Delta Airlines Flight 256
McDonnell Douglas MD-88 · Incident: overrun during landing
From Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) to Cleveland Hopkins International Airport (CLE)
Event
- NTSB case
- IAD97IA020
- 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
- Incident
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
McDonnell Douglas MD-88
- Aircraft type
- McDonnell Douglas MD-88
- 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
- N918DL
- Operator
- Delta Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL), Atlanta, GATo Cleveland Hopkins International Airport (CLE)
- 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
- Landing · landing roll
- 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
- Overrun
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Minor
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Checklist, not followed
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Cleveland, OH, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
Before landing, the flight crew was advised and acknowledged that the braking action on the runway was reported as 'fair.' After landing, the first officer selected reverse thrust to slow the airplane. The crew then noticed that the airplane was not slowing normally. The captain assumed control of the airplane, applied maximum braking and reverse thrust; however, the airplane continued off the departure end of the runway. Measurements taken immediately after the incident indicated braking action for the runway was 38 (fair), 23 (poor), and 27 (poor). Review of the flight data recorder revealed that the spoilers remained retracted at touchdown and during rollout to zero airspeed. According to the MD-80 Flight Crew Operating Manual, 'When armed, the automatic brake system (ABS) will automatically apply brakes during landing and takeoff modes of flight. ABS landing mode is activated when spoilers are deployed either automatically or manually.' The Abnormal Flight Profiles section of the Pilots Reference Manual stated, 'Ground spoilers significantly increase brake effectiveness. In order to achieve a maximum performance stop, ensure that ground spoilers have extended.' Review of the Delta Airlines MD-80/90 Normal Checklist revealed that it was the duty of the 'pilot not flying' to ensure that spoilers were in the 'ARM' position.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to follow checklist procedures and extend the spoilers.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record IAD97IA020
- Event ID
- 20001208X07046
- Case number
- IAD97IA020
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1996-11-12.
- API snapshot SHA-256: cb0cd650c30d1199b354c46de547002282225fa013b969c9c7fb8993adb790d7; retrieved 2026-09-18T17:45:38.872Z.