USA Jet Airlines Douglas DC-9-15F accident
Douglas DC-9-15F · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) to Kansas City International Airport (MCI)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI99FA102
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- Airline
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Douglas DC-9-15F
- Aircraft type
- Douglas DC-9
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N195US
- Operator
- USA Jet Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), Los Angeles, CATo Kansas City International Airport (MCI)
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 121: Air Carrier
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Approach
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- In flight collision with object
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- 2 engines › Foreign object damage
- Object › Bird(s)
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Kansas City, MO, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The airplane was cleared to land on runway 19R at the Kansas City International Airport. The first officer said that the airplane was on speed and on course for the visual approach. 'The captain had just called the 1,000 feet [above the ground] call when a flock of snow geese suddenly illuminated in our lights, engulfing us from below, flying into us. No birds hit the windshields, but it was immediately apparent they had flown into the engines.' The captain said that he had the airplane, advanced the power on both engines, and ordered the first officer to reset the flaps to 30 degrees, the single- engine flap position. 'The number one engine continued to compressor stall. The number two engine went to a sub-idle run condition.' The captain reduced the power on the number one engine 'enough to lessen the surge/stall condition to a rate of once every two seconds, which allowed just enough thrust to maintain the approach and to lower the vibration. The number one engine continued to compressor stall/surge to touchdown.' The touchdown was normal. Examination of the airplane revealed bird remains and substantial damage to both engines. No other anomalies were found.
Probable cause
ingestion of birds into both engines, resulting in foreign object damage and the subsequent partial power loss to both engines. A factor relating to this accident was the dark night.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI99FA102
- Event ID
- 20001205X00272
- Case number
- CHI99FA102
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1999-03-05.
- API snapshot SHA-256: fb78a12b11e762131ac6f239d5605bda114e0ff44ce6f5bab5cf891034bc94ff; retrieved 2026-09-18T16:58:31.300Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N195US; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.