FedEx Express Flight 647 was a scheduled domestic cargo flight between Metropolitan Oakland International Airport,

Oakland, California Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous city in Alameda County, California, Alameda County, with a population of 440,646 in 2020. A major We ...

and

Memphis International Airport Memphis International Airport is a civil-military airport located southeast of downtown Memphis in Shelby County, Tennessee, United States. It is the primary international airport serving Memphis. It covers and has four runways., effective A ...

Memphis, Tennessee Memphis is a city in Shelby County, Tennessee, United States, and its county seat. Situated along the Mississippi River, it had a population of 633,104 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List of municipalities in Tenne ...

in the United States, that crashed during landing on December 18, 2003. Everybody on board survived the accident, and the aircraft was written off.

Background

Aircraft

The aircraft involved was a McDonnell Douglas MD-10-10F registered as N364FE. The aircraft's

serial number A serial number (SN) is a unique identifier used to ''uniquely'' identify an item, and is usually assigned incrementally or sequentially. Despite being called serial "numbers", they do not need to be strictly numerical and may contain letters ...

was 46600, and its line number was 4. The aircraft was originally built as a McDonnell Douglas DC-10-10 on 18 January 1971 and delivered to

United Airlines United Airlines, Inc. is a Major airlines of the United States, major airline in the United States headquartered in Chicago, Chicago, Illinois that operates an extensive domestic and international route network across the United States and six ...

on 25 May 1972, registered as N1801U. The plane was later sold, and FedEx took delivery of the aircraft on 2 July 1998 of the now converted McDonnell Douglas MD-10-10F and re-registered the aircraft to N364FE. The plane was equipped with three General Electric CF6-6D engines. At the time of the accident, the aircraft had a total of approximately 65,375 flight hours.

Crew

The flight had an experienced flight crew; the

captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader or highest rank officer of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police depa ...

, aged 59, who had been working for Flying Tiger Line since July 10, 1978, and became a FedEX pilot when the two companies merged on August 7, 1989. He had logged about 21,000 total flight hours, including 2,602 flight hours in the MD-10 and MD-11 series of aircraft. The first officer, aged 44, was hired by FedEx on February 21, 1996, from

Mesaba Airlines Mesaba Aviation, Inc. (operating as Mesaba Airlines) was a regional airline in the United States that operated from 1944 until it merged with Pinnacle Airlines in 2012 to form Endeavor Air. It was based in Eagan, Minnesota From 2010 to 2012, the ...

, where she had been employed since 1991. She had logged about 15,000 total flight hours, including 1,918 hours in the MD-10/MD-11. The flight also had aboard five off-duty FedEx crew members bound for Memphis.

Flight and accident

On December 18, 2003, Flight 647 was scheduled to depart Oakland for Memphis at 08:10

central standard time The North American Central Time Zone (CT) is a time zone in parts of Canada, the United States, Mexico, Central America, and a few Caribbean Islands, Caribbean islands. In parts of that zone (20 states in the US, three provinces or territorie ...

(CST), and after a brief delay due to a package sorting issue, departed for Memphis at 08:32. The departure from Oakland and cruise between Oakland and Memphis were uneventful. The flight touched down at about 12:26 on

runway In aviation, a runway is an elongated, rectangular surface designed for the landing and takeoff of an aircraft. Runways may be a human-made surface (often asphalt concrete, asphalt, concrete, or a mixture of both) or a natural surface (sod, ...

36R, and almost immediately the right landing gear collapsed. The plane veered off the right side of the runway, catching fire as it did so. The first officer received minor injuries as she evacuated the aircraft, as did one of the five non-revenue FedEx pilots who were on board as passengers. It was later discovered that the non-revenue pilot who activated the emergency exit slide had not been adequately trained in its operation. The handle that was pulled released the slide so it could be used as a raft in the event of a

water landing In aviation, a water landing is, in the broadest sense, an aircraft landing on a body of water. Seaplanes, such as floatplanes and flying boats, land on water as a normal operation. Ditching is a controlled emergency landing on the water su ...

, and the slide subsequently detached from the airplane.

Investigation

The

National Transportation Safety Board The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is an independent U.S. government investigative agency responsible for civil transportation accident investigation. In this role, the NTSB investigates and reports on aviation accidents and inci ...

(NTSB) conducted a full investigation of the accident. It found that although the aircraft had encountered a

crosswind A crosswind is any wind that has a perpendicular component to the line or direction of travel. This affects the aerodynamics of many forms of transport. Moving non- parallel to the wind direction creates a crosswind component on the object and t ...

during landing, the conditions were well within the safe capabilities of the aircraft. The first officer did not properly line up the plane before touchdown, nor did she slow the plane adequately before touchdown, so that the plane landed excessively hard. As the plane landed, the crosswind caused the right wing to drop approximately six degrees. This was beyond the design capabilities for the right main

landing gear Landing gear is the undercarriage of an aircraft or spacecraft that is used for taxiing, takeoff or landing. For aircraft, it is generally needed for all three of these. It was also formerly called ''alighting gear'' by some manufacturers, s ...

, and it snapped as a result. The NTSB also cited the

for failing to check the work of the first officer. The NTSB further found that FAA Order 8400.10 (Air Transportation Aviation Inspector's Handbook) was deficient in the section addressing assurance of evacuation training for the flight crew.

References

External links

NTSB Report
*

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fedex Flight 647 Airliner accidents and incidents in Tennessee Aviation accidents and incidents in the United States in 2003 Airliner accidents and incidents caused by pilot error Accidents and incidents involving the McDonnell Douglas DC-10 647 History of Memphis, Tennessee 2003 in Tennessee Oakland International Airport Memphis International Airport December 2003 in the United States