Federal Express McDonnell Douglas MD 11F UNDESIGNAT accident
McDonnell Douglas MD 11F UNDESIGNAT · Accident: system/component malfunction/failure (non-power) while standing
From Frederick W. Smith International Airport (MEM) to Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport / Wold–Chamberlain Field (MSP)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA15FA073
- 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
- Accident
- 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 UNDESIGNAT
- 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
- N584FE
- Operator
- Federal Express
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Frederick W. Smith International Airport (MEM), Memphis, TNTo Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport / Wold–Chamberlain Field (MSP), Minneapolis, MN
- Aircraft age
- About 23 years (built 1992)
- 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
- 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
- System/component malfunction/failure (non-power)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- None
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During cruise flight, the crew received a fire warning from the cargo compartment indicating that the fire suppression system had activated, along with hearing loud sounds from the cargo compartment. The flight crew elected to divert to St. Louis. Although the activation of the fire suppression was a false alarm, the decision to divert was prudent and correct. During the approach the crew made the decision to evacuate the airplane after landing, briefed the passengers in the courier area, and reviewed the evacuation checklist in the Quick Reference Handbook (QRH). The diversion and subsequent landing were performed without issue. After exiting the runway, and bringing the airplane to a stop in a safe area, the crew initiated an emergency evacuation using the left forward door (1L). The door opened, however, the 1L escape slide/raft did not fully deploy, appearing to be hung up on a strap. The first officer attempted to free it and the fire/rescue crew pulled on the slide and it appeared to inflate. However, because the slide inflation sequence had been interrupted, it was significantly underinflated and unable to support the weight of the crewmember, resulting in a serious injury. Post-incident examination of the 1L slide/raft was unable to determine the causes for the slide/raft to not inflate to full extension.
Probable cause
a partial inflation of the 1L escape slide/raft due to undetermined reasons resulting in insufficient capability to support the weight of the crewmember.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DCA15FA073
- Event ID
- 20150224X45723
- Case number
- DCA15FA073
- 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, damage. 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: 6070903344e552bf877296730dc54c346c3d7031df22c9bbcd9fbfe4be07dd7b; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:06:14.741Z.