Northwest Airlines Flight 1482 & 299 - A Cabin Crew Perspective

Northwest Airlines Flight 1482 & 299 – A Cabin Crew Perspective

It was Monday December 3, 1990. A morning storm had dropped several centimeters of snow at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport, Michigan. It was cold and wet and there was heavy fog.

Ready for take-off

Northwest Airlines flight 1482, a Douglas DC-9, was preparing to leave for Pittsburgh. There were 40 passengers onboard. The captain was William Lovelace, and first officer today was James Schifferns. In the cabin were two flight attendants, one seated at the front and one at the back, while there were two off-duty flight attendants also onboard.

Northwest Airlines flight 299, a Boeing 727 with 146 passengers onboard, was ready to leave for Memphis. The captain was Robert Ouellette, the first officer was William Hagedom, and the flight engineer was Darren Owen. In the cabin were five cabin crew.

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Flight 1482

At 13:35, flight 1482 was cleared for take-off for runway 03C but missed taking a turn onto Oscar 6 taxiway. To correct them, air traffic control told the crew to head for Oscar 4 and make a right turn onto X-ray. However, in the dense fog and confusion over directions, the aircraft turned right onto an active runway instead.

Realizing they were lost, the pilots contacted the tower for guidance. The controller told them to leave the runway immediately. Five seconds later, after the instruction, at 13:45 flight 1482 saw the B727 heading towards them on take-off. It was too late.

“You’re on 21 Center? Exit that runway immediately, Sir!”

– Detroit Controller (NTSB report)

Deadly collision

The B727 wing tip sliced through the right side of the DC-9’s fuselage. The wing tip just missed the first officer, who ducked just in time. It ripped the side of the aircraft all the way down to the tail, knocking off the number two, right engine. The cabin had been split open and the roof caved in; debris was flying everywhere. The wing tip had also breached the fuel tank on the right wing sending fuel spewing out onto the fuselage.

In the cabin, a flame like a ‘blow torch’ was seen at the rear of the aircraft and towards the right fuselage. Oxygen masks dropped. People were yelling, and there was panic. Some people on the right side of the aircraft were not moving. The DC-9 was now on fire. The captain shut off the fuel control levers and ordered an evacuation.

Panic in the cabin

The lead flight attendant was securing the galley at the time of impact. She dropped to the floor. People were rushing towards her, so she got up. A woman fell down in front of her, and she helped her up. She struggled to open the door. The escape slide pack had fallen off of the door. She bent down and pushed the slide out of the door whilst pushing open the door with her other hand. She could not fully open it or see the slide inflation handle. She jumped out of the aircraft and shouted commands to ‘jump’ from the ground. One passenger jumped out behind her, and another passenger sat on the door ledge, pushing open the door further open with his feet.

“We thought that the engine had exploded. It happened so darn quick. Because the plane wasn’t too full, it was easy to get off. I looked back and all I could see was a big ball of flame.”

Passenger – flight 1482 as told to Deseret News

The flight crew evacuate

The captain saw that the cockpit was blocked by passengers, and he heard someone scream that the door was jammed. He escaped out of his sliding cockpit window and down the escape rope, planning to go back and open the door from the outside. He saw that door one left was now open and thought that door one right might be jammed. The captain helped people away from the aircraft. The first officer pushed a ‘frozen’ passenger out of the door, and a few more followed. He exited the aircraft to inflate the evacuation slide from the ground, and then went to help passengers stuck on the wing. He tried to get back on the aircraft but fell off the wing and was told not to do so by the firefighters.

“Most of the people ran toward the front of the plane. When I got out on the wing, I saw the captain climbing down a rope. People were lying on the runway. They had jumped off the wing or come down the chutes. Some had hurt their legs.”

Passenger – flight 1482 as told to the New York Times

The off-duty flight attendant hero

The smoke in the cabin was acrid. One of the off-duty flight attendants saw a woman with a head injury and helped her to the exit. She looked at the slide and assumed it had malfunctioned. She saw that the evacuation was chaotic and people were getting injured, so helped people out by holding the door with one hand and using her other arm to help people to the ground. Once the off-duty flight attendant had exited the aircraft, she took three seriously injured passengers to the Sheriff’s patrol car. There was no driver, but the keys were there, so she drove them away from the wreckage to get help.

Read More: Ozark Airlines Flight 809 – A Cabin Crew PerspectiveFlight 299

The B727 rejected take-off and managed to stop safely on the runway, and the captain shut down the engines. He checked with the lead flight attendant that no one was injured. The aircraft had a small fuel leak in the wing and was slightly damaged, but was safe for now. There was no immediate danger and they did not evacuate.

The flight attendants asked that the passengers remain seated. The captain requested air stairs, buses, and fire trucks to the scene. The aircraft was sprayed with fire retardant as a precaution before passengers deplaned. The captain asked the first officer to lower the stairway at the rear of the aircraft, whilst he went to assist with deplaning.

Survivors and fatalities

Most surviving passengers exited the DC-9 through the left forward exit and some from the left over-wing exit, which was opened by a passenger. There were ten serious injuries and 23 minor injuries, mostly consisting of broken bones and burns. Sadly, there were eight fatalities, including the flight attendant who was working at the rear of the aircraft. She was found face down on the tail cone catwalk, under the tail cone release handle she had tried to operate – it had broken.

A male passenger was found there, too, with a head injury. It is thought he was trying to help her open the exit. They both died from smoke inhalation but were burned beyond recognition. Three of the passengers died of blunt force trauma or decapitation. Two died of smoke inhalation but also had severe burns. One died of thermal injury.

Probable cause

The NTSB report cites that the probable cause of the accident was a lack of proper crew co-ordination including a virtual reversal of roles by the DC-9 pilots, which led to their failure to stop taxiing their airplane and alert the ground controller of their positional uncertainty promptly before and after intruding onto the active runway. Contributing to the cause of the accident were deficiencies in the air traffic control services, deficiencies in surface markings, signage and lighting at the airport and failure of the airline to provide cockpit resource management training to its aircrews. Additional factors were the inoperability of the tail cone release mechanism and the failure of the crew to execute the passenger evacuation properly.