11 die, eight lost in jet crashes

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33106, 22 December 1972, Page 11

11 die, eight lost in jet crashes

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

CHICAGO, December 21.

Authorities today were still searching for eight persons missing after a DC9 jet crashed on take-off yesterday after clipping a taxi-ing plane on a fog-shrouded runway at O’Hare International Airport.

Police said that 11 of the 41 persons aboard the North Central DC9 were killed, 22 were injured, and eight were missing. One person aboard the other plane was injured.

The North Central plane burst into flames shortly after several people crawled to safety. The other plane, a Delta Airlines Convair 880, carried 86 passengers and a crew of seven, an airline spokesman said.

“We had just started to climb and then there was a rumble and the plane came down and started swerving,” said Mr Richard Ojakangas, aged 40, a North Central passenger.

“We had just started to climb and I don’t know if we were completely taken off or whether the tail was still on the ground. “we came down and flames burst out on the left wing.” He said that the plane filled with smoke and passengers crawled on their knees to the exit. Several persons were urged on by someone at the rear of the plane and made it to safety, Mr Ojakangas said.

As he and his 13-year-old son, Greg, were running to safety, Mr Ojakangas said, he looked back and the plane had burst into flames. The North Central plane, Flight 575, was bound for Madison, Wisconsin, and Duluth, and International Falls, Minnesota. The Delta plane, Flight 954, had just arrived from West Palm Beach and Tampa, Florida. Thick fog earlier in the day had restricted movement at O’Hare to outbound flights for several hours. A spokesman for Delta in Atlanta said that its plane had landed and was told by the tower to proceed to a holding area when it was struck on the tail by the North Central plane. “The plane just didn’t seem to take off,” said Miss Pat Helgeson, aged 21, a St Mary’s, Indiana, college student and another North Central passenger. “A guy sitting in front of me in the front of the plane said: ’Take my hand, and let’s get out of here’.’’ She said that, she looked back and saw fire surround the plane as she ran awav from it.

A morgue was set up at a fire station at O’Hare and the airport itself was closed to all traffic.

The fuselage of the North Central plane was broken into several pieces, witnesses said. “The pilot’s compartment Is completely gutted, the wings are on the ground and the fuselage is twisted and broken,” a radio broadcaster at the scene said. The National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Aviation Administration officials announced that they were sending a team of investigators to Chicago. It was the second air crash in two weeks in the Chicago area. A United Air Lines jetliner crashed on approach to

Midway Airport on the southwest side on December 8, killing 45 persons.