USAir McDonnell Douglas DC-9-30 incident
McDonnell Douglas DC-9-30 · Incident: partial loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Nashville International Airport (BNA) to Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL84IA246
- 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-9-30
- 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
- N956VJ
- Operator
- USAir
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Nashville International Airport (BNA), Nashville, TNTo Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT), Pittsburgh, PA
- 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
- 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
- Combustion assembly › Overtemperature
- Combustion assembly, outer casing › Failure, total
- Fuel system, nozzle › Other
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, installation, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DURING THE CLIMB-OUT, A 15% DECREASE IN THE RIGHT ENG EPR WAS NOTED BY THE FLT CREW. THIS WAS FOLLOWED BY A LOUD BANG & FAILURE OF THE #2 ENG. THE #2 ENG WAS SHUT DOWN & THE ACFT WAS FLOWN BACK TO THE DEPARTURE ARPT. AN INITIAL EXAM REVEALED THAT THE RIGHT ENG TOP COWLING HAD SEPARATED & THE LOWER SECTION OF THE COMBUSTION CASE WAS SPLIT. ENG REMOVAL & TEARDOWN REVEALED THE #5 FUEL NOZZLE NUT LOCK RING WAS MIS-ASSEMBLED. THIS DETRACTED FROM THE TORQUE ON THE FUEL NOZZLE NUT & INADEQUATELY COMPRESSED THE #5 FUEL NOZZLE SEAL. SUBSEQUENTLY, THE FUEL NOZZLE LEAKED & ALLOWED LOCAL OVERTEMP OF THE OUTER COMBUSTION CHAMBER CASE AT THE 6 O'CLOCK POSITION.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL84IA246
- Event ID
- 20001214X40574
- Case number
- ATL84IA246
- 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: 92f38adf4a77560d0a1e09e31f2820c617f20586580b508f93b1af35a86ceaec; retrieved 2026-09-18T20:38:01.357Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N956VJ; the operator shown is the name the NTSB's other records give its FAA operator code, USAA.