World Airways McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30F incident
McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30F · Incident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) during takeoff
From Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL) to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX82IA309
- 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-10-30F
- Aircraft type
- McDonnell Douglas DC-10
- 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
- N104WA
- Operator
- World Airways
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL), Honolulu, HITo Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), Los Angeles, 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
- Takeoff · roll/run
- 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
- Turbine assembly, casing › Burned
- Turbine assembly, turbine blade › Fatigue
- Turbine assembly, turbine blade › Separation
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AT ROTATION, THE FIRE BELL AND THE #2 ENGINE FIRE WARNING LIGHT CAME ON AND THE CREW NOTED A POWER LOSS ON THE #2 ENGINE. THE TAKEOFF WAS CONTINUED, THE ENGINE SECURED AND THE FIRE BOTTLES DISCHARGED. THE FIRE CONTINUED TO BURN. THE AIRCRAFT CIRCLED AND MADE A NORMAL APPROACH AND LANDING. THE AIRCRAFT BRAKE SYSTEM OVERHEATED DURING THE OVERWEIGHT LANDING, HOWEVER THERE WAS NO OTHER DAMAGE OR INJURIES. TEARDOWN OF THE ENGINE REVEALED THAT A COMPRESSOR BLADE HAD SEPARATED IN FATIGUE ON THE 6TH STAGE HPC ROTOR. THE FAILED BLADE THEN DAMAGED THE 7TH AND REMAINING STAGES AND IGNITED A TITANIUM CASE FIRE. THE ORIGIN OF THE FATIGUE APPEARED TO HAVE PROPAGATED FROM THE DOVETAIL AREA.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX82IA309
- Event ID
- 20020917X03729
- Case number
- LAX82IA309
- 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 1982-08-22.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 18efc56b87f6f8c98974c21c8a9cd99513e8d2e0f4be1f436c44c1f760794ed6; retrieved 2026-09-18T21:07:23.342Z.