Eastern Air Lines Douglas DC-9-31 incident
Douglas DC-9-31 · Incident: airframe, component or system failure during takeoff
From an unrecorded airport to Tallahassee International Airport (TLH)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL90IA126
- 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-9-31
- Aircraft type
- Douglas DC-9
- 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
- N8943E
- Operator
- Eastern Air Lines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Tallahassee International Airport (TLH), Tallahassee, FL
- 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
- 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, inspection, inadequate
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Atlanta, GA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
AT ROTATION THE FLIGHT CREW NOTED A BANG & A VIBRATION. THE LEFT ENGINE LOST POWER & WAS SHUT DOWN. A SINGLE ENGINE LANDING WAS COMPLETED AT THE DEPARTURE AIRPORT. INVESTIGATION REVEALED THAT THE NO. 2 TIRE RUPTURED DURING THE TAKE OFF ROLL. TIRE DEBRIS ENTERED THE ENGINE. THE TIRE HAD BEEN RECAPPED ONCE 7 DAYS PRIOR & INSTALLED ON THE AIRPLANE 2 DAYS PRIOR. THE AIRPLANE HAD RECEIVED TWO DAILY SERVICE INSPECTIONS ON THE DAY PRIOR & THE MORNING OF THE INCIDENT. THE INSPECTION REQUIRES TIRE PRESSURE CHECKS WITH A GAUGE. TWO OTHER RECENT TIRE BLOWOUT INCIDENTS ON TAKE OFF WERE FOUND TO HAVE RESULTED FROM UNDER-INFLATION.
Probable cause
INADEQUATE MAINTENANCE INSPECTION BY OPERATOR PERSONNEL WHICH RESULTED IN OPERATION OF THE TIRE WHILE UNDER-INFLATED.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL90IA126
- Event ID
- 20001212X23321
- Case number
- ATL90IA126
- 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 1990-06-08.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 7493f6da0f7d95c43826de252b8393155385f6db9a6e382928d4080bd4c172b6; retrieved 2026-09-18T19:01:58.358Z.