Delta Air Lines Flight 978
Douglas MD-88 · Accident during landing
From Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO93LA155
- 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
Douglas MD-88
- Aircraft type
- Douglas MD-88
- 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
- N913DL
- Operator
- Delta Air Lines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL), Atlanta, GATo 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Flight attendant › Procedures/directives, not followed
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Lexington, KY, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
DURING A HARD LANDING, A CABIN ATTENDANT WAS STANDING IN THE AIRPLANE'S AISLE. WHEN THE AIRPLANE TOUCHED DOWN, THE CABIN ATTENDANT'S ANKLE TWISTED WHICH RESULTED IN A BONE FRACTURE. REVIEW OF THE COCKPIT VOICE RECORDER REVEALED THAT THE CAPTAIN SIGNALED TO THE CABINCREW TO PREPARE FOR LANDING ABOUT EIGHT MINUTES AND 37 SECONDS PRIOR TO THE LANDING. THE INJURED CABIN ATTENDANT STATED THAT HE WAS OUT OF HIS JUMPSEAT PREPARING A GALLEY FOR LANDING WHEN HE REALIZED THE AIRPLANE WAS CLOSE TO THE GROUND. THE INJURED CABIN ATTENDANT STATED THAT HE WAS ON THE WAY TO HIS JUMPSEAT WHEN THE AIRPLANE TOUCHED DOWN. THE DIGITAL FLIGHT DATA RECORDER REVEALED THAT THE AIRPLANE TOUCHED DOWN AT 124 KNOTS INDICATED AIRSPEED WITH A VERTICAL VELOCITY OF 10.7 FEET PER SECOND. THE MAXIMUM VERTICAL ACCELERATION RECORDED AT TOUCH DOWN WAS 2.5 G'S. THE AIRPLANE WAS NOT DAMAGED AND NO OTHER AIRPLANE OCCUPANTS WERE INJURED.
Probable cause
THE CABIN ATTENDANT DID NOT FOLLOW PUBLISHED PROCEDURES.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO93LA155
- Event ID
- 20001211X13331
- Case number
- BFO93LA155
- 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 1993-09-04.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 325d54dd793b738dc044d44f112998872e4aa433c0486ff51b5f08bc615a5c04; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:30:08.858Z.