Lost in The Fog

By Ed Magnuson

Despite justifiable worries about close calls in the sky, the collision of two Northwest airliners at Detroit's Metro Airport last week suggests that airplane passengers face grave danger even on the ground. The accident, in which eight people were killed and 24 injured, raised a life-and-death question: If runways are so foggy that a pilot can miss two turns and wind up in the path of a plane rolling toward takeoff, why is the airport still open?

Landings had been banned at Metro because of the fog, but takeoffs were allowed to continue because visibility on the runways was declared to be above the required quarter-mile minimum. Captain William Lovelace, making only his 13th flight after a five-year absence (he had left to get treatment for a kidney-stone ailment and later opened a gift shop), apparently became disoriented in the murk shortly after pulling his DC-9 away from the gate. According to investigators, he made a left turn onto a wrong taxiway, then failed to turn right onto a second taxiway that would have led him back to his assigned takeoff point. His delayed right turn placed him on the active takeoff runway (3 Center).

A ground controller in the tower, unable to see Lovelace's Flight 1482 in the fog, asked First Officer James Schifferns, who was at the DC-9's radio, "Northwest, are you clear of Runway 3 Center?"

Schifferns: "It looks like we're on 21 Center ((the designation for the opposite direction on 3 Center))."

Tower: "Northwest one-four-eight-two, if you're on 21 Center, exit that runway immediately, sir." Then came a shouted command from the tower: "Get off there!" Lovelace, busy at the controls, said later he did not hear his copilot tell the tower they were on the runway, or he would have "gone for the weeds," meaning roll off the runway and onto the grass.

In the tower a supervisor barked, "Stop all aircraft! Stop all aircraft!"

Too late. Northwest Flight 299, a 727 carrying 153 people, had just been cleared for takeoff, and was already roaring toward the DC-9. Unable to get above the lost aircraft, pilot Robert Ouellette felt his right wing rip into the DC-9's cabin and tear off one of its tail engines. Despite his shattered wing, Ouellette skillfully retained control and braked to a stop. Said an aide at the National Transportation Safety Board: "He damn well could have cartwheeled down the runway into another fireball. He saved his people."

The 44 occupants of the DC-9 were not so fortunate. Smoke and toxic fumes engulfed the cabin as flames flickered from the tail section. "The explosion came from the back of the plane," recalled passenger Fred Guyor. "Suddenly all this shrapnel came flying overhead, like a wave in the ocean." The survivors poured out of two exits, some breaking bones as they jumped when an evacuation chute failed to open.

Why had takeoffs been permitted? One pilot traveling as a passenger on the 727 insisted that visibility had been less than a quarter-mile. Francis McKelvey, an airport designer and engineering professor at Michigan State, said it is time for aviation officials to ask "whether you should be operating an airport if you can't see all the surfaces on which aircraft are moving."

Compared with collision-avoidance safeguards in the air, those on the ground are primitive. Only 12 U.S. airports have ground radar (Detroit does not), but it is unreliable, 1960s-vintage equipment. A more modern radar is being tested in Pittsburgh, but technical bugs have delayed its deployment at other airports. A network of stop-and-go signal lights at taxiway and runway intersections has been tried at New York City's Kennedy Airport, but it was discontinued when its slowness contributed to delays. London's often foggy Heathrow, by contrast, has both the new radar and the signals.

Pilots have long complained about confusing ground markings at Detroit Metro. Contends Jerome Lederer, a veteran aviation-safety expert: "It may be time to consider a new category in fatal crashes, called 'government-induced accidents,' where failures by federal or local authorities contribute to the probable cause. Think of the reaction in Congress if a Senator or Representative had been killed."

With reporting by S.C. Gwynne/Detroit and Jerry Hannifin/Washington