Malakal Airport collision
Safe Air (airline) Boeing 727 and African Express Airways McDonnell Douglas MD-80 · Runway excursion and collision with another aircraft; under investigation
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA24WA146
- 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 · led by another country; figures from NTSB notifications
- Event fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- 7
- Survivors
- 7
- 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
- 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
- Not recorded
Aircraft 1 · 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
- 5Y-IRE
- Operator
- Safe Air (airline)
- Onboard fatalities
- 0
- Occupants
- 7
- Survivors
- 7
- 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
- Route
- From Juba International Airport (JUB)To Malakal Airport, Malakal, South Sudan
- 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
- Non-U.S., Commercial
- 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
- 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
- Landing gear collapse
- 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 · McDonnell Douglas MD-80
- Aircraft type
- McDonnell Douglas MD-80
- Category
- Airplane · from aircraft type
- 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
- 5Y-AXL
- Operator
- African Express Airways
- Onboard fatalities
- 0
- Occupants
- 0
- Survivors
- Not stated
- 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 not recordedTo not recorded
Cause areas
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates from the Wikipedia article; not checked against an investigation report.
From the Wikipedia article
On 31 March 2024 a Safe Air Company Boeing 727 ran off the runway while landing at Malakal Airport in South Sudan, due to technical problems. As it ran off the runway, the aircraft struck an African Express Airways McDonnell Douglas MD-80 that had been parked there after an accident in February of the same year.
The accident
The Boeing 727 took off from Juba bound for Malakal on a cargo flight, carrying supplies. The aircraft touched down before the paved surface of the runway and shortly afterwards suffered a collapse of the landing gear, running off the runway and colliding with the MD-82 parked there after another accident that had occurred in the same way a month and a half earlier; both aircraft were destroyed. Photos show the nose of the 727 having struck the wing of the MD-80.
Translated into English with AI assistance from the Italian Wikipedia article “Collisione dell'Aeroporto di Malakal” (revision 151217691, 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
Sources
Italian Wikipedia article: Collisione dell'Aeroporto di Malakal
- Translation
- Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
- Revision
- 151217691 · 2026-06-20 · retrieved 2026-09-19
- Wikidata
- Q125481423
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record DCA24WA146
- Event ID
- 20240405194038
- Case number
- DCA24WA146
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Where each value comes from
- Record
- it Wikipedia article "Collisione dell'Aeroporto di Malakal" (page 10181966, revision 151217691), translated into English with AI assistance; merged with NTSB case DCA24WA146 (events / aircraft)
- Date
- Wikipedia article: the date in its opening sentence (the infobox gives none to the day)
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from Wikidata (P17)
- Map position
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia article coordinates
- Aircraft, operator and route
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports); gaps and aircraft details from NTSB record DCA24WA146
- Operation
- operator named as an airline in the infobox
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia infobox: total_fatalities
- Ground fatalities
- Wikipedia: not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (2)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Malakal Airport collision" and NTSB case DCA24WA146, matched by the same aircraft registration and date. For this event outside the United States Wikipedia's values are used where the two differ; each value names its source.
- No bulk values were replaced by the NTSB case API.