American Airlines Flight 383
McDonnell Douglas DC-9-82 · Incident: fire during initial climb
From an unrecorded airport to Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL93IA113
- 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-9-82
- 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
- N467AA
- Operator
- American Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW), DALLAS/FT WORTH, TX
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Fire
- 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
- Fuel system, nozzle › Leak
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Savannah, GA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
APPROXIMATELY ONE MINUTE AFTER TAKEOFF, THE CREW OBSERVED LEFT ENGINE FIRE WARNING INDICATIONS IN THE COCKPIT. THE LEFT ENGINE POWER LEVER WAS RETARDED, AND A TURN TOWARDS THE AIRPORT WAS INITIATED. THE FIRE WARNING INDICATIONS ACTUATED INTERMITTENTLY UNTIL THE CREW SHUT DOWN THE ENGINE AND ACTIVATED THE ENGINE FIRE EXTINGUISHER. AN UNEVENTFUL LANDING WAS PERFORMED. GROUND PERSONNEL INFORMED THE CAPTAIN OF VISIBLE FIRE DAMAGE TO THE LEFT ENGINE, AND AN EMERGENCY EVACUATION WAS PERFORMED. AN INSPECTION OF THE LEFT ENGINE REVEALED A LEAK AT THE NO. 7 FUEL NOZZLE, WHICH WAS THE ORIGIN OF THE FIRE. A HOLE WAS BURNED IN THE DIFFUSER CASE, WHICH ALLOWED HOT GASES TO ESCAPE AND CONTACT OIL LINES. THIS RESULTED IN EXTENSIVE FIRE DAMAGE TO THE ENGINE AND COWLING.
Probable cause
LEAKAGE OF THE NUMBER 7 FUEL NOZZLE, WHICH RESULTED IN AN IN FLIGHT ENGINE FIRE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL93IA113
- Event ID
- 20001211X12525
- Case number
- ATL93IA113
- 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: 7b53c9911f6af3f475e04b7cf42e30ca25ff2a1b7fcadc80e28fa9a6f8ab29c1; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:34:21.715Z.