Two Who Slipped Away

When the World Airways DC-10 skidded off the runway at Logan International Airport and into Boston Harbor, the aircraft's nose section was sheared off like the tip of a roughly clipped cigar. Don Welsh, 25, a dental student at Tufts University, who was seated in the front cabin, suddenly found himself covered with spray and looking out at the harbor. Soon he and other passengers were pulling the flight crew out of the water. Welsh saw someone splashing ten or 20 yards to his left, well out of his reach. Then the person disappeared. Welsh told a fireman what he had seen. Back in the terminal, Welsh noticed that two men who had been sitting in the first row seemed to be missing. But World Airways announced that all 196 passengers and twelve crew members were safe. "I couldn't sleep at all that night," Welsh said. The next morning he called airport authorities and the airline, but both insisted that everyone on board the Oakland-Newark-Boston flight was accounted for. Said Welsh: "I didn't believe it."

His fears proved true. Three days after the crash, World revised its passenger count: two men, Walter Metcalf, 69, and his son Leo, 40, both of Dedham, Mass., were missing and presumed drowned. The discovery was made after the Metcalf family, whose repeated inquiries to World were rebuffed, took their concern about the missing relatives to state police. The airline, which has been ordered by the Civil Aeronautics Board to produce all passenger documentation, claims that a no-show in Newark and an unpulled ticket stub in Oakland allowed the Metcalfs to slip through uncounted.

As divers searched for the bodies, investigators examined the plane for clues to the crash. Officials are trying to determine if the plane touched down too late or whether the runway was icy. Pilot Peter Langley says he tried to slow the aircraft with brakes, reverse thrust and wing flaps. About 40 minutes before the crash, another pilot radioed that braking conditions on the runway were "poor to nil." But five planes landed safely between that report and the accident.

Meanwhile, investigators studying the crash of Air Florida Flight 90 in Washington, D.C., eleven days earlier used the plane's flight recorder data to reconstruct its takeoff. The Boeing 737 took 47 sec. rather than the usual 30 sec. to reach its lift-off speed of 147 knots, thus putting it farther down the runway than normal when it ascended. The plane stayed aloft less than 30 sec. and reached a maximum height of 337 ft. when it should have been much higher. Investigators are looking into the possibility that runway slush slowed the plane on takeoff. They also wonder whether ice formed on the aircraft or its engines before it plunged into the Potomac, killing 78 people.

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