FedEx Express Flight 1406
Federal Express McDonnell Douglas DC-10-10CF · In-flight fire of undetermined origin in cargo hold
From Frederick W. Smith International Airport (MEM) to Boston Logan International Airport (BOS)
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA96MA079
- 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
- 5
- Survivors
- 5
- 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
- 2
- 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
McDonnell Douglas DC-10-10CF
- Flight
- FX1406
- Aircraft type
- McDonnell Douglas DC-10
- 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
- N68055
- Operator
- Federal Express
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Frederick W. Smith International Airport (MEM)To Boston Logan International Airport (BOS), Boston, MA
- 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
- 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
- Fire
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Cargo/baggage › Fire
- Cargo/baggage › Smoke
- Cargo/baggage › Undetermined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
From the Wikipedia article
FedEx Express Flight 1406 was an American domestic cargo flight from Memphis International Airport, Memphis, Tennessee, to Logan International Airport in Boston, Massachusetts, that suffered an in-flight cargo fire over New York on September 5, 1996. The three crew members and two passengers on board successfully evacuated after an emergency landing at Stewart International Airport in Newburgh, New York. After the evacuation, the McDonnell Douglas DC-10 was consumed by fire. After an extensive investigation, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) could not determine what caused the fire. Nevertheless, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) made recommendations to prevent similar incidents from occurring in the future.
Flight
Flight 1406 departed from Memphis International Airport at 3:42 am, en route to Logan International Airport, Boston, Massachusetts, with an estimated time of arrival (ETA) of 7:42 am.
At 5:42 am, Flight 1406 was cruising at 33000 ft above the state of New York when the Cabin Smoke Fire Alarm sounded in the cockpit. Smoke detectors for several zones of the aircraft's main deck cargo compartment alerted the pilots of suspected smoke, prompting the crew members and passengers to don their smoke masks. Aircraft systems began to fail, and the crew noticed smoke entering the cockpit. The crew informed Boston Air Traffic Control (ATC) about the fire situation; ATC suggested that Flight 1406 could make an emergency landing at Albany County Airport, 50 mi ahead, or to land at Stewart International Airport in Newburgh, 25 mi behind. The crew decided to land at Stewart.
At 5:49 am, the aircraft was on approach to Stewart International Airport, where airport fire services prepared for the DC-10 to land on Runway 27. The aircraft successfully landed at the airport at 5:54 am and turned onto a taxiway, where it came to a stop for the fire services to engage. The crew and the employees tried to evacuate the aircraft, but the doors and cockpit windows could not be opened because the fuselage was still pressurized. The captain then de-pressurized the aircraft and all occupants then exited safely; the flight crew through a cockpit window and the passengers through one of the forward fuselage cabin doors. The fire crews found the cargo prevented them from accessing the source of the smoke from inside the cabin and forty minutes after the aircraft landed the fire burned through the fuselage skin; the fire was extinguished four hours after the aircraft landed. All five people on board survived, though two members of the flight crew received minor injuries.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
Because the fire damage was extensive, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigation was unable to find a source of ignition. On 22 July 1998, the NTSB released its report, concluding, "the probable cause of this accident was an in-flight cargo fire of undetermined origin".
Text from the Wikipedia article “FedEx Express Flight 1406” (revision 1361329598, 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
The airplane was at FL 330 when the flightcrew determined that there was smoke in the cabin cargo compartment. An emergency was declared and the flight diverted to Newburgh/Stewart International Airport and landed. The airplane was destroyed by fire after landing. The fire had burned for about 4 hours after after smoke was first detected. Investigation revealed that the deepest and most severe heat and fire damage occurred in and around container 6R, which contained a DNA synthesizer containing flammable liquids. More of 6R's structure was consumed than of any other container, and it was the only container that exhibited severe floor damage. Further, 6R was the only container to exhibit heat damage on its bottom surface, and the area below container 6R showed the most extensive evidence of scorching of the composite flooring material. However, there was insufficient reliable evidence to reach a conclusion as to where the fire originated. The presence of flammable chemicals in the DNA synthesizer was wholly unintended and unknown to the preparer of the package and shipper. The captain did not adequately manage his crew resourses when he failed to call for checklists or to monitor and facilitate the accomplishment of required checklist items. The Department of Transportation hazardous materials regulations do not adequately address the need for hazardous materials information on file at a carrier to be quickly retrievable in a format useful to emergency responders.
Probable cause
an in-flight cargo fire of undetermined origin. (NTSB Report AAR-98/03)
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
Wikipedia article: FedEx Express Flight 1406
- Article
- FedEx Express Flight 1406
- Revision
- 1361329598 · 2026-06-27 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q30644006
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record DCA96MA079
- Event ID
- 20001208X06712
- Case number
- DCA96MA079
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "FedEx Express Flight 1406" (page 54249836, revision 1361329598); merged with NTSB case DCA96MA079 (events / aircraft)
- Date
- NTSB record DCA96MA079: NTSB narrative opening date, consistent with the API date and time (local date)
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from NTSB record DCA96MA079
- Map position
- NTSB record DCA96MA079: events decimal coordinates
- Aircraft, operator and route
- NTSB record DCA96MA079: 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 DCA96MA079: operated under Part 121: Air Carrier
- Fatalities
- NTSB record DCA96MA079: NTSB API totalFatal
- Ground fatalities
- NTSB record DCA96MA079: NTSB API ongroundFatal
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (4)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "FedEx Express Flight 1406" and NTSB case DCA96MA079, 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.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N68055; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.