KLM Flight 867
Boeing 747-400 · Quadruple engine failure due to blockage by volcanic ash
From Amsterdam Airport Schiphol (EHAM) to Narita International Airport (ANC)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC90FA020
- 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
- Event fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- Occupants
- 245
- Survivors
- 245
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Boeing 747-400
- Flight
- KL867
- 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
- PHBFC
- Operator
- KLM
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Amsterdam Airport Schiphol (EHAM), AmsterdamTo Narita International Airport (ANC), Anchorage, AK
- 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 129: Foreign
- 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 · descent
- 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Compressor assembly › Foreign object
- Compressor assembly › Stall
- Weather condition › Sand/dust storm
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
From the Wikipedia article
On 15 December 1989, KLM Flight 867, en route from Amsterdam to Narita International Airport, Tokyo, was forced to make an emergency landing at Anchorage International Airport, Alaska, when all four engines failed. The Boeing 747-406M, less than six months old at the time, flew through a thick cloud of volcanic ash from Mount Redoubt, which had erupted the day before.
Text from the Wikipedia article “KLM Flight 867” (revision 1370916389, retrieved 2026-09-18) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out. Read the article
NTSB narrative
BFR TKOF, CREW OF KLM FLT 867 ADZD OF VOLCANIC ERUPTION ABT 100 MI SW OF DESTN. EN ROUTE, FLT ADZD OF ANOTHER ERUPTION. FOR ARR, FLT CLRD TO DSCND FM FL390 AT PLT'S DISCRETION; VCTR GIVEN TO AVOID LAST KNOWN AREA OF ASH CLD. DRG DSCNT THRU FL260, FLT ENCTRD ASH CLD; ASH/SMOKE ENTERED COCKPIT/CABIN. CREW DONNED O2 MASKS; USED MAX PWR TO CLB. 1 MIN LTR, ALL ENGS LOST PWR (TO 28%-30% RPM); THERE WAS ELEC PWR INTRPN, LOSS OF AIRSPD INDCN, FIRE WARNING ALARM FOR FWD CARGO AREA. AFTER 8-9 ATMTS & DSCNT TO 13,300', ALL ENGS RESTARTED & FLT CONTD TO SAFE LDNG. DMG FND ON EXTERNAL SFCS OF ACFT & IN HI PRES TURBINES OF ALL ENGS. BOEING OMB #747-B2-4, ADZD TO AVOID VOLCANIC ACTIVITY; BUT IF ENCTRD, RETARDING THRUST TO IDLE WLD RDC BLDUP IN ENG & IMPROVE STALL MARGIN. ATC RADAR COULD ONLY DETECT VOLCANIC ASH FOR 5-10 MIN AFTER ERUPTION; ACFT RADAR NOT DESIGNED TO DETECT ASH. ASH CLD FCST TO MOV NNE AT 60 KTS; REVIEW OF SATELLITE DATA SHOWED IT ACTUALLY MOVED AT ABT 120 KTS. KLM HAD NO PROC FOR 747 ENCTR WITH ASH CLD & NO ADNL INSTRNS WERE GIVEN TO KLM CREWS.
Probable cause
INADVERTENT ENCOUNTER WITH VOLCANIC ASH CLOUD, WHICH RESULTED IN DAMAGE FROM FOREIGN MATERIAL (FOREIGN OBJECT) AND SUBSEQUENT COMPRESSOR STALLING OF ALL ENGINES. A FACTOR RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WAS: THE LACK OF AVAILABLE INFORMATION ABOUT THE ASH CLOUD TO ALL PERSONNEL INVOLVED.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
Wikipedia article: KLM Flight 867
- Article
- KLM Flight 867
- Revision
- 1370916389 · 2026-08-23 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q265922
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record ANC90FA020
- Event ID
- 20001213X29893
- Case number
- ANC90FA020
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "KLM Flight 867" (page 16652593, revision 1370916389); merged with NTSB case ANC90FA020 (events / aircraft)
- Date
- NTSB record ANC90FA020: NTSB API eventDate, eventTimeUtc and eventTimeUtcOffsetHours (local date)
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from NTSB record ANC90FA020
- Map position
- NTSB record ANC90FA020: events decimal coordinates
- Aircraft, operator and route
- NTSB record ANC90FA020: aircraft; gaps from Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- NTSB record ANC90FA020: operated under Part 129: Foreign
- Fatalities
- NTSB record ANC90FA020: NTSB API totalFatal
- Ground fatalities
- NTSB record ANC90FA020: NTSB API ongroundFatal
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (3)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "KLM Flight 867" and NTSB case ANC90FA020, matched by the same aircraft registration and date. For this US event the NTSB's values are used where the two differ; each value names its source.
- 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.