Kalitta Air Boeing 747-209F incident
Boeing 747-209F · Incident: fire/smoke (non-impact) during initial climb
From Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) to Brahman Airstrip (BRH)
Event
- NTSB case
- ENG08IA022
- 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
- Not recorded
Boeing 747-209F
- 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
- N704CK
- Operator
- Kalitta Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR), Newark, NJTo Brahman Airstrip (BRH), Brussels
- 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
- Defining eventThe 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
- Fire/smoke (non-impact)
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The cargo airplane experienced an in-flight engine fire in the No. 3 engine during climb. The flight crew declared an emergency, shut down the engine, discharged two engine fire suppression bottles to extinguish the fire, and dumped fuel in preparation for landing. The aircraft landed without incident and there were no reported injuries. Examination of the airplane and engine revealed that heat distress and fire damage localized in an area of the engine's accessory raceway where various oil, fuel, and hydraulic lines and hoses were located. The lines and hoses were pressure tested to isolate the source(s) of the flammable fluid leak and three tubes were found to leak. Those three tubes were sent to the manufacturer for further evaluation; however, due to the extensive fire damage, it could not be determined which of the three tubes was the original source of the flammable fluid leak. There were no life limit or required pressure tests in place for any of the three tubes.
Probable cause
An engine fire in the No. 3 engine due to the failure of, and subsequent flammable fluid leak from, one of three fuel or hydraulic lines located in the engine's accessory raceway that ignited when the fluid came in contact with the hot engine cases. Contributing to the incident were the lack of adequate inspection and test requirements and appropriate life limit or inspection interval requirements by the manufacturer.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ENG08IA022
- Event ID
- 20081003X63355
- Case number
- ENG08IA022
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: 3017b13fdbf6f7975b179ba726b53ea96d13b7122c1da0328c840e83e955bd4d; retrieved 2026-09-15T10:21:45.305Z.