The Warning That Never Came

On August 16, 1987, shortly after takeoff from runway 3C at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport, Northwest Airlines Flight 255's left wing struck a light pole 2,760 feet beyond the runway's end. Witnesses said the airplane began its rotation 1,200 to 1,500 feet from that point. After liftoff, it rolled left and right, struck other light poles and the roof of a rental-car facility, then hit the ground. Fires erupted along the wreckage path.

The cockpit voice recorder preserved the narrow interval before the impact. It recorded no sound from the takeoff warning system from 2044:01 until 2045:05. At 2044:57.7, the first officer called, "Rotate." At 2045:05.1, the stall-warning stick shaker activated. The recording fixed the order of events, but not the reason the airplane had reached takeoff without the expected warning.

The NTSB determined that the flap/slat lever was in the up, or retracted, position and that the slats were fully retracted for takeoff. In its probable-cause finding, the board said the flight crew had failed to use the taxi checklist to ensure that the flaps and slats were extended. The physical configuration and the missed check supplied the first part of the documented chain.

The second part lay in the aircraft's warning system. The NTSB found that it did not warn the crew because electrical power to the system was absent. Investigators said the P-40 circuit breaker had interrupted input power to CAWS power supply 2, but the report could not determine why that interruption occurred. The checklist failure was established; the source of the electrical loss remained undetermined.

The crash killed 148 passengers and six crewmembers. One passenger survived seriously injured. The passenger list includes Nicolaas Peter "Nick" Vanos among those who died. A memorial record identifies him as Nicolaas Peter Vanos, born April 13, 1963, and lists his death on August 16, 1987, in Romulus, Michigan.

The accident report preserved the sequence through cockpit evidence, physical examination, and system analysis. The passenger and memorial records preserved its human accounting. Vanos's name remains attached to the Flight 255 passenger list—and to the date and place where the documented cost of that failed takeoff was recorded.