Delta Air Lines Lockheed L-1011-1 incident
Lockheed L-1011-1 · Incident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL92IA113
- 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
Lockheed L-1011-1
- Aircraft type
- Lockheed L-1011
- 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
- N718DA
- Operator
- Delta Air Lines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL), Atlanta, GATo Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), Los Angeles, CA
- 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
- 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
- None
Cause areas
- Air cond/heating/pressurization › Overtemperature
- Flight attendant › Miscellaneous equipment, not performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE CABIN AND COCKPIT FILLED WITH SMOKE DURING CLIMBOUT. THE PILOT DECLARED AN EMERGENCY AND LANDED WITHOUT INCIDENT. HOWEVER, DURING THE TAXI TO THE RAMP THE FLIGHT CREW STARTED THE APU AND SMOKE FILLED THE CABIN AND COCKPIT AGAIN. THE PILOT STOPPED THE AIRPLANE AND ORDERED AN EVACUATION VIA THE EMERGENCY SLIDES. THE FLIGHT ATTENDANTS STARTED THE EVACUATION AND DISCOVERED THAT THREE SLIDES WOULD NOT DEPLOY. EXAMINATION OF THE AIRPLANE DISCLOSED THAT THE NUMBER 2 AIR CYCLE MACHINE HAD OVERHEATED AND SMOKE FLOWED INTO THE AIRPLANE. ADDITIONALLY, THE GIRT BARS ON THE 3 INOPERATIVE SLIDES WERE NOT INSTALLED IN ACCORDANCE WITH STANDARD PROCEDURES.
Probable cause
THE OVERHEATING OF THE NUMBER 2 AIR CYCLE MACHINE WHICH RESULTED IN AN EMERGENCY EVACUATION VIA SLIDES; THE FAILURE OF THE FLIGHT ATTENDANTS TO SECURE THE SLIDE GIRT BARS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL92IA113
- Event ID
- 20001211X14766
- Case number
- ATL92IA113
- 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, damage. 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: bab791fa90977d4fc86422a4c819b0e4c99916f7859a76ed7e01bfee9631a7a3; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:46:37.535Z.