Paul Eddy: Spanair crash recalls 1987 Detroit disaster
[Paul Eddy has been writing about intrigue, corruption, mayhem and murder for more than 25 years, primarily for The Sunday Times of London.]
Experts investigating last week’s Spanish air crash, in which 154 people died, are reviewing a disaster in Detroit two decades ago that had striking similarities.
Mechanical failure, human error or a combination of the two are presumed to have doomed Spanair flight JK5022 as it tried to take off for the Canary Islands from Barajas airport in Madrid on Wednesday afternoon.
Initial reports that the port engine of the MD82 aircraft had caught fire as the plane hurtled down the runway appeared to have been disproved by a video that the airport has given to investigators.
The tape, which has been viewed by Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, the Spanish prime minister, and King Juan Carlos, showed the plane reaching almost the end of the runway before struggling into the air.
It lurched to the left, then the right, plunged onto a wing tip and skidded across a field for 500 yards before exploding next to a stream.
Miraculously, 19 people, including three children, survived Spain’s worst air disaster in 25 years. The government declared three days of national mourning.
Experts from America’s National Transportation Safety Board, Boeing and the engine manufacturer Pratt & Whitney were helping with an investigation that has focused on a mechanical problem that had forced the plane to abandon an earlier take-off.
The pilot had told passengers that he had a “red light” and had to return to the gate.
Spanair said the problem was a minor glitch involving an air intake temperature gauge near the cockpit. The gauge was turned off and the plane cleared for take-off “in accordance with regulations”, as one airline official put it.
Experts said the gauge problem was not likely to have caused the crash, but Manuel Bautista, Spain’s civil aviation chief, said that it could have contributed to it.
“A problem with a temperature sensor may not matter at all or it can be very important,” he said, “depend-ing on what other circumstances accompany it.”
He said the aircraft must have suffered more than one kind of problem because engine failure alone would not have been enough to bring it down.
“There has been more than one breakdown,” he said, adding that modern passenger aircraft were designed to survive the loss of one engine during take-off. “I am not sure that the engine has failed.”
According to experts, any engine failure would have occurred after the aircraft reached what is known as “commitment speed”, the speed at which the pilot cannot abort take-off, whatever happens.
Whether or not an engine failed, a critical mistake may have been made in preflight planning in calculating the settings for the flaps and slats that the MD82 has on the trailing and leading edges of its wings to provide extra lift during take-off.
Another possibility is that the crew was distracted and neglected to extend the flaps and slats.
It may seem unlikely but it has happened before: experts noted striking similarities between the crash and that of Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in Detroit in 1987.
The first officer on that flight had failed to pull the lever that would have extended the MD82’s slats and flaps. The crew was apparently distracted by a late change in the departure runway, which caused the captain to miss a turn.
Like the Spanair flight, the American plane continued along the runway far longer than normal. When it finally laboured up into the air, it began oscillating from side to side until it fell sideways onto the ground and disintegrated with the loss of 154 passengers and crew. Only a four-year-old girl survived...
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Experts investigating last week’s Spanish air crash, in which 154 people died, are reviewing a disaster in Detroit two decades ago that had striking similarities.
Mechanical failure, human error or a combination of the two are presumed to have doomed Spanair flight JK5022 as it tried to take off for the Canary Islands from Barajas airport in Madrid on Wednesday afternoon.
Initial reports that the port engine of the MD82 aircraft had caught fire as the plane hurtled down the runway appeared to have been disproved by a video that the airport has given to investigators.
The tape, which has been viewed by Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, the Spanish prime minister, and King Juan Carlos, showed the plane reaching almost the end of the runway before struggling into the air.
It lurched to the left, then the right, plunged onto a wing tip and skidded across a field for 500 yards before exploding next to a stream.
Miraculously, 19 people, including three children, survived Spain’s worst air disaster in 25 years. The government declared three days of national mourning.
Experts from America’s National Transportation Safety Board, Boeing and the engine manufacturer Pratt & Whitney were helping with an investigation that has focused on a mechanical problem that had forced the plane to abandon an earlier take-off.
The pilot had told passengers that he had a “red light” and had to return to the gate.
Spanair said the problem was a minor glitch involving an air intake temperature gauge near the cockpit. The gauge was turned off and the plane cleared for take-off “in accordance with regulations”, as one airline official put it.
Experts said the gauge problem was not likely to have caused the crash, but Manuel Bautista, Spain’s civil aviation chief, said that it could have contributed to it.
“A problem with a temperature sensor may not matter at all or it can be very important,” he said, “depend-ing on what other circumstances accompany it.”
He said the aircraft must have suffered more than one kind of problem because engine failure alone would not have been enough to bring it down.
“There has been more than one breakdown,” he said, adding that modern passenger aircraft were designed to survive the loss of one engine during take-off. “I am not sure that the engine has failed.”
According to experts, any engine failure would have occurred after the aircraft reached what is known as “commitment speed”, the speed at which the pilot cannot abort take-off, whatever happens.
Whether or not an engine failed, a critical mistake may have been made in preflight planning in calculating the settings for the flaps and slats that the MD82 has on the trailing and leading edges of its wings to provide extra lift during take-off.
Another possibility is that the crew was distracted and neglected to extend the flaps and slats.
It may seem unlikely but it has happened before: experts noted striking similarities between the crash and that of Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in Detroit in 1987.
The first officer on that flight had failed to pull the lever that would have extended the MD82’s slats and flaps. The crew was apparently distracted by a late change in the departure runway, which caused the captain to miss a turn.
Like the Spanair flight, the American plane continued along the runway far longer than normal. When it finally laboured up into the air, it began oscillating from side to side until it fell sideways onto the ground and disintegrated with the loss of 154 passengers and crew. Only a four-year-old girl survived...