Delta Airlines Lockheed L1011-385 incident
Lockheed L1011-385 · Incident: airframe, component or system failure on approach
From Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO92IA145
- 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 L1011-385
- Aircraft type
- Lockheed L1011
- 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
- N786DL
- Operator
- Delta Airlines
- 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
- Approach
- 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
- Minor
Cause areas
- Company maintenance personnel › Maintenance, lubrication, inadequate
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Boston, MA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT WAS LANDING ON RUNWAY 4R, WHEN ACCORDING TO THE PILOT, HE WAS ESTABLISHED ON THE GLIDE SLOPE WHEN HE FELT A VIBRATION. HE REPORTED THAT THE FLYING CHARACTERISTICS DEGRADED AND HE MADE THE NECESSARY CORRECTION SUCCESSFULLY. THERE WERE NO INDICATIONS IN THE COCKPIT OF ANY FAILURE. THE AIRPLANE TOUCHED DOWN 2 MINUTES LATER AND TAXIED TO THE GATE WITHOUT ANY FURTHER INCIDENCE. INSPECTION OF THE AIRPLANE REVEALED SEPARATION OF THE NO. 2 FLAP VANE FROM THE RIGHT WING. FURTHER TESTING BY THE NTSB LAB REVEALED THE SEPARATION OCCURRED DUE TO STRESS CORROSION AND FATIGUE CRACKING THAT INITIATED AT THE LUG BORE.
Probable cause
INADEQUATE LUBRICATION WHICH CAUSED STRESS CORROSION CRACKING AND THE SEPARATION OF THE RIGHT WING NUMBER TWO FLAP VANE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO92IA145
- Event ID
- 20001211X15610
- Case number
- BFO92IA145
- 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: 6146bd1ecc2eb8e3da36424102d838b1775efb0c9b190ffb16e160d592b3ab9b; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:44:02.631Z.