Eastern Air Lines Flight 855

On May 5, 1983, a Lockheed L-1011 TriStar, registration N334EA, operating as Eastern Air Lines Flight 855 en route from Miami International Airport to Nassau International Airport, experienced the loss of all three engines near Miami, Florida. The flight crew succeeded in restarting one engine in time to safely land the aircraft at Miami International Airport.

Background

On May 4, N334EA had flown into Miami where it underwent overnight maintenance, which included a check of the magnetic chip detectors inside the jet engines. This involved removing the master chip detector from each engine and replacing it with a new one. Each chip detector had two O-rings, which served as oil seals. The replacement chip detectors were not fitted with O-rings, a fact which was not noticed by the mechanic who fitted them. After the chip detectors were fitted, each engine was run for 10 seconds to check for oil leaks. None were found. The aircraft was signed off as serviceable and returned to service.

Incident

Eastern Air Lines Flight 855 took off from Miami International Airport at 08:56 on a flight to Nassau International Airport in the Bahamas carrying 162 passengers and 10 crew. On board was a veteran flight crew, consisting of Captain Richard Boddy (58), Captain Steve Thompson (48) and Flight Engineer Dudley Barnes (44). Captain Boddy had more than 12,000 hours of total flying experience, although he was new to the L-1011, having logged just 13 hours in the aircraft type. On this flight, Captain Thompson served as a supervisory check airman. He had accrued close to 17,000 flight hours throughout his career, with 282 hours in the L-1011. Flight Engineer Barnes had more than 9,000 hours of total flying time, with 2,666 hours clocked in the L-1011 cockpit.

At 09:15, while descending through 15,000 ft, the low oil pressure indicator on the TriStar's number 2 engine illuminated. The flight engineer noted that the oil pressure on the #2 engine was fluctuating between 15 and 25 psi; the minimum pressure required for normal engine operation was 30 psi. The captain ordered the flight engineer to shut down the engine.

By this time, the plane was about 50 mi from Nassau. The crew elected to return to Miami to land. Flight 855 received a clearance back to Miami, as well as instructions to begin a climb to FL200 (20,000 ft nominal altitude).

En route back to Miami, low oil pressure lights for engines #1 and #3 illuminated, and the oil quantity gauges for all three engines read zero. At 09:23, Flight 855 informed Miami ARTCC of the engine gauge readings but stated, "We believe it to be faulty indications since the chance of all three engines having zero oil pressure and zero quantity is almost nil." At 09:28, at an altitude of 16,000 ft, the #3 engine failed. Five minutes later, the #1 engine flamed out while the crew was attempting to restart the #2 engine. Cabin lights went off and flight deck instruments stopped working. The aircraft descended without power from about 13,000 ft to about 4,000 ft, at a rate of descent of approximately 1,600 ft per minute. The crew successfully restarted the #2 engine on the third attempt and executed a one-engine landing at Miami at 09:46. After the landing the power from #2 engine was insufficient for the aircraft to taxi; a tug had to be used to tow it to the airport terminal, where the occupants disembarked normally. None of the 172 passengers and crew aboard were injured in the incident.