Portland airliner crash in 1978 killed 10, but changed the way crews are trained (2024)

On the morning of Dec. 29, 1978, The Oregonian carried the following triple-deck, bold-faced headline across the top of the front page:

'United DC-8 crashes

at E. Burnside, 157^th;

10 killed; 175 survive

Below the headline was a deadline-written story about one of the worst aviation disasters in Oregon history. There was a five-column photo of rescuers surrounding the fuselage of the broken airliner that had crashed among towering pine trees in a quiet suburban Portland neighborhood at 6:15 p.m. the previous evening.

The crash was big news, and The Oregonian responded with big coverage. The paper devoted all or part of five pages to the incident on Dec. 29 and another six pages on Dec. 30.

There were stories about the crash, reaction from those who lived nearby, those who responded to the scene and area officials. There were stories about how well the crew performed and how well emergency planning worked.

There was even a story about an escaped Oregon convict who had been a passenger on the plane. Kim Campbell, who had been captured in Colorado, was being returned here to face charges. Campbell survived the crash, and helped Capt. Roger Seed, the corrections officer bringing him back, in aiding injured passengers, and then he disappeared into the night.

United 173 was Oregon's second-worst

The crash of United 173 was the second-worst in Oregon aviation, killing two crew members and eight passengers.

The worst had happened on Oct. 1, 1966, when all 18 aboard a West Coast Airlines DC-9 died when it crashed near the community of Wemme, on the western slopes of Mount Hood.

Recently, National Geographic produced a

called “Fatal Fixation” that detailed the sequence of events leading up to the crash, delved into the investigation and explained how the NTSB came to its conclusions.

The 44-minute long production contains interviews with passengers, investigators and an air traffic controller who was in communication with Flight 173 in the hour leading up to the crash.

But perhaps the biggest story was one that came out months later: The crash proved to be a major factor in changing the way flight crews on airliners communicate with each other.

The investigation into United Flight 173revealed that showing too much deference to the captain and his or her decisions in an emergency situation could actually take a bad situation and make it worse.

Because of the outcome of the investigation, major airlines all over the world began to change the way crews were trained.

The National Transportation Safety Board determined that the first and second officers in the co*ckpit were unable to get the captain to focus on the real problem facing the troubled airliner – the crafts's rapidly shrinking fuel supply. Instead, Capt. Malburn McBroom was obsessed with trying to solve a possible problem with the airplane's landing gear.

As a result of McBroom focusing on the latter problem, the DC-8 ran out of fuel after breaking out of a holding pattern and trying to make it to a runway at Portland International Airport.

Moments after the last of its four engines flamed out, the airliner glided silently to earth near the intersection of East Burnside and 157^th Avenue, crashing through a small forest of fir trees and crushing two unoccupied homes.

Covering the crash

The Oregonian threw pretty much every available reporter and photographer at the coverage of the crash of United Flight 173 on the evening of Dec. 28, 1978.

The result was several days of intense coverage, with much of it coming the first two days. Below are copies of the pages that appeared in the newspaper during the first two days of coverage:

Dec. 29, 1978

Dec. 30, 1978

While McBroom was credited with crash-landing the airplane in a way that minimized the loss of life, he was later faulted for bad judgment in not focusing on the bigger problem of the two he faced – the dwindling fuel supply.

The incident was one of a string of deadly airline crashes that took place around the world in the 1970s that were eventually attributed, at least in part, to bad co*ckpit communication. One of those incidents was the collision of two airliners at an airport in the Canary Islands that proved the worst in aviation history, killing more than 500 people.

But the NTSB investigation into the incident in Portland proved a tipping point.

By talking to witnesses, studying flight records and listening to the recordings of the conversations between McBroom, First Officer Roderick D. Beebe and Second Officer Forrest E. Mendenhall, NTSB officials were able to determine that McBroom didn't listen to what they were trying to tell him and that they weren't clear or assertive enough in trying to communicate with him.

According to the accident report adopted by the NTSB on June 7, 1979, the probable cause of the accident was stated as follows:

"The NTSB determined that the probable cause of the accident was the failure of the captain to monitor properly the aircraft's fuel state and to properly respond to the low fuel state and the crew-member's advisories regarding fuel state.

"This resulted in fuel exhaustion to all engine's. His inattention resulted from preoccupation with a landing gear malfunction and preparations for a possible landing emergency.

"Contributing to the accident was the failure of the other two flight crewmembers either to fully comprehend the criticality of the fuel state or to successfully communicate their concern to the captain.".

When the result of the investigation were released, and the communication problem was highlighted, it proved the first step toward airlines starting to use as NASA-developed program known as co*ckpit Resource Management.

Essentially, the program – usually referred to as CRM – makes sure that crews are trained in a way that everyone has a say in identifying problems and what can be done to solve them.

CRM is now widely credited with helping make flying safer and reducing the number of airline incidents.

As for the aftermath, survivors of the crash held a reunion on the 20^th anniversary of the event in 1998. Even though the NTSB had faulted McBroom, the survivors invited him to the reunion and credited his piloting skills for saving so many of those on board.

McBroom, who had suffered a broken leg, shoulder and ribs in the crash, quietly accepted the applause he received but appeared uncomfortable and told reporter Catherine Trevison, who covered the event:

"It's kind of bittersweet. I appreciate it. I know it's sincere,"McBroomsaid. "But we lost 10, and that is heavy."

McBroom died Oct. 9, 2004, in Colorado.

-- John Killen

Sources: The Oregonian, NTSB investigation, National Geographic Society, Wikipedia