Flagship Express Service McDonnell Douglas DC-8-63F accident
McDonnell Douglas DC-8-63F · Accident: on ground/water collision with object while taxiing
From Frederick W. Smith International Airport (MEM) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW92LA005
- 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 DC-8-63F
- Aircraft type
- McDonnell Douglas DC-8
- 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
- N952R
- Operator
- Flagship Express Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Frederick W. Smith International Airport (MEM), Memphis, TNTo 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
- Taxi
- 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 object
- 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
- Pilot in command › Clearance, misjudged
Not plotted · Location withheld: coordinates are missing, conflicting, invalid, or have no accepted acquisition method. No substitute location has been invented.
NTSB narrative
A CARGO TRANSPORT AIRCRAFT WAS TAXIING TO THE CARGO RAMP TO UNLOAD ITS CARGO WHEN THE LEFT WING TIP STRUCK A LARGE PORTABLE MAINTENANCE STAND. THE MAINTENANCE STAND HAD BEEN LEFT UNATTENDED NINE FEET BEYOND THE MARKED TAXIWAY CLEAR ZONE. THE OUTBOARD 18 INCHES OF THE LEFT WING TIP WAS TORN OFF BY THE COLLISION, WHICH ALSO CAUSED A 75 TO 80 GALLON FUEL SPILL.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S MISJUDGMENT OF THE WING TIP CLEARANCE. A FACTOR WAS THE FAILURE OF THE MAINTENANCE PERSONNEL TO FOLLOW PROCEDURES AND DIRECTIVES PERTAINING TO TAXIWAY AND RAMP CLEARANCE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW92LA005
- Event ID
- 20001212X18299
- Case number
- FTW92LA005
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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: 585afbf339d0b322190bc4ce900eedf52c3f690a4a2a7f0464a77859e6ec6813; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:51:54.300Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N952R; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.