Federal Express McDonnell Douglas MD-11F incident
McDonnell Douglas MD-11F · Incident: airframe, component or system failure while standing
From Seattle–Tacoma International Airport (SEA) to Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport (OAK)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA02IA092
- 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
McDonnell Douglas MD-11F
- Aircraft type
- McDonnell Douglas MD-11
- 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
- N608FE
- Operator
- Federal Express
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Seattle–Tacoma International Airport (SEA), SeaTac, WATo Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport (OAK), Oakland, CA
- 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
- Standing · engine(s) not operating
- 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
- Anti-ice/deice system › Failure
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The MD-11F freighter was parked on the ramp with electrical power applied undergoing minor corrective maintenance as the crew was preparing for departure. The Captain was conducting the standard "flow" checks ensuring Windshield Anti-Ice selected OFF and Windshield De-Fog selected ON when the co-pilot's forward windshield panel (R1) cracked and the crew observed what they described as flames emanating from the lower portion of the windshield. The Captain de-powered the aircraft and the fire condition dissipated. Post-incident examination of the R1 windshield anti-ice controller revealed shorts within the controller unit which, when power was applied, led to an uncontrollable and continuous application of power to the R1 windshield anti-ice heating element. The continuous power condition led to overheating and subsequent shattering of the windshield while the aircraft was parked on the ramp with system power applied.
Probable cause
Failure of the copilot's forward (R1) windshield anti-ice controller resulting in a continuous over voltage condition, followed by the subsequent overheating and shattering of the windscreen.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA02IA092
- Event ID
- 20020612X00859
- Case number
- SEA02IA092
- 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: ec972f5159b2c09b55e1bb58d09760370f458bb80f40dc69e9e73fc13c576e75; retrieved 2026-09-18T16:02:27.615Z.