Northwest Airlines plane crashes

The following are significant events involving the airline or its subsidiares. The numbered events are those involving at least one airline passenger death where the aircraft flight had a direct or indirect role, and where at least one of the dead passengers was not a stowaway, hijacker, or saboteur.

Northwest airlines merged with Delta Airlines in 2008

1 December 1974; Northwest Airlines 727-200; N274US; flight 6231; near Stony Point, NY: The aircraft was on a nonscheduled domestic flight from New York, NY to Buffalo, NY. The aircraft had a crew of three and was conducting a ferry flight with no passengers. The aircraft had been dispatched to Buffalo to transport the Baltimore Colts football team. The aircraft encountered icing conditions during climb, which affected the airspeed measuring system. The NTSB concluded that the crew had not followed procedures and activated a heating system that would have prevented the icing-related problem with the airspeed measuring system. The crew reacted to a false overspeed warning, and as a result put the aircraft into a stall condition. During the crew's efforts to exit the stall condition, the stresses on the aircraft led to structural failure and a loss of aircraft control. All three crew members were killed.
DC9 plane crashes

1. 4 March 1987; Northwest Airlink (Fischer Brothers Aviation) CASA C212-CC; N160FB; flight 2268; Detroit, MI: After a short, fast, and steep approach, the crew lost control of the aircraft and crashed beside the runway and caught fire. Two of the three crew members and seven of the 16 passengers were killed.

2. 16 August 1987; Northwest MD82; N312RC; flight 255; Detroit, USA: The crew neglected to properly set flaps for takeoff. The aircraft stalled soon after takeoff and crashed onto a highway. All six crew and 148 of 149 passengers were killed. Two people on the ground were also killed.
   MD80 plane crashes

3. 3 December 1990; Northwest DC9-14; N3313L; flight 1482; Detroit, MI: The aircraft was on a scheduled domestic flight from Detroit, MI to Pittsburgh, PA. At Detroit, the DC9 was taxiing in fog and strayed onto an active runway where it was hit by a departing Northwest 727-200 (N278US, flight 299) which was on a domestic flight from Detroit, MI to Memphis, TN. One of the four crew members and seven of the 40 passengers were killed. There were no fatalities on the second aircraft, which carried eight crew members and 146 passengers.
   DC9 plane crashes

4. 1 December 1993; Northwest Airlink (Express Airlines) BAe Jetstream 31; N334PX; flight 5719; Hibbing, MN: The aircraft had a controlled flight into terrain about three miles (five km) from the runway threshold during an an excessively steep approach in conditions of snow and freezing fog. Both crew members and all 16 passengers were killed.
   Jetsream plane crashes
   
   25 December 2009; Northwest Airlines A330-300; N820NW; Flight 253; near Detroit, MI: A passenger on a Northwest Airlines A330-300(N820NW) apparently attempted to detonate an explosive device while the aircraft was approaching Detroit. Flight 253 was an international flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, and early reports are that a passenger, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a 23-year-old Nigerian national, allegedly had the device strapped to one of his legs, and that the device was triggered during descent (about 20 minutes before landing) and started a small fire.
   
   The flight, operated by Northwest Airlines using an Airbus 330-300 aircraft with 278 passengers and 11 crew members on board, landed safely, and the suspect, the only person injured, was transported to a local hospital for treatment of serious burns.
   Airbus A330 crashes and serious incidents
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