ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, January 10, 1997 TAG: 9701100094
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: MONROE, MICH.
SOURCE: Associated Press
A commuter plane trying to land in a snowstorm nose-dived into a field 18 miles short of a Detroit airport Thursday, killing all 29 people aboard.
The twin-engine Embraer 120, operated by Cincinnati-based Comair, went down just before dusk in a huge fireball, splintering into small pieces and leaving a black patch in the half-foot deep snow.
Cathy Conner, 14, said she was getting off her school bus when she saw the plane go ``straight into the ground. It was just like a blur, it was going so fast. Then I saw the explosion, and flames just went everywhere.''
Patty Cawood, who also lives nearby, said: ``You heard this big boom, and there was a fireball that went up. By the time we got there, there were still like exploding things, you know, coming out, so we didn't want to get real close.''
Comair said 26 passengers and three crew members were aboard the flight from Cincinnati.
The pilot of Flight 3272 gave no indication of trouble as the plane approached Detroit Metropolitan Airport, the Federal Aviation Administration said. The NTSB sent a team to investigate.
Fire and rescue vehicles converged on the charred wreckage of the 30-seat plane, which went down near a farmhouse and a country road. As darkness fell, rescue workers walked through the field with flashlights, looking for wreckage and bodies.
At the Detroit airport, friends and relatives of the passengers were taken to a spot where counselors were available.
It was the second fatal crash in the commuter airline's 20-year history. A twin-engine Piper Navajo crashed at an airport in Kentucky in 1979 after an engine failed on takeoff. Eight people were killed.
The Embraer 120 is a Brazilian-built turboprop. More than 300 are in use, most in North America, where they are popular with regional and commuter airlines. There have been three fatal U.S. crashes involving the Embraer 120 since 1991.
Comair obtained the plane in 1992, and it had its last major maintenance check Nov. 20, said Charles Curran, Comair senior vice president. ``It did not have any maintenance irregularities,'' he said.
Comair serves Florida and the Midwest, offering connections to Delta Air Lines flights as part of a group of small carriers that collectively are known as the Delta Connection. Delta owns about 20 percent of Comair. Comair has flights from Roanoke Regional Airport.
In 1991, an Embraer 120 operated by Atlantic Southeast Airlines went down in Georgia after a worn part failed in a propeller control system on the left engine. All 23 people aboard were killed, including former Sen. John Tower.
Later that year, another Embraer 120, a Continental Express flight, nose-dived into a field near Houston, killing all 14 aboard. Regulators blamed the crash on missing screws in the tail's horizontal stabilizer bar.
In 1995, a propeller blade broke off the left engine on a Southeast Airlines flight, forcing the plane down in a hay field in Georgia. Ten people were killed. Investigators blamed a manufacturer for failing to discover the propeller crack that led to the crash.
That accident prompted the FAA to order immediate inspections of 13,000 propeller blades used on an estimated 1,500 aircraft worldwide. After the inspections, 370 propellers were replaced, including 19 on Embraer 120s.
LENGTH: Medium: 67 lines KEYWORDS: FATALITYby CNB