Trans World Airlines Flight 593
McDonnell Douglas DC-9-83(MD-83) DC-9-83(MD · Incident: overrun during landing
From St. Louis Lambert International Airport (STL) to Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW97IA365
- 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
McDonnell Douglas DC-9-83(MD-83) DC-9-83(MD
- 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
- N931TW
- Operator
- Trans World Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From St. Louis Lambert International Airport (STL), ST LOUIS, MOTo Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY)
- 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
- None
Cause areas
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of New Orleans, LA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
On September 25, 1997, approximately 0939 central daylight time, Trans World Airlines flight 593, a McDonnell Douglas DC-9-83 (MD-83) airplane, N931TW, was not damaged during a runway overrun at New Orleans International Airport (Moisant Field), New Orleans, Louisiana. The aircraft was being operated by as a scheduled domestic passenger flight under the provisions of Title 14 CFR Part 121. Visual meteorological conditions existed at the time, and an instrument flight plan was on file for the flight. The five crewmembers and 130 passengers were not injured, and there was no emergency evacuation. The flight originated from St. Louis, Missouri, about 0750.
According to preliminary information, the aircraft landed on runway 01, and during the landing roll the aircraft overran the departure end of the runway, resulting in the nose landing gear getting stuck in the mud. The passengers were deplaned and transported to the terminal by bus. According to ATC tower personnel, the light rain had ceased prior to the arrival of flight 593, and the runway condition was classified as wet with good braking action. The flight crew reported to ATC that the breaking action was good during the beginning of the landing roll; however, during the last portion of the landing roll the braking action became poor.
No additional information is available.
Probable cause
Runway overrun for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW97IA365
- Event ID
- 20001208X08835
- Case number
- FTW97IA365
- 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, damage. 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: 84d1c144897acfb03d3ed34eb112de1f74d52593d08dfa1ab9916ecdf24c5d6b; retrieved 2026-09-18T17:22:21.745Z.