'Black boxes' recovered from Federal Express crash

Records show plane involved in earlier incidents

July 31, 1997
Web posted at: 10:43 p.m. EDT (0243 GMT)

NEWARK, New Jersey (CNN) -- A Federal Express plane that crashed and burned Thursday at Newark International Airport made two emergency landings and was damaged in another hard landing during the last four years, flight records show.

The "black boxes" from Federal Express Flight 14, enroute from Anchorage, Alaska, to Newark with five people and 167,000 pounds of cargo on board, have been recovered. They were being studied Thursday night by experts in Washington, according to National Transportation Safety Board member John Goglia.

The MD-11 skidded about 3,000 feet down a runway, rolled and burst into flames early Thursday. The five people on board -- four FedEx employees and an employee from another airline -- crawled out through a cockpit window just seconds after the plane came to rest just 200 yards short of a passenger terminal.

No one was seriously injured, which FedX spokesman Jess Bunn called "pretty much a miracle." It was the first crash in the package delivery company's 25-year history.

1994 hard landing damaged plane

Records obtained by Reuters show that the plane, commissioned in 1993, was damaged during a hard landing at Anchorage in November 1994. The plane bounced and the tail hit the runway, scraping off part of the outside of the plane.

The accident was blamed on crew error. Goglia said there is as of yet no reason to believe that the hard landing in Anchorage had any connection to Thursday's crash.

In October 1993, the plane was forced to make an emergency landing when the crew discovered that one of its engines was loose, forcing the pilot to shut down the engine and dump 90,000 gallons of fuel.

Another emergency landing occurred in January 1995 when the crew was warned that the left wing flap was malfunctioning as the plane was climbing. The warning was later determined to have been a false alarm.

Recorders in good condition, despite fire

The flight data recorder should tell how the jet was flying before the accident, and the cockpit voice recorder should reveal what the crew said, Goglia said.

The recorders were in good condition, despite the fire that burned for nine hours after the crash, he said. The first information from the boxes should be available Friday morning.

Investigators planned to work overnight to study the scarring on the runway where the plane crashed, looking for clues.

The plane touched down about 1,000 feet down the runway. There were signs of severe scarring beginning another 1,000 feet down the runway, indicating the aircraft began gouging the pavement. It skidded another 2,800 feet before it rolled over, stopping belly up, Goglia said.

Runway may reopen Friday

The 1:30 a.m. crash disrupted service for much of Thursday at the Newark airport, which is across the Hudson River from New York City and is one of the nation's busiest airports.

The airport was completely shut down for six hours. By late afternoon, two of Newark's three runways returned to full operation. The runway where the plan crashed could be reopened Friday morning, Goglia said.

"That's our goal," he said. "It's an ambitious goal and we may not make it."

FedEx Flight 14, which originated in Singapore and made stops in Malaysia and Taiwan before continuing through Anchorage to Newark, carried "a few hundred pounds" of hazardous material, but part of that was perfume, Goglia said. Earlier, a Federal Express spokesman said 400 pounds were carried as "routine hazardous material."

Goglia said that nothing listed on the cargo manifest was out of the ordinary, and the landing gear on the aircraft appeared to have been properly extended.

Initially, witnesses said they saw flames coming from the plane as it landed. But Ben DeCosta, the Newark airport manager, said the landing was routine until the jet reached the ground. He said air traffic controllers had no indication anything was wrong until the plane landed.

The right wing apparently scraped the runway and the jet rolled over on its back. The passengers and crew then scrambled out.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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