Business Notes AIRLINES

Just 14 seconds after Northwest Airlines Flight 255 took off from Detroit's Metro Airport last Aug. 16, it crashed into a highway embankment, killing 156 people. Last week the National Transportation Safety Board said "overwhelming evidence" points to pilot error as the cause of the accident. The agency said Captain John Maus and First Officer David Dodds skipped critical parts of their preflight routine and neglected to set the wing flaps to provide enough lift for takeoff. But the Air Line Pilots Association argued that the board gave insufficient weight to the fact that the alarm system on the McDonnell Douglas MD-80 failed to warn the crew that the flaps were not in position. Said Allison Maus, the captain's widow: "It's easy to blame it on the dead guys."

Already facing lawsuits from the crash, Northwest has other worries as well. The carrier is one of 15 airlines facing possible Federal Aviation Administration fines totaling nearly $6.5 million for alleged breaches of safety and security rules. The roster includes United ($1.26 million), Hawaiian ($1.17 million), Continental ($982,130), Eastern ($893,500), Braniff ($518,000), American ($421,250) and Northwest ($371,000). The bulk of United's penalty is for temporarily removing so-called vapor-seal covers from the wings of its Boeing 767s, allegedly increasing the chances of fire. United says it was trying to solve a vibration problem on the 767s and "expects to respond fully and to the FAA's satisfaction on the matter."