![]() ![]() As it came down the left wing clipped the Avis car rental building on the northeast corner of the airport. ![]() At the moment of impact, it was loaded with forty tons of jet fuel and moving at 195 miles per hour. We would learn later that the engines had been at full throttle but the wing flaps and slats had not been properly set. A large twin-engine Northwest Airlines plane, a McDonnell Douglas MD-82 with 6 crew members and 149 passengers, en route to Phoenix, had stalled shortly after takeoff. Luckily, there was no wind, but a strong smell of fuel and burning materials filled the air. I had worked the airport and Sheriff's Road Patrol for years, so as I approached the scout cars blocking the road the officers just waved me through. Twenty minutes later, I had made it from suburban Grosse Ile to Middlebelt Road by the airport, where I saw an ocean of flashing blue lights ahead. They needed officers, so I grabbed my car keys, jumped in my black '73 Ford, and stuck my emergency blue light on my dash. "Car Fifty-one, Car Fifty-three, Car Thirty-one- Middlebelt and Wick!"Īs one scout car after another responded I knew what had happened: a big airplane had just crashed outside Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport. ![]() "Car Twenty-four, Car Seventeen, Car Thirty-four- Middlebelt and Wick!" My first thought was, Damn it's gotta be a big one. It was 8:46 p.m., and the radio call was from the Wayne County Sheriff's Department- the department I had retired from as a detective sergeant. Or should I go for a PhD in sociology instead? I was deep in thought, mapping out all the pros and cons, when my police scanner chirped. Happily, it was cooler in my basement office, where I sat contemplating a third master's degree, in international politics, to augment the two I already had in criminal justice fields. Sunday evening, August 16, 1987, it was a stifling, humid 90 degrees outside. ![]()
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