Eastern Air Lines Douglas DC-9-51 incident
Douglas DC-9-51 · Incident: airframe, component or system failure during takeoff
From Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) to Kansas City International Airport (MCI)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL90IA136
- 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-9-51
- 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
- N415EA
- Operator
- Eastern Air Lines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL)To Kansas City International Airport (MCI), Kansas City, MO
- 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
- 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
DURING THE TAKE OFF ROLL A BLOW OUT OCCURRED TO THE NO. 4 TIRE. THE AIRPLANE WAS RETURNED TO THE DEPARTURE AIRPORT & LANDED UNEVENTFULLY. EXAMINATION OF THE TIRE REVEALED DAMAGE TO THE INNER LINER CONSISTENT WITH UNDER INFLATION. THE MAINT PROGRAM FOR THE OPERATOR REQUIRES TIRE PRESSURES TO BE CHECKED WITH A GAUGE DURING LAY OVER SERVICE INSPECTIONS. MAINTENANCE RECORDS INDICATED THE INSPECTION WAS DONE THE PREVIOUS DAY. RECAP RECORDS FOR THE TIRE ALSO REVEALED THAT IT WAS RECAPPED & DELIVERED TO THE OPERATOR WITH A PIN HOLE IN THE LINER WHICH ALLOWED A SLOW LEAK. THE PIN HOLE WAS NOT REPAIRED PRIOR TO DELIVERY TO THE OPERATOR.
Probable cause
INADEQUATE MAINTENANCE INSPECTION OF THE AIRPLANE WHICH RESULTED IN OPERATION OF THE TIRE WHILE UNDER INFLATED AND ITS SUBSEQUENT FAILURE. A FACTOR IN THE INCIDENT WAS THE INADEQUATE QUALITY CONTROL BY THE TIRE RECAPPING FACILITY WHICH FAILED TO REPAIR A PREVIOUSLY IDENTIFIED TIRE DEFECT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL90IA136
- Event ID
- 20001212X23322
- Case number
- ATL90IA136
- 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 1990-06-22.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 98dd1f3e37273355647e8b5e023e38ebde1546cda6e81376c79b3ff9d6386e4c; retrieved 2026-09-18T19:01:45.774Z.