Delta Air Lines Flight 1080
Lockheed 1011 · Loss of pitch control due to mechanical failure and jamming of the elevator and elevator tab control system
From San Diego International Airport (SAN) to Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL)
Event
- 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
- Unknown
- Event fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- Occupants
- 52
- Survivors
- 52
- 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 serious · 0 minor (NTSB)
- 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
Lockheed 1011
- Flight
- DL1080
- Aircraft type
- Lockheed 1011
- 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
- N707DA
- Operator
- Delta Air Lines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From San Diego International Airport (SAN)To Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL)
- 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 (scheduled domestic passenger service)
- 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 · climb to 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
- Airframe failure in flight
- 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
- Miscellaneous acts, conditions › Jammed
- Miscellaneous acts, conditions › Material failure
- Systems › Elevator and elevator tab control system
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of San Diego, CA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
From the Wikipedia article
Delta Air Lines Flight 1080 was a scheduled flight from San Diego, California, to Atlanta, Georgia, notable for the incident that occurred on April 12, 1977, during the San Diego to Los Angeles leg of the flight. Unbeknownst to the crew, the Lockheed L-1011 TriStar's left elevator had become stuck in a fully upwards position. This led to the aircraft pitching up aggressively and causing the aircraft to lose speed and nearly stall. The pitching force was difficult to overcome by fully pushing the control column, but was counteracted by reducing the thrust on the L-1011's wing engines but not the tail engine. The differential thrust, along with moving all the passengers as far forward as possible in the cabin, pitched the nose down, and subsequently allowed the pilots to land the aircraft. The entire incident lasted 55 minutes.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
The investigation found that the pressurization and depressurization of the L-1011 during multiple flight cycles had caused water to be pushed inside the left elevator aft drive quadrant (also referred to as the bell crank), heavily corroding it and causing it to become jammed during a routine control surfaces check prior to takeoff. The FAA issued an emergency airworthiness directive instructing airlines to do a check of the bearing. This verification, however, was not sufficient to prevent takeoff with a jammed elevator; and a similar incident followed two months later. The FAA then made it mandatory for crews to inspect the elevators before each takeoff.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Delta Air Lines Flight 1080” (revision 1369408277, 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 remarks
L ELEV OUTBOARD AFT DRIVE QUAD UPPER BEARING ASSY FAILED.LNDD LAX OK.
NTSB's remark from its 1962–1981 archive, as recorded (abbreviated, at most 98 characters): the archive has no narrative
Sources
Wikipedia article: Delta Air Lines Flight 1080
- Article
- Delta Air Lines Flight 1080
- Revision
- 1369408277 · 2026-08-14 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q54933321
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record
- Event ID
- 19770413P070196
- Case number
- Unknown
- Dataset
- historical-pre1982
- Source SHA-256
- abe1a933b4b73583d61684309f7f0610c281e3c1de3537c6471bf2a98ba6481d
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "Delta Air Lines Flight 1080" (page 57453610, revision 1369408277); merged with NTSB case NTSB19770413P070196 (PRE1982 tblFirstHalf (one row per aircraft, grouped by date, place and time))
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date (local date; NTSB record NTSB19770413P070196 stores the UTC date 1977-04-13)
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from NTSB record NTSB19770413P070196
- Map position
- NTSB record NTSB19770413P070196: centre of the town the record names (GeoNames, CC BY 4.0)
- Aircraft, operator and route
- NTSB record NTSB19770413P070196: PRE1982 REGIST_NO, ACFT_MAKE, ACFT_MODEL; gaps from Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- NTSB record NTSB19770413P070196: operated under Part 121: Air carrier (scheduled domestic passg.svc)
- Fatalities
- NTSB record NTSB19770413P070196: PRE1982 TOTAL_ABRD_FATAL of each aircraft, plus people on the ground and others outside the aircraft
- Ground fatalities
- NTSB record NTSB19770413P070196: events.inj_f_grnd
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (5)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Delta Air Lines Flight 1080" and NTSB case NTSB19770413P070196, 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.
- The NTSB record dates it 1977-04-13, the UTC date it stores; the local date, 1977-04-12, is the Wikipedia article's and is used.
- From NTSB's 1962-1981 archive (PRE1982), which holds at most a short remark (98 characters, abbreviated) instead of a narrative; the accident type, phase of flight, causes and conditions are NTSB's codes, decoded as the archive defines them.
- Reviewed means this record passed the site's consistency check, not that it was checked against a narrative or report - there is none to check against.
- The operation category is mapped from the archive's operator and operation codes and has not been reviewed.