Delta Air Lines Flight 1102
McDonnell Douglas MD88 · Incident: fire/smoke (non-impact) en route
From Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD) to Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL)
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA09IA018
- 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 MD88
- Aircraft type
- McDonnell Douglas MD88
- 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
- N924DL
- Operator
- Delta Air Lines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD), Herndon, VATo Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL), Atlanta, GA
- 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
- 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 systems
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While cruising at 30,000 feet, the captain and first officer initially smelled smoke in the cockpit, prompting them to initiate an unscheduled, precautionary landing at an airport along their route. While descending, the crew noticed that smoke was “pouring out” from underneath the first officer’s glare shield and instrument panel. No fire or flames were present. The captain declared an emergency and proceeded to depressurize the aircraft while descending through 10,000 feet in order to clear the smoke from the cockpit. Four tires on the left main gear burst on touchdown, and the aircraft came to rest on the runway. Ground personnel notified the crew that the right main brake system was on fire, and the crew and passengers made an emergency evacuation from the left side of the aircraft.
The DC Ground Service Tie Relay (R2-51) and Blocking Diode Assemblies (R7-50 and R7-51), located in the forward accessory compartment of the airplane, exhibited signs of overheating and smoke damage. A detailed examination of the components revealed internal damage consistent with arcing of the electrical contacts. However, due to the extent of the damage, the cause of the arcing could not be determined.
Probable cause
The overheating and arcing of the DC Ground Service Relay and Block Diodes component for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DCA09IA018
- Event ID
- 20081215X14936
- Case number
- DCA09IA018
- 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: 644f231b00fda476f27d1b09dcdfacb14c113f1d39373e833c4de221ef0c0e3f; retrieved 2026-09-15T10:36:08.483Z.