Originally Posted by WHBM

Northwest's first DC9s were indeed from Republic, but afterwards they topped up with a range of other secondhand aircraft as well, many from European carriers changing over to early A320s. The series 40s came from SAS, who were the originator of the variant, its principal and for a long time only customer. Republic also brought along a handful of MD-80s, which probably seemed an additional type too many, within a year one of them was destroyed in a serious takeoff accident at Detroit when the slats had not been deployed, not the only such MD-80 accident, and they were disposed before any of the DC9 types....