American Trans Air McDonnell Douglas DC-10-40 incident
McDonnell Douglas DC-10-40 · Incident: hazardous materials leak/spill while standing
From Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA86IA037
- 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
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- 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
- N184AT
- Operator
- American Trans Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), Los Angeles, CATo not recorded
- 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
- 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
- Hazardous materials leak/spill
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Company maintenance personnel › Oxygen system, information insufficient
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Chicago, IL, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
A CHARTER FLT ARRIVED & DEPLANED WITHOUT INCIDENT & WITH NO INDICATION OF SMOKE, FUMES OR HEAT. COMPANY MAINT PSNL HAD PLACED DAMAGED PASSENGER SEATBACKS (INCORPORATING SOLID-STATE CHEMICAL OXYGEN GENERATORS) IN THE FWD CARGO COMPARTMENT WITH SEAT COVERS & OIL. A COMPANY MECHANIC EXAMINED THE SEATBACKS TO FIND A SERVICEABLE UNIT. HE FOUND A LOOSE OXYGEN CANISTER & HANDLED IT IMPROPERLY BY ITS OXYGEN HOSE. SUCH HANDLING CAN RELEASE THE FIRING PIN, FIRE THE PERCUSSION CAP, TRIGGER A CHEMICAL REACTION, & GENERATE OXYGEN. THIS CAN GENERATE UP TO 430 DEG OF HEAT OUTSIDE THE CANISTER. A FIRE BGNIN THE FWD CARGO COMPARTMENT IN THE VICINITY OF WHERE AN OXYGEN CANISTER WAS FND (LATER) WITH A DENTED STRIKER PLATE. THE SEAT COVERS IGNITED, FIRE BURNED THRU THE CABIN FLOOR, & SUBSEQUENTLY, IT SPREAD THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE CABIN. COMPANY MAINT PSNL DID NOT KNOW THAT OXYGEN GENERATORS, CARRIED AS COMPANY SUPPLIES, WERE HAZARDOUS MATERIALS. THE MECHANIC WAS NOT FAMILIAR WITH THE REPAIR OR INSTALLATION OF THE PASSENGER SUPPLEMENTAL OXYGEN EQUIPMENT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DCA86IA037
- Event ID
- 20001213X34445
- Case number
- DCA86IA037
- 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: a619322cd8f4243a2bf85dcd7de57406b64db5daef84952152518705d113cc7b; retrieved 2026-09-18T19:56:09.136Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N184AT; the operator shown is the name the NTSB's other records give its FAA operator code, AMTA.