Federal Express Flight 52
McDonnell Douglas DC10-30F · Accident
From Luis Munoz Marin International Airport (SJU) to Frederick W. Smith International Airport (MEM)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA97LA125
- 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 DC10-30F
- Aircraft type
- McDonnell Douglas DC10
- 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
- N310FE
- Operator
- Federal Express
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Luis Munoz Marin International Airport (SJU), San Juan, PRTo 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
- Unknown
- 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- 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
- Unknown › Airspeed, improper
- Unknown › Design stress limits of aircraft, exceeded
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Upon arrival in Memphis the aircraft was found to have wrinkling damage to the outboard elevators and elevator counter weights. The flightcrew reported they had no turbulence or other events during the flight that would have caused the damage. Readout of the 25 hours of data contained on the digital flight data recorder (DFDR) did not show any events that would have caused the damage. Examination of the elevators showed no material defects or preexisting damage. The aircraft manufacturer stated they have seen similar damage to elevators caused by stall buffet at high altitude or high speed buffet at high altitude. The aircraft received an 'A' check while on the ground prior to departure for Memphis and no discrepancies with the elevators were noted. The flight engineer reported that he did notice any discrepancies with the elevators during preflight inspection on the flight to Memphis.
Probable cause
A stall buffet or a high speed buffet event which occurred at an undetermined time.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA97LA125
- Event ID
- 20001208X07780
- Case number
- MIA97LA125
- 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: 713755a0e7e3fdb9e775d01c2d72a6b8a56e82b3ea7436c775ca148a96291a33; retrieved 2026-09-18T17:39:41.407Z.