Delta Airlines McDonnell Douglas MD-88 incident
McDonnell Douglas MD-88 · Incident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) during takeoff
From Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) to El Paso International Airport (ELP)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW92IA208
- 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 MD-88
- Aircraft type
- McDonnell 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
- N956DL
- Operator
- Delta Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW)To El Paso International Airport (ELP), El Paso, 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
- 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
- Partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- 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
- Manufacturer › Material defect
- Turbine assembly, turbine blade › Fractured
Not plotted · Location withheld: coordinates are missing, conflicting, invalid, or have no accepted acquisition method. No substitute location has been invented.
NTSB narrative
THE TAKEOFF WAS ABORTED AS THE AIRPLANE WAS ACCELERATING THROUGH 90 KNOTS. EXAMINATION OF THE AIRPLANE REVEALED THAT THE NUMBER ONE ENGINE EXPERIENCED A FAILURE OF ONE FAN BLADE IN THE FAN DISK DUE TO A MANUFACTURING DEFECT.
Probable cause
THE LOSS OF ENGINE POWER DUE TO THE FRACTURE OF A FAN BLADE RESULTING FROM A MANUFACTURING DEFECT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW92IA208
- Event ID
- 20001211X15406
- Case number
- FTW92IA208
- 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. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1992-08-15.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 1553524652c77bb6d573ceb8f7535b5c2243e54faa1ba4c6944f99d9163fd282; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:44:45.490Z.