Eastern Air Lines Flight 111
Epps Air Services Beech A100 and Eastern Airlines Boeing 727 · Ground collision on landing
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA90MA017
- 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
- 1 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- Occupants
- Unknown
- Survivors
- 157
- 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
- 1 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
Aircraft 1 · Beech A100
- Aircraft type
- Beechcraft 100
- 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
- N44UE
- Operator
- Epps Air Services
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- Not stated
- Survivors
- 1
- 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
- Not stated
- Route
- From PEACHTREE ARPT, GATo Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL), Atlanta, GA
- 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 91: General Aviation
- 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
- Landing · landing roll
- 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
- On ground/water collision with object
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Aircraft 2 · Boeing 727
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 727
- 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
- N8867E
- Operator
- Eastern Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From LaGuardia Airport (LGA), NEW YORK, NYTo Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL), Atlanta, GA
- 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
- Landing · landing roll
- 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
- On ground/water collision with object
- 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
- Atc personnel(lcl/gnd/clnc) › IFR separation standards, not maintained
- Faa(other/organization) › Procedure inadequate
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Atlanta, GA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
From the Wikipedia article
Eastern Air Lines Flight 111 (flight number IATA: EA111, ICAO: EAL111, callsign: EASTERN 111) was a domestic passenger flight from New York City to Atlanta. On 18 January 1990 a serious accident occurred on this flight, when the Boeing 727-225 Adv. operating this flight that day collided, on landing at Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport, with a Beechcraft King Air A100 that had previously landed on the same runway. While the occupants of the Boeing were uninjured, the pilot of the Beechcraft was killed and his passenger seriously injured.
Accident sequence
That evening the King Air received clearance to land on runway 26R. The pilots of the King Air set their aircraft down on the runway. They were about to exit the runway the next moment when the Boeing 727, which had also received clearance to land on runway 26R, landed on the same runway. The captain of the Boeing 727 sighted the King Air only after touchdown and then tried to steer his aircraft to the left to avoid a collision. Finally the King Air was struck from behind by the right wing of the Boeing 727. The Boeing 727 was substantially damaged as a result of the collision, and the King Air was destroyed. The captain of the King Air suffered fatal injuries, and the first officer was seriously injured.
Accident investigation
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) took over the investigation into the cause of the accident. The investigators saw a failure of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to provide air traffic control procedures that adequately take into account human performance factors such as the non-detectability of the developing conflict between the planned runway use of the two aircraft, as well as a failure of the controller in the north arrival sector to ensure the separation of arriving aircraft on the same runway. These two factors had contributed decisively to the accident. Also contributing to the accident was that the controller in the north arrival sector had not complied with the prescribed procedure for passing relevant traffic information to EA 111, and that the controller in the north final approach sector as well as the radar controller did not order timely speed reductions to ensure adequate separation of the aircraft on final approach.
Translated into English with AI assistance from the German Wikipedia article “Eastern-Air-Lines-Flug 111” (revision 264053055, retrieved 2026-09-19) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out; the translation may contain errors, and long articles were cut to their first 700 words. Read the article
NTSB narrative
DRG ARR AT NGT, BEECH A100 (KING AIR, N44UE) WAS CLRD FOR AN ILS RWY 26R APCH BEHIND CONTINENTAL FLT 9687, THEN EASTERN AIRLINE (EA) FLT 111 (BOEING 727, N8867E) WAS CLRD FOR THE SAME APCH BEHIND THE KING AIR. AFTER LNDG, FLT 9687 HAD A RADIO PROBLEM & THE TWR CTLR HAD DIFFICULTY COMMUNICATING WITH FLT 9687. MEANWHILE, THE KING AIR LNDD & ITS CREW HAD MOVED THE ACFT TO THE RGT SIDE OF THE RWY NR TWY-D (THE PRIMARY TWY FOR GEN AVN ACFT). THE TURNOFF FOR TWY-D WAS ABT 3800'FM THE APCH END OF RWY 26R. BEFORE THE KING AIR WAS CLR OF THE RWY, EA 111 LNDD & CONVERGED ON THE KING AIR. THE CREW OF EA 111 DID NOT SEE THE KING AIR UNTIL MOMENTS BFR THE ACDNT. THE CAPT TRIED TO AVOID A COLLISION, BUT THE BOEING'S RGT WING STRUCK THE KING AIR, SHEARING THE TOP OF ITS FUSELAGE & COCKPIT. SOME OF THE KING AIR'S STROBE/BEACON LGTS WERE INOP, THOUGH THEY MOST LIKELY WOULD HAVE BEEN EXTINGUISHED FOR THE IMC APCH. THE LOCAL CTLR DID NOT ISSUE A TFC ADZY TO EA 111 WITH THE LNDG CLNC. (SEE: NTSB/AAR-91/03)
Probable cause
(1) FAILURE OF THE FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION TO PROVIDE AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL PROCEDURES THAT ADEQUATELY TAKE INTO CONSIDERATION HUMAN PERFORMANCE FACTORS SUCH AS THOSE WHICH RESULTED IN THE FAILURE OF THE NORTH LOCAL CONTROLLER TO DETECT THE DEVELOPING CONFLICT BETWEEN N44UE AND EA 111, AND (2) THE FAILURE OF THE NORTH LOCAL CONTROLLER TO ENSURE THE SEPARATION OF ARRIVING AIRCRAFT WHICH WERE USING THE SAME RUNWAY. CONTRIBUTING TO THE ACCIDENT WAS THE FAILURE OF THE NORTH LOCAL CONTROLLER TO FOLLOW THE PRESCRIBED PROCEDURE OF ISSUING APPROPRIATE TRAFFIC INFORMATION TO EA 111, AND FAILURE OF THE NORTH FINAL CONTROLLER AND THE RADAR MONITOR CONTROLLER TO ISSUE TIMELY SPEED REDUCTIONS TO MAINTAIN ADEQUATE SEPARATION BETWEEN AIRCRAFT ON FINAL APPROACH.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
German Wikipedia article: Eastern-Air-Lines-Flug 111
- Article
- Eastern-Air-Lines-Flug 111
- Translation
- Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
- Revision
- 264053055 · 2026-02-07 · retrieved 2026-09-19
- Wikidata
- Q138002698
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record DCA90MA017
- Event ID
- 20001212X22400
- Case number
- DCA90MA017
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Where each value comes from
- Record
- de Wikipedia article "Eastern-Air-Lines-Flug 111" (page 13493384, revision 264053055), translated into English with AI assistance; merged with NTSB case DCA90MA017 (events / aircraft)
- Date
- NTSB record DCA90MA017: NTSB API eventDate, eventTimeUtc and eventTimeUtcOffsetHours (local date)
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from NTSB record DCA90MA017
- Map position
- NTSB record DCA90MA017: centre of the town the record names (GeoNames, CC BY 4.0)
- Aircraft, operator and route
- NTSB record DCA90MA017: 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 DCA90MA017: operated under Part 91: General Aviation, Part 121: Air Carrier
- Fatalities
- NTSB record DCA90MA017: NTSB API totalFatal
- Ground fatalities
- NTSB record DCA90MA017: NTSB API ongroundFatal
- Summary
- Wikipedia article lead
Source notes (3)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Eastern Air Lines Flight 111" and NTSB case DCA90MA017, 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1990-01-19.