Eastern Airlines McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30 incident
McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30 · Incident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) to Miami International Airport (MIA)
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA87IA037
- 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-10-30
- 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
- N391EA
- Operator
- Eastern Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), Los Angeles, CATo Miami International Airport (MIA), Miami, FL
- 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 · descent
- 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
- None
Cause areas
- Air cond/heating/pressurization › Dumped
- Air cond/heating/pressurization › Failure, partial
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Miami, FL, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
EAL FLIGHT 23 EXPERIENCED A RAPID DECOMPRESSION DURING DESCENT INTO MIAMI. FLIGHT 23 DEPARTED LAX WITH 3 FLIGHT CREW, 8 F/A AND 210 PAX. ON CLIMBOUT THE S/O OBSERVED THAT THE MANUAL OUTFLOW VALVE CONTROL WHEEL DID NOT MOVE TOWARD THE 1/2 CLOSED POSITION AS IT SHOULD HAVE. PRESS SYSTEM WAS BEING OPERATED IN SEMI-AUTO MODE. S/O TRIED STANDBY SYSTEM, THEN WENT TO MANUAL. HE OBSERVED THAT THE MANUAL CONTROL WHEEL WAS HARD TO MOVE. S/O USED MANUAL CONTROL TO CRUISE ALT, THEN TRIED STANDBY SYS WHICH HELD CABIN ALT. UPON DESCENT TO MIA, THE WHEEL MOVED RAPIDLY TO THE OPEN POSITION. S/O WAS UNABLE TO CLOSE OUTFLOW VALVE USING MANUAL SYSTEM-WHEEL WOULD NOT MOVE. CREW DONNED 02 MASKS AND EXECUTED EMGY DESCNT T0 10,000, AT 5500 FPM. ACFT WAS LANDED WITH OUTFLOW VALVE FULL OPEN. ONE F/A SUFFERED RUPTURED EAR DRUM AND ONE 02 GENERATOR CANISTER CAUSED SMOKE IN CABIN.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DCA87IA037
- Event ID
- 20001213X31160
- Case number
- DCA87IA037
- 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 1987-06-27.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 603a6154aeccb2a40cdfbd1fcd7fde873e2e94fe56399d83cb58208d7824c2ee; retrieved 2026-09-18T19:40:02.631Z.