Flight 318 · Boeing 737-522
Boeing 737-522 · Incident while standing
From San Francisco International Airport (SFO) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA98IA027
- 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
Boeing 737-522
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 737
- 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
- N918UA
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From San Francisco International Airport (SFO), San Francisco, CATo not recorded
- 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
- Standing · engine(s) operating
- 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
- None
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Checklist, not followed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After the airplane had taxied to and stopped at the gate, the jetway was positioned to the 1 left door. While the passengers were beginning to deplane, the captain positioned the fuel levers to the 'cutoff' position. Ground power had not yet been connected and the airplane went dark. The captain then repositioned the fuel levers to the 'idle' position. Immediately following this action, ground personnel noticed smoke coming from the number two engine and notified the flight crew of a fire. The captain ordered an evacuation and began the checklist procedures. When the flight crew reached the position of the fuel levers step in the checklist, the captain noticed that the fuel levers were in the 'idle' position. The captain then positioned the fuel levers to the 'cutoff' position. The smoke began to dissipate from the engine and the all clear signal was given by the ground crew. After the smoke dissipated, the captain cancelled the evacuation. Approximately 20 passengers had deplaned via the 2 right slide to the ground. Another 10 to 20 passenger went out the over wing exit. Maintenance personnel inspected the engine and reported that there was no indication of an actual fire, and suspected that when the fuel lever was positioned to the 'idle' position, the fuel valve opened and jet fuel was injected into the hot decelerating engine.
Probable cause
A checklist procedure was not followed. The initiation of an evacuation was a factor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA98IA027
- Event ID
- 20001208X09379
- Case number
- SEA98IA027
- 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, damage. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1997-12-26.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 61ac06527d27e449df902e9a2fcd03cf06844c702b347465c60d38a7c0b806fc; retrieved 2026-09-18T17:15:28.052Z.