Three possible conditions would have caused power to be interrupted at the P-40 circuit breaker: the circuit breaker was intentionally opened by either the flight crew or maintenance personnel, the circuit breaker tripped because of a transient overload and the flight crew did not detect the open circuit breaker, or the circuit breaker did not allow current to flow to the CAWS power supply and did not annunciate the condition by tripping." "The failure of the takeoff warning system was caused by the loss of input 28V dc. The child was flown by helicopter to the University of Michigan Medical Center in Ann Arbor, where Dr. Richard Burney, chief of emergency medical services, said it was nearly inconceivable that she could have been on the plane. The crash, among the worst of this decade, took at least at least 154 lives, including one person on the ground, and left charred and contorted debris strewn across a half mile stretch of roadway.Investigators trying to piece together what caused the crash said last night that the jet had taken off at an unusually steep angle less than half an hour after reports of wind-shear conditions in the vicinity.
Cecilia, whose parents and 6-year-old brother died in the crash, was pulled from under a piece of luggage, an airplane seat and two crash victims, said Dr. John Girardot, a physician who helped remove her from the wreckage. From late 1987 until the company merged with Delta Air Lines in early 2010, the last nonstop flight from Detroit to Phoenix was renumbered as Flight 261.In memory of the victims, a black granite memorial was erected in 1994; it stands (surrounded by On August 16, 2007, the twentieth anniversary of the crash, a memorial service was held at the site.
bus and the CAWS unit. Whether or not the flaps and slats were extended, the testimony of the witnesses varied, but most responded that they were extended, although they could not tell how far. His son's family had visited him in Philadelphia last weekend and flew to Detroit on Sunday to change planes, on their way to Phoenix and their home in nearby Tempe, Ariz.Mr. The crash left nothing but flattened debris, with huge chunks of the plane crumpled like paper.While some medical experts and local officials said they doubted that anyone could have survived the crash, which sent a pillar of flames hundreds of feet into the air, grieving relatives held out hope that their loved ones had survived. The girl, Cecilia Cichan of Tempe, Ariz., was the sole survivor of the crash Sunday of a Northwest Airlines MD-80 jet shortly after takeoff here at Detroit Metropolitan Airport. He recently attended her weddingLooking for answers: Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board examine the black box from Flight 255 which revealed crew had skipped some safety check-ups before take-offTragedy: This week marks the 25th anniversary of Northwest Airlines flight 255 which crashed shortly after take-off on August 16, 1987 A four-year-old girl who was the sole survivor of a plane crash which killed everyone else on board has spoken for the first time, 25 years after the disaster. Cichan said he knew the family was booked on Flight 255 when he heard news of the crash. The two met in high school in suburban Philadelphia, married and, with their children went to Phoenix a year and a half ago. "After the crash Northwest followed standard procedure; the airline no longer used 255 as a flight number. Piles of rumpled clothing, plane seats and luggage, some still intact, lay strewn over the site. ''We had to find out it we lost three people or four people,'' he said.He and two of the girl's uncles flew to Detroit late Monday and identified Cecilia by the purple nail polish her grandmother put on her fingernails last weekend and by the front tooth she had chipped doing backflips in her yard.Hers was the ideal family, relatives said. She suffered a concussion, a broken leg, a broken collar bone, burns on her arms and hands, and a lacerated scalp, officials said.The child's condition was upgraded today, from critical to stable, and her prognosis was good but guarded, according to hospital spokesman. ''All night long, we watched and waited and hoped,'' Mr. Cichan said. She has a tattoo on her wrist in memoryRescuer: Firefighter John Thiede, pictured at the memorial for Flight 255, pulled four-year-old Cecelia from the burning wreckage. It was so common for pilots to pull the P-40 circuit breaker that the area around the circuit breaker was smudged from routinely being manipulated. For some people affected by the incident, it was their first return to the site since the crash.On August 16, 2012, the 25th anniversary of the crash, another memorial service was held at the crash site. ''I was calling their house in Tempe until 3 o'clock in the morning, hoping that somehow they were on another flight. The crash, among the worst of this decade, took at least at least 154 lives, including one person on the ground, and left charred and contorted debris strewn across a half mile stretch of roadway.Investigators trying to piece together what caused the crash said last night that the jet had taken off at an unusually steep angle less than half an hour after reports of wind-shear conditions in the vicinity. Lauren Elder will never know why she survived the plane crash that killed two friends and stranded her on an icy Sierra mountaintop, wearing a lightweight skirt and vest and high-heeled boots. As a teenager in 1971, Koepcke was the lone survivor of the LANSA Flight 508 plane crash, then survived eleven days alone in the Amazon rainforest. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them.Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions.Survival of a 4-Year-Old Girl Bewilders Crash Investigators Filming has wrapped on a documentary featuring the only survivor of the 1987 plane crash near Detroit.