Federal Express Flight 71
McDonnell Douglas MD-11-F · Accident: vortex turbulence encountered on approach
From Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) to Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport (ANC)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC96FA072
- 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
McDonnell Douglas MD-11-F
- Aircraft type
- McDonnell Douglas MD-11
- 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
- N614FE
- Operator
- Federal Express
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR), Newark, NJTo Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport (ANC)
- 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 · VFR pattern final
- 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
- Vortex turbulence encountered
- 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
- Pilot in command › Planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
MD-11 was cleared visual approach (apch) to runway (rwy) 24R, 3 mi (1 min) behind Boeing 747 (landing on rwy 24L). Rwys were 550 ft apart with rwy 24L threshold staggered 4300 ft beyond that of rwy 24R. MD-11 captain (capt) used VASI, which had 3.25 deg glide path. On final apch, 21 kt left crosswind diminished to about 5 kts. From 100 ft agl, MD-11 exhibited left, then right roll & slight yawing. About 50 ft agl, MD-11 entered high sink rate. Capt began go-around & raised nose. Lower aft fuselage hit rwy & MD-11 bounced. Capt discontinued go-around; MD-11 bounced two more times; sustained damage to aft pressure bulkhead. Last 20 sec of flight, MD-11 averaged 1380 ft/min rate of descent, 152 kts, 5.12 deg apch angle. MD-11 flight manual discussed visual apchs, go-around procedure, & tail/wing clearance issues, but operator did not have formal tailstrike awareness training for MD-11 pilots. After accident, operator developed tail strike awareness training program that included bounced landing recovery & simulator training, & limited pitch attitude to 7-1/2 deg for recovery from bounced landing. AIM recommended that for landing behind larger acft on parallel rwy, closer than 2500 ft, stay above larger acft's flight path. Tower controller did not issue precaution for wake turbulence.
Probable cause
the pilot's improper in-flight planning/decision, which allowed the airplane (MD-11) to encounter wake turbulence from a larger/heavy jet airplane (Boeing 747), while on a short final approach for landing on a close-by/parallel runway with a staggered threshold. Factors relating to the accident were the staggered/off-set runway thresholds, which positioned the normal approach path of runway 24R below that of runway 24L; the steeper than normal final approach path; and the left crosswind, which resulted in wake turbulence drifting from the Boeing 747's approach path to the MD-11's approach path.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC96FA072
- Event ID
- 20001208X05677
- Case number
- ANC96FA072
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- 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: 2631acf33e10a9314f265f24e389a84ffd51951565c241553cc31038d7779e9d; retrieved 2026-09-18T17:51:08.498Z.