American Airlines McDonnell Douglas DC-9-82 incident
McDonnell Douglas DC-9-82 · Incident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From John Wayne Orange County International Airport (SNA) to Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX84IA195
- 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
McDonnell Douglas DC-9-82
- Aircraft type
- McDonnell Douglas DC-9
- 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
- N203AA
- Operator
- American Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From John Wayne Orange County International Airport (SNA), Santa Ana, CATo Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW), Dallas, TX
- 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
- En route · climb to cruise
- 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
- Total 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
- None
Cause areas
- Compressor assembly, blade › Fatigue
- Compressor assembly, blade › Separation
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
SHORTLY AFTER TAKEOFF A TTL PWR LOSS WAS EXPERIENCED ON THE NUMBER 1 ENGINE. EXAMINATION OF THE ENGINE REVEALED SUBSTANTIAL DAMAGE OCCURRED IN THE COMPRESSOR SECTION FROM STAGE 6 REARWARD. 40 STAGE 8 COMPRESSOR BLADES WERE FORCED COMPLETELY OUT OF THEIR DISK DOVETAIL SLOTS. OF THE 18 REMAINING BLADES, 17 WERE MISSING THEIR AIRFOILS WHICH HAD FRACTURED JUST ABOVE THE PLATFORM. THE 18TH BLADE WAS FRACTURED THROUGH THE ROOT AREA JUST BELOW THE PLATFORM. METALLURGICAL EXAMINATION OF THE 18TH BLADE DISCLOSED THE BLADE SUSTAINED A DIAGONAL AND TRANSVERSE FRACTURE THROUGH THE ROOT OF THR BLADE PROGRESSING IN HIGH CYCLE FATIGUE FROM THE ORIGIN ALONG THE EDGE OF THE DISK.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX84IA195
- Event ID
- 20001214X38807
- Case number
- LAX84IA195
- 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, 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: a7eeb63c2081ed2d203a73c288d6001a4fb78a3f7ecc2f575b997b3781e4080f; retrieved 2026-09-18T20:44:13.282Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N203AA; the operator shown is the name the NTSB's other records give its FAA operator code, AAL.