DCA96MA068

Factual narrative

On July 6, 1996, Delta Airlines flight 1288, an MD-88, N927DA, experienced an uncontained failure of the left engine during the beginning of the takeoff roll. The flightcrew stopped the airplane about 1400 feet down the takeoff runway. On board the airplane were 137 passengers, 2 flightcrew members, 3 cabincrew, and 2 non-revenue Delta employees occupying the cockpit and aft jumpseats. Engine parts entered the left side of the aft cabin resulting in 2 passengers sustaining fatal injuries and 2 sustained major injuries. Three other passengers received minor injuries during the evacuation. The captain stopped the evacuation from the emergency exits, and an airstair was brought to the airplane to evacuate the remaining passengers and the crew. The fan hub for the left engine was found fractured. During the initial part of its takeoff roll, the airplane experienced an engine failure. Uncontained engine debris from the front compressor front hub (fan hub) of the #1 (left) engine penetrated the left aft fuselage. Two passengers were killed and two others were seriously injured. The takeoff was rejected, and the airplane was stopped on the runway. The fan hub had fractured through a tierod hole and blade slot. Some form of drill breakage or drill breakdown, combined with localized loss of coolant and chip packing, had occurred during the drilling process, creating an altered microstructure and ladder cracking in the fan hub. Drilling damage extended much deeper into hole sidewall material than previously anticipated by P & W. Fatigue cracks initiated from the ladder cracking in the tierod hole and began propagating almost immediately after the hub was put into service in 1990. The crack was large enough to have been detectable during the last fluorescent penetrant inspection at Delta. Delta's nondetection of the crack was caused either by a failure of the cleaning and fluorescent penetrant inspection processing, a failure of the inspector to detect the crack, or some combination of these factors. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12