USAir Boeing 737-387 accident
Boeing 737-387 · Accident while standing
From Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) to Indianapolis International Airport (IND)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX88FA057
- 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 737-387
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 737
- 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
- N383AU
- Operator
- USAir
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)To Indianapolis International Airport (IND), Indianapolis, IN
- 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
- Standing · engine(s) not operating
- 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
- Passenger › Emergency equipment, improper use of
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE BOEING 737-387, N383AU, OPERATING AS USAIR FLT 20, A REGULARLY SCHEDULED DOMESTIC FLIGHT, RETURNED TO LAX SHORTLY AFTER TAKEOFF, WHEN THE CAPT WAS ADVISED OF A BOMB THREAT. AFTER LANDING ON RWY 24L, THE CAPT PARKED THE AIRPLANE ON THE WEST END OF THE RWY. USAIR GND PSNL FAILED TO BRING THE STAIRS IN A TIMELY MANNER AND THE CAPT ORDERED AN EMERGENCY EVACUATION. ONE PAX SUSTAINED MINOR INJURIES WHEN SHE EXITED AN OVERWING EMERGENCY EXIT AFTER AN UNIDENTIFIED PAX OPENED IT ON HIS OWN INITIATIVE. ANOTHER PAX, AN ELDERLY FEMALE, SUSTAINED SERIOUS INJURIES WHEN SHE USED THE LEFT REAR SLIDE. 3 UNIDENTIFIED MALE PAX WERE ASKED TO ASSIST OTHER PAX, BUT AFTER THEY EXITED THEY RAN FM THE ACFT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX88FA057
- Event ID
- 20001213X32545
- Case number
- LAX88FA057
- 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: investigation status, damage. 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: fdf1bd31f7bc23a029b7ed5df32fd613bacb05c43230c803afa65362217c9868; retrieved 2026-09-18T19:35:07.084Z.