SEA04IA010 · Boeing 747-100
Boeing 747-100 · Incident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From OKBK · Kuwait City to Frankfurt Main Airport (FRA)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA04IA010
- 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 747-100
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 747
- 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
- N479EV
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From OKBK · Kuwait CityTo Frankfurt Main Airport (FRA), Frankfurt
- 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 · 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
- 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
- Overheat warning system › Fire
- Overheat warning system › Malfunction
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Lyon, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
While the aircraft was in cruise flight at flight level 400, the right wing overheat light illuminated. The crew accomplished the appropriate checklist, and then about five minutes later the engine number three and engine number four B fire loop indicators illuminated. Soon thereafter an acrid odor was detected by the flight crew, and smoke was seen coming from behind the P-6 circuit breaker panel. The crew then became aware of a small fire in the fire detection card file, which they extinguished with a hand-held fire extinguisher. The crew then diverted to a nearby airport and completed an uneventful precautionary landing. The post-event investigation revealed that the fire detection card for engine number four B Loop fire detection (card A16), and its associated socket connector, had suffered severe thermal damage to include partial destruction. A series of tests and examinations were not able to detect evidence of any specific anomalies in the A16 card, the card file, the card file protection circuit, or any of the aircraft's systems. There was no evidence of a lightning strike being the initiating event, and the aircraft has continued in service since the time of this event without generating any other maintenance discrepancies known to be directly related to the fire detection card files.
Probable cause
An undetermined malfunction in an aircraft system while in cruise flight leading to a fire in the engine number four B Loop portion (Card A16) of the fire detection controls cardfile.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA04IA010
- Event ID
- 20031113X01896
- Case number
- SEA04IA010
- 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. 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: 1e66d342e386f204d09e87e793d43e10fb6481e7f074eb6ec4e0f9a869cb512f; retrieved 2026-09-18T15:39:50.401Z.