American Airlines Douglas DC-10 incident
Douglas DC-10 · Incident during landing
From Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI88IA061
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Douglas DC-10
- Aircraft type
- Douglas DC-10
- 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
- N123AA
- Operator
- American Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), Los Angeles, CATo 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
- Landing · landing roll
- 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- None
Cause areas
- Driver of vehicle › Information, improper
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Chicago, IL, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
AT 2245:29 CST, A DC-10 FLT CREW RPRTD AT THE FINAL APCH FIX ON AN ILS RWY 9R APCH. THE FINAL APCH FIX WAS 4.7 MI FROM THE RWY. THE DC-10 WAS CLEARED TO LAND, THEN MOMENTS LATER, A SNOW REMOVAL TEAM (WORKING ON RWY 32L) REQUESTED THAT FOUR VEHICLES BE CLEARED TO CROSS RWY 9R. THE TOWER CONTROLLER PROVIDED CLEARANCE FOR THE VEHICLES TO CROSS THE ACTIVE RWY. AT 2247:28, THE LEAD MAN OF THE GROUP OF VEHICLES REPORTED THAT THEY WERE CLEAR OF THE RWY. HOWEVER, WHEN THE FOURTH VEHICLE WAS ABOUT HALF WAY ACROSS THE RWY, ITS MANUAL TRANSMISSION JUMPED OUT OF GEAR & THE DRIVER HAD DIFFICULTY REENGAGING IT. AT 2248:00, THE LEAD MAN OF THE VEHICLES NOTIFIED THE TOWER OF THE PROBLEM, BUT BY THEN, THE DC-10 WAS LANDING. AFTER THE DC-10 HAD TOUCHED DOWN & THE SPOILERS WERE DEPLOYED (BEFORE THE NOSEWHEEL WAS LOWERED),THE FLT CREW SAW THE VEHICLE AT THE EDGE OF THE RWY & THE CAPTAIN TOOK EVASIVE ACTION. HE STEARED THE ACFT AROUND THE VEHICLE, THEN CONTINUED THE LANDING WITHOUT FURTHER INCIDENT.
Probable cause
JUDGEMENTAL ERROR ON THE PART OF THE LOCAL CONTROLLER FOR CLEARING VEHICLES ACROSS THE ACTIVE RUNWAY TIWH INSUFFICIENT SEPARATION FROM ARRIVING AIRCRAFT, WHICH WAS FURTHER COMPROMISED BY A MECHANICAL MALFUNCTION IN THE EQUIPMENT CROSSING THE RUNWAY.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI88IA061
- Event ID
- 20001213X25025
- Case number
- CHI88IA061
- 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, damage. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1988-02-11.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 6f7882a9c174d61968e410101a36afb32cfc887f08b0f5ff22e8718dcb5b6512; retrieved 2026-09-18T19:27:39.375Z.