DC-9 NOSE DIVES IN MILWAUKEE, LEAVING ALL 31 ON BOARD DEAD.

PILOT RADIOED OF AN 'EMERGENCY'.

Milwaukee -- Moments after a DC-9 jetliner took off from Mitchell Field Friday, the pilot reported, "I have an emergency." Seconds later the plane crashed nose first and burned in a wooded area, killing all 31 people aboard.
"The aircraft was demolished ... Northing was left of the airplane at all," said Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman MARJORIE KRIZ in Chicago.
The crash of Midwest Express Airlines Flight 105, which originated in Madison, Wis., and was bound for Atlanta, was the 19th major commercial airline accident this year and added to a death toll of more than 1,400 that has made 1985 the worst year for fatalities in civilian aviation history.
Witnesses said the two-engine plane seemed to roll twice about 1,000 feet above the ground shortly after taking off in clear, sunny skies, then headed to earth nose first, where it burst into flames about a half-mile south of the runway.
There was no immediate indication what caused the accident.
Airline spokesman JOSE OLLER said 31 people were aboard the plane which is designed to hold up to 60 people. He said the plane's flight recorder had been recovered.
OLLER said most passengers got on in Milwaukee and he believed 10 were employees of Kimberly-Clark Corp., parent firm for K-C Aviation Inc., owner of Midwest Express.
Three victims were from Madison and the rest from Milwaukee, said OLLER, adding that a list of those killed would not be released until families of all the victims could be contacted.
"The service is used frequently by Kimberly-Clark employees," said Kimberly-Clark spokeswoman TINA BARRY from corporate headquarters in Irving, Texas.
At the crash site on the edge of the Michael Cudahy Forest Preserve, trees were scorched and part of a wing lay near charred detris. The smell of jet fuel was heavy in the muggy air.
PAMELA MURR, a traffic reporter for WTMJ radio at the scene said the plane made "a couple of barrel rolls and went down nose first. It burst into flames."
"It was the worst thing I have ever seen," MURR said.
"I've never seen anything like it in 20 years," said a Milwaukee County deputy sheriff. "Pieces of bodies are everywhere. Most of the clothing was burned off people."
The Rev. JOSEPH B. FREDERICK, a priest who walked through the smoking wreckage to administer the last rites said the pilot died clutching the jet's controls to bring it out of the dive.
"All I could do was offer a prayer for them ... commend them to God," said the Rev. KARL ACKER, pastor at nearby St. Alexander's Roman Catholic church, who also went to the site shortly after the crash.
"There is nothing we could have done if we had been there right on the scene," said RICHARD SEELEN, assistant Milwaukee fire chief. "It was total devestation."
KRIZ said there were 26 passengers, four crew members and one person sitting in a jumpseat. That person "could have been from the airline, or the FAA, or the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board), but was not a passenger," she said. Initial reports had put the number aboard as high as 40.
MORT EDELSTEIN, a FAA spokesman in Chicago, said the plane took off at 3:25 p.m., and was flying across the airport boundary when the pilot called the tower.
"I have an emergency," EDELSTEIN quoted the pilot as saying.
The tower acknowledged receiving the message, and then the plane crashed, EDELSTEIN said.
"The next thing the tower saw was smoke and fire from a large ball of fire," he said.
SCOTT SCRIMA, 27, of Waukesha, employed at an airport freight company, said he walked into the woods and found smoking debris scattered over an area of about a half acre.
"I saw a lot of smoke," SCRIMA said. "I saw a lot of little pieces. I didn't see anything big. It looked like a forest fire" had swept the scene.
LARRY KROES, a construction worker on a project at the airport, said: "We heard a pop. It was just like the engine went out."
Another construction worker at the airport, RUSS LEWANDOSKI, said the plane evidently had an engine problem that the pilot tried to overcome.
"All of a sudden he fluttered," LEWANDOSKI said. "He lowered the nose real good."
"Then he banked to the right," he continued. "It seemed like he turned to the engine that was dead, then it went down."
A team of investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board, headed by board chairman JIM BURNETT, was flying from Washington to Milwaukee on an FAA aircraft to begin an investigation.

Rescuers Work Late Recovering Bodies.
Milwaukee -- The four rescue workers trudged into the charred forest outside Milwaukee's Mitchell Field airport and came back moments later carrying the familiar green bag containing the remains of another victim of Flight 105.
They set their morbid package on the end of a row of identical bags and walked back into the darkness of the woods.
"We still have bodies trapped in the fuselage," said FRED KLUTH, a battalion chief for the Milwaukee Fire Department. He said most of bodies were "badly mangled or fused together."
Midwest Express Flight 105 originated from Madison, Wis., and crashed at 3:20 p.m. Friday, moments after taking off from Milwaukee on its way to Atlanta. All 26 passengers and five crew members were killed when the DC-9 jet plunged nose first into a wildlife preserve at the end of Runway 19, exploded and burned.
"I was walking to my office when I heard what I though was a sonic boom," said DAN STOREY, who works close to the airport. "Flames were coming from the right side engine. At that point the plane started to lose altitude."
"The plane rolled sharply to the right, upside down. It hit the ground nose first and there was a loud explosion. I felt the initial heat blast."
Rescue workers picked through the 200 yards of fire-scarred trees and small pieces of airplane. A temporary morgue was set up in a nearby Milwaukee County maintenance hangar.
Area residents gathered by police blockades to view the wreckage and parked their cars along the area where a refrigerated truck was brought to carry the remains for identification.
Meanwhile, relatives of the victims met with American Red Cross officials with American Red Cross officials and clergy in The Signature Room restaurant at the airport.
Other relatives flew to the airport from Atlanta and Madison late Friday, officials said.
Fourteen bodies were recovered within hours of the crash, but the grisly search for more victims went into the night under the bright beams from temporary spotlights.
All the victims were from Wisconsin, the majority of them from Milwaukee, said JOSE OLLER, a spokesman for Midwest Express.
Billboards outside the airport heralded the airline's new nonstop flights to Atlanta. The crash was the first since the airline began in June 1984 and the only fatal commercial crash in the airport's history.
Officials could not confirm reports that one engine malfunctioned before the jet began rolling into a nose dive.
The worst previous air accident at Mitchell Field before Friday's crash of a Midwest Express airliner came 12 years ago when a private plane went down killing 16 people.

Daily Herald Chicago Illinois 1985-09-07

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Researched and Transcribed by Stu Beitler. Thank you, Stu!