Flight 594 · Boeing 757-232
Boeing 757-232 · Incident: on ground/water collision with terrain/water during takeoff
From Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport (FLL) to Boston Logan International Airport (BOS)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL94IA001
- 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 757-232
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 757
- 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
- N638DL
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport (FLL)To Boston Logan International Airport (BOS), Boston, MA
- 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
- Takeoff · roll/run
- 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
- On ground/water collision with terrain/water
- 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
- Pilot in command › Airspeed(vlof), improper
- Pilot in command › Airspeed(vr), improper
- Pilot in command › Rotation, excessive
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Fort Lauderdale, FL, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
ACCORDING TO THE PILOTS, DURING THE TAKEOFF ROLL, THE AIRPLANE BEGAN TO BOUNCED FORWARD & BACKWARD, & AT ABOUT 128 KTS, THE NOSE PITCHED UP. INFO IN THE FLIGHT DATA RECORDER SHOWED THAT AT 95 KTS, THE ELEVATOR BEGAN A POSITIVE DEFLECTION; AT 108.5 KTS, PITCH ATTITUDE BEGAN TO INCREASE; THEN AT ABOUT 126 KTS, THE PITCH ANGLE REACHED A MAXIMUM VALUE OF 11.25 DEG & THE AIRCRAFT BECAME AIRBORNE. ABOUT 3 SECONDS AFTER INITIAL LIFT-OFF, THE AIRCRAFT TOUCHED DOWN MOMENTARILY. THE CAPTAIN STATED THAT AFTER BECOMING AIRBORNE, HE APPLIED FULL POWER & CONTINUED THE CLIMB. SUSPECTING A POSSIBLE TAIL STRIKE, HE ELECTED TO RETURN TO THE AIRPORT & LAND. A POST-FLIGHT EXAM REVEALED A 6' SCRAPE MARK AFT OF THE PRESSURE BULKHEAD. COMPUTED TAKEOFF SPEEDS FOR THIS FLIGHT WERE: DECISION SPEED (V1) 128 KTS, ROTATION SPEED (VR) 130 KTS, AND TAKEOFF SAFETY SPEED (V2) 135 KTS. THE PREVIOUS FLIGHT'S LIFT-OFF OCCURRED AT 151 KTS & 6.855 DEG NOSE UP PITCH. NO MECHANICAL PROBLEM WAS DISCOVERED WITH THE AIRPLANE.
Probable cause
FAILURE OF THE CAPTAIN TO USE THE PROPER ROTATION AND LIFT-OFF SPEEDS, WHICH RESULTED IN OVER ROTATION OF THE AIRCRAFT DURING TAKEOFF AND A SUBSEQUENT TAIL SCRAPE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL94IA001
- Event ID
- 20001211X13516
- Case number
- ATL94IA001
- 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: c2a8b03517fbef3334c172f602816d6f0c3bd5fdffa08136e404a7bc0f689ac6; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:27:33.712Z.