Flagship Express Douglas DC-8-63 incident
Douglas DC-8-63 · Incident: decompression en route
From an unrecorded airport to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC92IA030
- 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
Douglas DC-8-63
- Aircraft type
- 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
- N794AL
- Operator
- Flagship Express
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 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
- Decompression
- 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
- Flight engineer › Aircraft preflight, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE MAIN CARGO DOOR OPENED IN FLIGHT AND THE AIRPLANE RETURNED FOR A NORMAL LANDING. OF THE TWO CIRCUIT BREAKERS REQUIRED TO BE PULLED PRIOR TO TAKEOFF, ONE WAS FOUND STILL ENGAGED. A CONFORMITY INSPECTION ON THE CARGO DOOR INSTALLATION REVEALED SEVERAL AREAS OF NONCONFORMITY INCLUDING DOOR LOCKS OF LESS THAN REQUIRED STRENGTH, LACK OF PAINT ON DOOR LOCKS WHICH IS USED FOR VISUAL IDENTIFICATION, AND DAMAGED WIRES IN A BUNDLE. THE WIRES WERE PART OF THE DOOR CLOSING, DOOR LOCKED INDICATING SYSTEM. THE INVESTIGATION REVEALED IT WAS POSSIBLE FOR THE DOOR TO BE NOT COMPLETELY CLOSED AND HAVE THE DOOR WARNING LIGHT GO OUT, INDICATING IT WAS FULLY LOCKED.
Probable cause
THE FAILURE OF THE FLIGHT ENGINEER TO CONDUCT A PROPER PREFLIGHT INSPECTION AND ENSURE THE MAIN CARGO DOOR WAS FULLY CLOSED AND LOCKED. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE THE DAMAGED WIRES IN THE BUNDLE, AND THE IMPROPER MAIN CARGO DOOR INSTALLATION.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC92IA030
- Event ID
- 20001212X18509
- Case number
- NYC92IA030
- 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: 6eac2a42030117dcf065d212c6d3c7b2af513bde7d3934ba13b8d2a89be52ae5; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:50:32.173Z.