Northwest Airlines Flight 5
Boeing 727-251 · In-flight engine failure and subsequent loss of the engine
From Miami International Airport (MIA) to Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport / Wold–Chamberlain Field (MSP)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA90IA047
- 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
- Completed
- Event fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- Occupants
- Unknown
- Survivors
- 145
- 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
- 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
Boeing 727-251
- 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
- N2280
- Operator
- Northwest Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Miami International Airport (MIA), Miami, FLTo Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport / Wold–Chamberlain Field (MSP), MINNEAPOLIS, MN
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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
- Company maintenance personnel › Maintenance, service of aircraft/equipment, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
From the Wikipedia article
Northwest Airlines Flight 5 was a flight from Miami International Airport to Minneapolis−Saint Paul International Airport which, on 4 January 1990, suffered the loss of the number three engine at 35000 ft in mid-flight while flying over Madison (Florida).
The Boeing 727-251, operated by Northwest Airlines, took off from Miami at 08:15 EST on the morning of 4 January 1990. An hour later, at approximately 09:10 EST, the pilots reported having heard a loud bang at the rear of the aircraft. The 14-year-old jet continued flying without problems and the crew, who were unaware that an engine had failed, flew for fifty more minutes before successfully carrying out an emergency landing at Tampa International Airport at 09:58 EST. The engine, a Pratt & Whitney JT8D-15, was found a day later in a field near Madison (Florida).
After the landing, inspectors found that the external lavatory cap was missing and had probably been improperly installed, causing a break when the aircraft was pressurised. The missing cap caused pieces of frozen lavatory fluid to be ingested by the number three engine, which caused damage to the compressor blades. After the failure the engine separated from the fuselage, as it was designed to do.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determined that the probable cause of the accident was "the failure of the company's service personnel to properly service the aircraft through the lavatory."
Translated into English with AI assistance from the Spanish Wikipedia article “Vuelo 5 de Northwest Airlines” (revision 175025859, 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
THE CREW OF THE AIRLINE FLIGHT HEARD A BANG AND NOTED THE LOSS OF NO 3 ENGINE POWER, IN CRUISE FLIGHT AT FL350, DECLARED AN EMERGENCY, DIVERTED AND LANDED. AFTER LANDING THE NO 3 ENGINE WAS FOUND TO BE MISSING FROM THE AIRPLANE. THE ENGINE WAS FOUND. EXAMINED AND EXHIBITED SOFT BODY FOD DAMAGE TO THE COMPRESSOR BLADES. THE FORWARD LAVATORY EXTERNAL SEAL WAS MISSING THE SAFETY BUTTON AND THE INTERNAL SEAL WAS IMPROPERLY INSTALLED ALLOWING FOR LEAKAGE WHEN THE AIRPLANE WAS PRESSURIZED. THE FUSELAGE EXTERNAL SKIN AFT OF THE FORWARD LAVATORY SERVICE PANEL WAS STAINED WITH BLUE FLUID.
Probable cause
THE FAILURE OF COMPANY SERVICE PERSONNEL TO PROPERLY SERVICE THE AIRPLANE FORWARD LAVATORY.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
Spanish Wikipedia article: Vuelo 5 de Northwest Airlines
- Translation
- Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
- Revision
- 175025859 · 2026-08-25 · retrieved 2026-09-19
- Wikidata
- Q7059922
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record MIA90IA047
- Event ID
- 20001212X22451
- Case number
- MIA90IA047
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Where each value comes from
- Record
- es Wikipedia article "Vuelo 5 de Northwest Airlines" (page 8340128, revision 175025859), translated into English with AI assistance; merged with NTSB case MIA90IA047 (events / aircraft)
- Date
- NTSB record MIA90IA047: NTSB API eventDate, eventTimeUtc and eventTimeUtcOffsetHours (local date)
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from NTSB record MIA90IA047
- Map position
- NTSB record MIA90IA047: events decimal coordinates
- Aircraft, operator and route
- NTSB record MIA90IA047: 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 MIA90IA047: operated under Part 121: Air Carrier
- Fatalities
- NTSB record MIA90IA047: NTSB API totalFatal
- Ground fatalities
- NTSB record MIA90IA047: NTSB API ongroundFatal
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (3)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Northwest Airlines Flight 5" and NTSB case MIA90IA047, matched by the same aircraft maker and place 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.