Reno Air Flight 153
McDonnell Douglas DC-9-87 · Accident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) during takeoff
From an unrecorded airport to Reno Tahoe International Airport (RNO)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI97FA083
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
McDonnell Douglas DC-9-87
- Aircraft type
- McDonnell 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
- N753RA
- Operator
- Reno Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Reno Tahoe International Airport (RNO), Reno, NV
- 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
- 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
- Partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- 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
- All engines › Ice ingestion
- Pilot in command › Ice/frost removal from aircraft, not performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane experienced a partial loss of power on both engines during takeoff. The flight returned and landed without further incident. Post accident examination of the engines revealed the compressor fan blades on both engines had sustained soft body impact damage. The airplane had been subjected to sub-zero temperatures during the previous flight and had landed with the wing tanks almost full. The airplane was on the ground for about two and a half hours prior to the accident takeoff during which time rain was falling. Both the captain and copilot reported that there were no signs of ice on the wings during their early morning preflight.
Probable cause
the captains failure to have the airplane deiced prior to takeoff which resulted in ice ingestion into both engines. Factors associated with the accident were the icing weather conditions, wing ice, an inadequate detection of the ice during the preflight, and the dark lighting conditions when the first officer was performing the preflight.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI97FA083
- Event ID
- 20001208X07495
- Case number
- CHI97FA083
- 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: 2c533e4ed96b30964cc4b048133a05fa8c8a9e353b7be0cae01d623965dab9d5; retrieved 2026-09-18T17:41:04.906Z.