ATL01IA083 · Boeing B-727-100
Boeing B-727-100 · Incident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) during initial climb
From Frederick W. Smith International Airport (MEM) to Indianapolis International Airport (IND)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL01IA083
- 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
- Unknown
- 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 B-727-100
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 727
- 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
- N189FE
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Frederick W. Smith International Airport (MEM), Memphis, TNTo Indianapolis International Airport (IND), Indianapolis, IN
- 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
- 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
- Minor
Cause areas
- Engine accessories, engine starter › Failure, total
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After takeoff using standard power at 100 feet above ground level (AGL) the #3 engine fire warning light with normal engine indications illuminated. While the captain and second officer accomplished the engine fire/severe damage checklist the #3 oil low pressure light came on and the #3 generator tripped off. The fire warning light did not go out until the second fire bottle was used. They declared an emergency with the tower, and made a normal landing and taxied clear of the runway. Emergency crews inspected the airplane and observed no indication of fire. They subsequently did a normal taxi back to the gate and there was a normal shutdown. Examination of the engine found the starter turbine was missing from the starter assembly, however, the turbine was recovered from the engine cowling. All of the tips on the full length airfoils had rub marks with material displaced away from the direction of rotation. The starter shaft was separated 2 1/4-inchs from the impeller. The bearing was broken and rubbed flush to the shaft. The ignition exciter box brackets were burned and the box was hanging by the cable. The ignition exciter box was burned open.
Probable cause
The failure of the #3 engine starter turbine.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL01IA083
- Event ID
- 20010720X01466
- Case number
- ATL01IA083
- 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: investigation status, coordinates. 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: 207e79ddd96cb420f6377fbe42468c2f6b6e54a1c5389889b295694342767a69; retrieved 2026-09-18T16:11:45.366Z.