Northwest Airlines McDonnell Douglas DC-10-40 incident
McDonnell Douglas DC-10-40 · Incident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Los Angeles, CA to Minneapolis, MN
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA89IA066
- 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
McDonnell Douglas DC-10-40
- Aircraft type
- McDonnell 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
- N133JC
- Operator
- Northwest Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Los Angeles, CATo Minneapolis, MN
- 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
- Total loss of engine power (mechanical 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
- Compressor assembly, blade › Fatigue
- Other maintenance personnel › Inadequate quality control
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Denver, CO, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
WHILE CLIMBING THROUGH 38,000 FEET, THE AIRCRAFT EXPERIENCED AN UNCONTAINED FAN BLADE SEPARATION IN THE NO. 2 ENGINE. INVESTIGATION REVEALED THAT ONE OF THE FIRST-STAGE COMPRESSOR FAN BLADES (S/N EB2506) HAD SEPARATED ABOUT 8 INCHES ABOVE THE BLADE PLATFORM. FRAGMENTS FROM THE BLADE (#8) HAD EXITED THROUGH THE LEFT FAN COWL IN THREE PLACES AND HAD PENETRATED THE VERTICAL STABILIZER. THE BLADE SEPARATION STEMMED FROM A 0.34-INCH LONG FATIGUE CRACK THAT BEGAN IN A WELD ADJACENT TO A PATCH. THE FAN BLADE HAD BEEN PATCH-REPAIRED EARLIER, AND SUBJECTED TO FOUR NON-DESTRUCTIVE TESTS: X-RAY, FLUORESCENT PENETRANT, ULTRASONIC, AND EDDY CURRENT.
Probable cause
FATIGUE FAILURE AND SEPARATION OF A FIRST-STAGE COMPRESSOR FAN BLADE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DCA89IA066
- Event ID
- 20001213X29088
- Case number
- DCA89IA066
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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 1989-08-10.
- API snapshot SHA-256: a5f2ecfbc79db7a60688e84771374c344ab11c827872392b0839801e2faac1ad; retrieved 2026-09-18T19:09:21.980Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N133JC; the operator shown is the name the NTSB's other records give its FAA operator code, NWAA.