Dominicana de Aviación Flight 401
Compania Domin… Douglas C-54D · Multiple engine failures and fire; maintenance error & pilot error
From Miami International Airport (MIA) to Las Américas International Airport (SDQ)
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
- 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
- Unknown
- Event fatalities
- 10 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- 4
- Survivors
- 0
- 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
- 12 · all on the ground
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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
Douglas C-54D
- Flight
- DO401
- Aircraft type
- Douglas C-54
- 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
- HI-168
- Operator
- Compania Domin…
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Miami International Airport (MIA)To Las Américas International Airport (SDQ)
- 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 135: Air taxi & commuter (international cargo charter)
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Engine failure or malfunction
- 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
- Miscellaneous acts, conditions › Failure of two or more engines
- Miscellaneous acts, conditions › Feathered wrong engine
- Miscellaneous acts, conditions › Improper emergency procedures
- Miscellaneous acts, conditions › Material failure
- Miscellaneous › Written cause
- Pilot in command › Spontaneous-improper action
- Powerplant › Other
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Miami, FL, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
From the Wikipedia article
Dominicana de Aviación Flight 401 was a regularly scheduled international cargo flight operating from Miami International Airport in the United States, to Las Américas International Airport, in the Dominican Republic. On June 23, 1969, the aircraft operating the flight, an Aviation Traders Carvair, suffered an engine failure and fire in two engines, leading to the aircraft crashing in downtown Miami, killing all 4 people on board, and 6 people on the ground.
Accident
While on their takeoff roll from runway 09L at 15:41 EDT (22:41 UTC), the number 2 engine began emitting a heavy white smoke and the crew, after being advised about the smoke by the air traffic controller at 15:42 EDT (22:42 UTC), did not reject the takeoff, and after lifting off and climbing to about 15 feet, engine 2 failed. The controller had noticed the smoke and eventual fire from the number 2 engine and had informed the crew that they could make an approach to any runway that they needed. The crew did not feather the engine and attempted to make a 90 degree turn back towards the airport. While leveling out at 300 ft, engine 4 also failed and caught fire, and the crew proceeded to feather the engine. After losing 2 engines, the aircraft was unable to maintain enough altitude to glide to the airport, and so the aircraft crashed into industrial buildings at 15:44:15 EDT (22:44:15 UTC) about a mile (1.5 km) from the airport, killing all 4 people on board, and 6 civilians on the ground.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
After the accident, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) launched an investigation into the accident. which lasted a year and nearly a month after the crash. The report was initially hampered by the fact the aircraft wasn't equipped with a CVR or a FDR, however, the investigators were able to determine a cause nonetheless. It highlighted multiple errors within Dominicana's maintenance and pilot training and sited the probable cause as follows: Probable Cause: The Safety Board determines that the probable cause of this accident was the confused action on part of the crew while attempting to cope with the catastrophic failures of their engines during flight.The investigation also revealed how Dominicana had been cutting costs and had failed to maintain their aircraft, and also failing to abide by a FAA issued notice that stated that Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp engines had a tendency with the pistons to overwork, and disintegrate inside the engine, causing a fire.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Dominicana de Aviación Flight 401” (revision 1371999638, 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
NR 2 ENG FAILED,CREW FEATH NR 4.OVR MAX GROSS WTMISC-CONFUSED ACTION BY CREW FOLLOWING ENG FAILURE
NTSB's remark from its 1962–1981 archive, as recorded (abbreviated, at most 98 characters): the archive has no narrative
Sources
Wikipedia article: Dominicana de Aviación Flight 401
- Revision
- 1371999638 · 2026-08-29 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q133836710
- 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
- 19690623P033546
- Case number
- Unknown
- Dataset
- historical-pre1982
- Source SHA-256
- abe1a933b4b73583d61684309f7f0610c281e3c1de3537c6471bf2a98ba6481d
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "Dominicana de Aviación Flight 401" (page 79141745, revision 1371999638); merged with NTSB case NTSB19690623P033546 (PRE1982 tblFirstHalf (one row per aircraft, grouped by date, place and time))
- Date
- NTSB record NTSB19690623P033546: PRE1982 DATE_OCCURRENCE
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from NTSB record NTSB19690623P033546
- Map position
- NTSB record NTSB19690623P033546: centre of the town the record names (GeoNames, CC BY 4.0)
- Aircraft, operator and route
- NTSB record NTSB19690623P033546: 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 NTSB19690623P033546: operated under Part 135: Air taxi & commuter (charter-cargo-intl)
- Fatalities
- NTSB record NTSB19690623P033546: PRE1982 TOTAL_ABRD_FATAL of each aircraft, plus people on the ground and others outside the aircraft
- Ground fatalities
- NTSB record NTSB19690623P033546: events.inj_f_grnd
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (4)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Dominicana de Aviación Flight 401" and NTSB case NTSB19690623P033546, 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.
- 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.