American Airlines Boeing 727-223 incident
Boeing 727-223 · Incident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport (FLL) to Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA87IA068
- 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
Boeing 727-223
- 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
- N6819
- Operator
- American Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport (FLL), FT.LAUDERDALE, FLTo Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW), Dallas, TX
- 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
- 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
- Fluid, oil grade › Contamination
- Lubricating system, oil line › Failure, total
- Unqualified person › Maintenance, service of aircraft/equipment, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE REGULARLY SCHEDULED AIR CARRIER FLIGHT WAS CLIMBING TO ALTITUDE WHEN THE ENGINE OIL PRESSURE AND QUANTITY DROPPED TO ZERO ON THE #3 ENGINE; IT WAS SHUT DOWN. SHORTLY THEREAFTER, THE #1 ENGINE OIL PRESSURE DROPPED TO ZERO. IT WAS REDUCED TO IDLE AND THE FLIGHT DIVERTED AND EXECUTED NORMAL LANDING. THE #3 ENGINE LOST OIL DUE TO A FAILED OIL PRESSURE TUBE TO THE # 6 BEARING. THE #1 ENGINE LOST OIL DUE TO OIL CONTAMINATION WITH HYDRAULIC FLUID. INTERVIEWS WITH AMERICAN AIRLINES AND CONTRACT MAINTENANCE PERSONNEL THAT HAD SERVICED THE ACFT WITHIN THE PREVIOUS 30 DAYS REVEALED NO DISCREPANCIES THAT WOULD HAVE ALLOWED HYDRAULIC FLUID TO ENTER THE OIL SYSTEM. THE #3 ENG OIL PRESSURE TUBE WAS LOST IN TRANSIT BY AAL FREIGHT PRESONNEL SO IT COULD NOT BE EXAMINED.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA87IA068
- Event ID
- 20001213X30118
- Case number
- MIA87IA068
- 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: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 84fc5d16aca7a796f8daec965541a5b6beeef444a2542abca483fe60bfbac84d; retrieved 2026-09-18T19:44:38.177Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N6819; the operator shown is the name the NTSB's other records give its FAA operator code, AALA.