.
The DC-9's pilot reported that, while descending and at about 9,200 feet, he passed within 100
In Saturday's incident, the Air Canada pilot "said he saw the other aircraft when it was a half mile from him vertically," Ciccarelli said.
The pilot of the other plane, a Cessna 402, who also filed a report, said the jet was 100 feet away, both horizontally and vertically, when he saw it, Ciccarelli said, adding that the incident was under investigation.
The Air Canada jet, a Boeing 727, was at about 12,500 feet and climbing when the pilot put the nose down to avoid the smaller plane, Cicarelli said.
The Cessna 402, heading from John F. Kennedy Airport in New York to Portland, Maine, was descending and took evasive action by climbing and turning, he said.
Vaccine gets FDA approval Officials plan test program
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Health officials announced yesterday that plans for the first AIDS vaccine tests on Americans had begun.
Scientists said they had started soliciting the 81 volunteers who will take part in the test, which will run from six months to a year. The first person could be vaccinated as early as next month, scientists said.
The prototype vaccine is the first of several vaccines to win Food and Drug Administration approval for clinical tests. The approved vaccine for MicroGeneSys Inc., a drug and biological products firm in West Haven, Conn.
The tests are designed to determine the vaccine's safety and whether it raises immunity against the AIDS virus, officials said. The tests will be conducted at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center in Bethesda, Md.
The vaccine is derived from an inert protein from the AIDS virus.
Vaccines made from inactive proteins of the virus are safe for volunteers, and it is impossible for the volunteers to get AIDS, said Anthony S. Fauci, director of the NIH unit sponsoring the trial.
Fauci said the first test would involve 81 healthy volunteers, including 75 homosexual men who are not infected with the AIDS virus.
Homosexual males are one of the groups at highest risk of contracting AIDS, and Fauci said they would be asked to volunteer because homosexuals eventually will be prime candidates for a vaccine if one is developed.
The volunteers, who must agree to follow safe sexual practices and other AIDS-avoidance behavior during the trial, will get various doses of the vaccine. Some will get booster injections later, scientists said.
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