People Express Boeing 737-217 incident
Boeing 737-217 · Incident: airframe, component or system failure while taxiing
From Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD) to Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR)
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO85IA035
- 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
Boeing 737-217
- 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
- N434PE
- Operator
- People Express
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD), Chantilly, VATo Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR), Newark, NJ
- 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
- 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
- Minor
Cause areas
- Landing gear, normal brake system › Binding(mechanical)
- Landing gear, normal brake system › Overtemperature
- Landing gear, tire › Failure, partial
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Chantilly, VA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
APPROX 25MIN AFT LNDG,FLT 168 WAS CLEARED FOR TKOF ON RWY 30 AT DULLES INTL ARPT. ABT 1MIN LATER THE CREW CALLED FOR AN ABORTED TKOF BECAUSE THE #2 EPR APPEARED SLOW TO SPOOL UP. AFT TAXIING BACK AND RUNNING UP THE ENGINES, FLT 168 ATMPTD A SECOND TKOF. DFDR READOUTS INDICATE THE ACFT GOT UP TO 103KTS BFR THE CAPT ABORTED THE TKOF. THEY ALSO INDICATE LESS THAN NORMAL BRAKING DURING THE PROCEEDING LNDG AND FIRST ABTD TKOF. DRNG THE TAXI BACK TO THE GATE, AT WHICH THE CREW WAS GOING TO HAVE THE EPR GAUGE FIXED, THE PLT NOTICED THE ACFT START TO DRAG TO THE RIGHT. THE ACFT WAS STOPPED AND TRANSMITTED TO THE TOWER THAT THEY NEEDED A MOBILE LOUNGE SENT OUT TO TAXIWAY N1 TO OFFLOAD THEIR PAXS. ABT 40 MINS LATER THE LOUNGE ARRIVED AND NOTICED A FIRE DEVELOPING IN THE RT MAIN WHEEL AREA. THE ACFT WAS EVACUATED USING BOTH CHUTES ON THE LEFT SIDE AND THE FIRE WAS EXTINGUISHED IMMEDIATELY UPON ARRIVAL OF THE ARPT FIRE TRUCKS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO85IA035
- Event ID
- 20001214X36101
- Case number
- BFO85IA035
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1985-04-13.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 9a2089fee316e3137ba017a5466cab3f2aca1d3927823a7f430438ab2043db4b; retrieved 2026-09-18T20:28:32.114Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: departure. The narrative states "FLT 168 WAS CLEARED FOR TKOF ON RWY 30 AT DULLES INTL ARPT"; the departure was not recorded.