Northwest Airlines Boeing 727-251 accident
Boeing 727-251 · Accident: fire/explosion while taxiing
From Montreal / Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport (YUL) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI90FA278
- 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
Boeing 727-251
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 727
- 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
- N278US
- Operator
- Northwest Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Montreal / Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport (YUL), MontrealTo 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 · from runway
- 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
- Fire/explosion
- 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 › Apu, improper use of
- Pilot in command › Evacuation, improper
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Detroit, MI, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
FOUR PASSENGERS WERE INJURED DURING THE EMERGENCY EVACUATION FOLLOWING AN APU FIRE. THE CREW REPORTED THE APU FIRE BELL WHILE TAXIING. THE CAPT. ELECTED TO EVACUATE, BUT DID NOT INDICATE THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM TO EITHER THE CABIN ATTENDANTS OR PASSENGERS. SEVERAL PASSENGERS USED THE OVERWING EXITS ON THE SAME SIDE AS THE FIRE AND WERE INJURED JUMPING OFF THE WING. ONE SAID THAT THE WING FLAPS WERE NOT LOWERED DURING THE EVACUATION. THE APU HAD BEEN PLACARDED INOPERATIVE PRIOR TO THE FLIGHT. CREW ADVISED IN WRITING. THE COCKPIT VOICE RECORDER TAPE WAS ERASED IN THE COCKPIT AFTER THE ACCIDENT, SO THE FLIGHT CREW'S ACTIVITIES WERE NOT ABLE TO BE REVIEWED. POST ACCIDENT EXAMINATION OF THE APU REVEALED THAT THE FIRE STARTED BECAUSE OF AN ATTEMPTED START OF THE DEFECTIVE UNIT. PRIOR TO THE FLIGHT, NWA MAINTENANCE ATTEMPTED TO MAKE THE APU INOPERABLE FROM THE COCKPIT BY OPENING CIRCUIT BREAKERS. THE WRONG CIRCUIT BREAKER WAS FULLED, LEAVING THE APU OPERABLE.
Probable cause
THE INTENTIONAL ACTIVATION OF THE AUXILLARY POWER UNIT BY THE FLIGHT ENGINEER, AND THE IMPROPER EVACUATION PROCEDURES BY THE PILOT IN COMMAND. AN ASSOCIATED FACTOR IN THE ACCIDENT WAS THE APU CIRCUIT BREAKERS WERE NOT PULLED BY COMPANY MAINTENANCE PERSONNEL.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI90FA278
- Event ID
- 20001212X24215
- Case number
- CHI90FA278
- 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 1990-09-29.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 44c3488788fc93d50a50373ee59009b1d2e0aa84fdbe52cd6a9eb978024245f1; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:59:07.243Z.