Metro Express de Havilland DHC-8-101 incident
de Havilland DHC-8-101 · Incident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) during initial climb
From an unrecorded airport to Huntsville International Airport (HSV)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL87IA034
- 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
de Havilland DHC-8-101
- Aircraft type
- de Havilland DHC-8
- 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
- N802MX
- Operator
- Metro Express
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Huntsville International Airport (HSV), Huntsville, AL
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Partial loss of engine power (mechanical 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
- Company maintenance personnel › Maintenance, service bulletin/letter, not followed
- Turbine assembly, ring › Failure, total
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Atlanta, GA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
AT ABOUT 4,000 FT MSL, CPT ON SCH DOM FLT REPORTED LOUD POP AND SUB SHUTDOWN OF RT ENG. SMELL OF SMOKE AND VISUAL CONFIRMATION OF FIRE IN RT NACELLE. SHIPS FIRE EXT ACTIVATED DURING RETURN TO DEPT. ARPT. LANDED WITHOUT FURTHER INCIDENT. INVESTIGATION REVLD FAILURE OF TURBINE STATOR RETAINING RING P&W PART NO 3034363. P&W HAD OUTSTANDING S.B. ISSUED AT THE TIME. THIS WAS ONLY ENG IN OPER FLT THAT S.B. HAD NOT BEEN COMP ON. THIS ENG WAS ALSO LEAD ENG FOR OPER FLT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL87IA034
- Event ID
- 20001213X35299
- Case number
- ATL87IA034
- 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. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1986-12-03.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 9fc32c4a2ef1f42e4849fe8b192a8d81ea53caf9b2d34f0d62e5ced6150fabc7; retrieved 2026-09-18T19:47:15.980Z.