FedEx Flight 3244
Boeing 727-225 · Accident: on ground/water collision with object while taxiing
From Norfolk International Airport (ORF) to Frederick W. Smith International Airport (MEM)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA96LA107
- 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
Boeing 727-225
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 727
- 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
- N468FE
- Operator
- FedEx
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Norfolk International Airport (ORF), Norfolk, VATo Frederick W. Smith International Airport (MEM)
- 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
- Taxi · from runway
- 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
- On ground/water 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
- Flightcrew › Clearance, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A NOTAM had been issued by the airport authority for closure of the portion of Taxiway A, between the entrance to the Northwest Airlink hangar and Taxiway B. Athough the NOTAM had been sent to the FAA Tower and Federal Express, the flightcrew was not provided this NOTAM by Federal Express, and the closed taxiway was not blocked off. The flightcrew received ATIS information 'Alpha' about 120 miles from Memphis, but the controller, who had recorded the ATIS, did not include the NOTAM information. About 20 minutes before the flight landed, the ATIS was changed to information 'Bravo,' which included the NOTAM information. The flightcrew did not get information 'Bravo,' and the approach controller did not ensure that the flightcrew had the most current information. After landing, the flight was cleared to taxi and hold short of runway 27. The ground controller did not inform the flightcrew that taxiway 'A' was closed. The flight proceeded along the closed portion of taxiway 'A,' and as the flightcrew was maneuvering around construction equipment, the right wing of the aircraft struck the construction equipment.
Probable cause
failure of the flightcrew to maintain clearance from construction equipment while taxiing after landing. Factors relating to the accident were: failure of operator personnel to supply the flightcrew with current NOTAM information, failure of ATC personnel to include NOTAM information on ATIS information 'Alpha,' failure of tower personnel to ensure that the flightcrew had the most current ATIS information, failure of the ground controller to control the movement of the aircraft to prevent it from entering the closed taxiway, and failure of the airport authority to block the closed taxiway.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA96LA107
- Event ID
- 20001208X05462
- Case number
- MIA96LA107
- 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: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: a67af1ef41be357eabbc00e2be89e7e6783c6ecf21df336c51d3823f6256efeb; retrieved 2026-09-18T17:52:30.606Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N468FE; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.