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British West Indies Flight 431

3 Oct 1993 · Miami, FL, United States

McDonnell Douglas MD-83 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route

From an unrecorded airport to Grantley Adams International Airport (TBPB)

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Event

NTSB case
MIA94FA001
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

McDonnell Douglas MD-83

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
9YTHR
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From not recordedTo Grantley Adams International Airport (TBPB), BARBADOS
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 129: Foreign
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
En route · climb to cruise
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
Airframe, component or system failure
DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
Substantial

Cause areas

  • Manufacturer › Acft/equip, inadequate design
  • Miscellaneous eqpt/furnishings, galley › Inoperative
  • Miscellaneous eqpt/furnishings, galley › Life expired
  • Miscellaneous eqpt/furnishings, galley › Pressure excessive

Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Miami, FL, the place the record names. Not the accident site.

NTSB narrative

THE WATER HEATER IN THE FORWARD GALLEY EXPLODED. EXAMINATION REVEALED THAT THE CONTACTS OF THE WATER HEATER RELAY, WHICH, WHEN ENERGIZED, PROVIDES ELECTRICAL POWER TO THE 3 HEATER ELEMENTS, WERE ROUGH, RAGGED, DISCOLORED, AND SHOWED EXCESSIVE EROSION. ACCORDING TO THE MANUFACTURER, WHEN A RELAY EXCEEDS ITS LIFETIME, IT IS POSSIBLE FOR EROSION AND WEAR ON THE SURFACE TO CAUSE THE CONTACTS TO STICK IN THE CLOSED POSITION. IN ADDITION, THE PRESSURE RELIEF VALVE, WHICH IS DESIGNED TO CRACK AT 65 PSI, WAS TESTED TO 300 PSI WITHOUT CRACKING. UPON DISASSEMBLY, THE O-RING WAS FOUND TO HAVE MIGRATED FROM ITS NORMAL LOCATION INTO THE LOWER VALVE BODY WHERE IT LODGED BETWEEN THE INSIDE DIAMETER AND THE HEAD OF THE POPPET. IN THIS CONDITION, THE O-RING PRESENTED A COMPLETED FLOW BLOCKAGE AND PREVENTED THE PRESSURE RELIEF VALVE FROM OPENING.

Probable cause

THE FAILURE OF THE WATER HEATER RELAY AND THE OVERPRESSURE RELIEF VALVE TO OPERATE PROPERLY. IN ADDITION, THE DESIGN OF THE RELIEF VALVE WAS INADEQUATE IN THAT IT ALLOWED THE O-RING TO MIGRATE FROM ITS NORMAL POSITION PREVENTING THE VALVE FROM OPENING.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record MIA94FA001
Event ID
20001211X13610
Case number
MIA94FA001
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: 6ed691f6b5913d0aa78ff1cd487f67a395db3b4e19cdb3567145798f82c6a5b5; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:27:47.090Z.