Airborne Express Douglas DC8-62 incident
Douglas DC8-62 · Incident: loss of control on ground/water during takeoff
From Orlando International Airport (MCO) to Wilmington Airpark (ILN)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA97IA050
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Douglas DC8-62
- Aircraft type
- Douglas DC8
- 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
- N804AX
- Operator
- Airborne Express
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Orlando International Airport (MCO)To Wilmington Airpark (ILN), Wilmington, OH
- 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
- Takeoff · roll/run
- 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
- Loss of control on ground/water
- 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 › Nosewheel steering, improper use of
- Pilot in command › Throttle/power control, improper use of
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
As the first officer began the takeoff roll the aircraft began to drift to the left. Attempts to correct the drift by application of full right nose wheel steering through the rudder pedals was unsuccessful. The captain took control of the aircraft and aborted the takeoff. As engine power was reduced the aircraft turned sharply to the right and went off the right side of the runway where it came to rest on soft terrain. The aircraft center of gravity was near the aft limit. After the incident the nose landing gear was found to be over serviced and extended 2.35 inches higher than normal. DFDR data showed that as engine power was added for takeoff the nose of the aircraft pitched up extending the nose gear further. This allowed the centering cam to restrict nose gear steering to +/- 4 degrees. As the captain aborted the takeoff the nose pitched down and normal nose steering returned at which time the aircraft responded to the full right rudder input. DFDR and CVR data also show that as the captain aborted the takeoff he did not fully close throttles 1 and 2 and the asymmetric thrust contributed to the uncontrolled right turn.
Probable cause
The failure of the captain to center the rudder and close all engine throttles during an aborted takeoff resulting in an uncontrolled turn to the right due to nose wheel steering through the rudder pedals and asymmetric engine thrust. A factor in the incident was failure of operator maintenance personnel to properly service the nose landing gear strut resulting in an over extended strut and the flight crews loss of directional control to the left during takeoff requiring them to abort the takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA97IA050
- Event ID
- 20001208X07207
- Case number
- MIA97IA050
- 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 1996-12-31.
- API snapshot SHA-256: a478fb24f78aab9b46cae9bc77c9bdc8fdf253e62c1af33986c36f4aeacafb66; retrieved 2026-09-18T17:43:42.523Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N804AX; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.