People Express Boeing 737-130 incident
Boeing 737-130 · Incident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) to Portland International Jetport (PWM)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC84IA225
- 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 737-130
- 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
- N417PE
- Operator
- People Express
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR), Newark, NJTo Portland International Jetport (PWM), Portland, ME
- 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 · descent
- 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
- Electrical system, voltage regulator › Shorted
- Landing gear, anti-skid brake system › Inoperative
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
CAPTAIN HEARD LOUD 'POP' AND OBSERVED AN ELECTRICAL PANEL INTERRUPTION ALONG WITH ILLUMINATION OF RT 'BUS OFF' & 'GEN OFF BUS' LIGHTS. NO GENERATOR AMPS OR FREQS WERE OBSERVED. FAINT ODOR OF SMOKE. CAPT STARTED APU AND PUT APU GENERATOR ON RT SIDE. 'BUS OFF' LIGHT EXTINQUISHED. WITHIN A MINUTE, SMOKE LEVEL INCREASED. CAPT REMOVED APU & CALLED FOR ELECTRICAL SMOKE AND FIRE CHECKLIST. EMERGENCY LANDING PERFORMED DURING WHICH ALL 4 MAIN GEAR TIRES FAILED. CREW & PAX PERFORMED EMERGENCY EVACUATION. INSPECTION OF ACFT DISCLOSED THE FAILURE IN THE GENERATOR CONTROL UNIT OCCURRED IN A CAPACITOR INSTALLED IN THE CIRCUIT. FAILURE OF THE #2 GENERATOR CONTROL UNIT RENDERED THE ANTI-SKID SYSTEM INOP RESULTING IN THE TIRE FAILURES.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC84IA225
- Event ID
- 20001214X40098
- Case number
- NYC84IA225
- 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 1984-06-28.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 611378c6fe6752cb52ff684cdccd71d9a9ba45af547974bbd55d4188390f4228; retrieved 2026-09-18T20:39:30.732Z.