Eastern Airlines Lockheed L-1011-385-1 L-1011-385 accident
Lockheed L-1011-385-1 L-1011-385 · Accident while taxiing
From Jamaica, NY to Miami International Airport (MIA)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC86FA076
- 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
Lockheed L-1011-385-1 L-1011-385
- Aircraft type
- Lockheed L-1011
- 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
- N309EA
- Operator
- Eastern Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Jamaica, NYTo 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
- Taxi
- 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 › Judgment, misjudged
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE NO. 3 ENG TORCHED DURING A START ATTEMPT AND RESULTED IN A INTERNAL ENG TAILCONE FIRE. SEVERAL PAXS PANICKED UPON SEEING THE TORCH FLAME/TAILCONE FIRE AND BETWEEN 30 TO 50 PAXS MADE AN UNAUTHORIZED EVACUATION OF THE ACFT VIA THE L3 AND L4 EXITS. PAXS INITIATED THE EVACUATION AT THE UNATTENDED L3 EXIT. A F/A MISTAKENLY ASSUMED THAT AN AUTHORIZED EVACUATION WAS IN EFFECT AND THEREFORE OPENED L4 AND ALLOWED FURTHER PAXS TO EVACUATE. THE EVACUATION OF THE ACFT WAS LATER STOPPED AND BROUGHT UNDER CONTROL. THE FLT CREW WAS AT FIRST NEITHER AWARE OF THE ENG TORCH AND SUBSEQUENT TAILCONE FIRE NOR THE EVACUATION. WHEN THEY LEARNED OF THE TAILCONE FIRE THEY MOTORED THE ENG IN ORDER TO EXTINGUISH THE FIRE WHICH THEY BELIEVED WAS UNDER CONTROL AND THEREFORE REQUESTED NO EMERGENCY ASSISTANCE. HOWEVER, ATC WAS ALERTED BY PILOTS IN NEARBY ACFT ABOUT THE OCCURRENCE AND ATC NOTIFIED CFR WHO RESPONDED TO THE SITE. THE NOS. 1 & 2 ENGS REMAINED RUNNING DURING THE INCIDENT AND CREATED A HAZARDOUS CONDITION FOR CFR/EVACUEES. ENGS WERE LATER STOPPED.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC86FA076
- Event ID
- 20001213X32929
- Case number
- NYC86FA076
- 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: 2777b44841e1b9574948be7b6ebef45c28f3328368ddfa0ca23513450196007d; retrieved 2026-09-18T20:07:27.537Z.