American Airlines Flight 96 was a regular domestic flight operated by American Airlines from Los Angeles to New York via Detroit and Buffalo. On June 12, 1972, after takeoff from Detroit, Michigan, the left rear cargo door of the McDonnell Douglas DC-10 operating the flight blew open and broke off above Windsor, Ontario. The accident is thus sometimes referred to as the Windsor incident, although according to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) it was technically an accident, not an incident.
The rapid decompression in the cargo hold caused a partial collapse of the passenger compartment floor, which in turn jammed or restricted some of the control cables which were connected to various flight control hydraulic actuators. The jamming of the rudder control cable caused the rudder to deflect to its maximum right position. The control cables to the number two engine in the tail were severed, causing that engine to shut down. There was no rupture of any hydraulic system, so the pilots still had control of the ailerons, the right elevator, and the horizontal stabilizer. Because the right elevator cable was partially restricted, however, both pilots had to apply back pressure on the yoke for the landing flare. Additionally, the approach and landing had to be made at a higher speed to prevent the sink rate from becoming excessive. The tendency to turn right was offset by using 45 degrees of left aileron, combined with asymmetric thrust of the two wing engines. In spite of the partial restriction of the controls, the pilots managed to return to Detroit Metropolitan Airport and land safely, with no major injuries. The aircraft was repaired and returned to service until 1993.
The cause was traced to the cargo door latching system, which had failed to close and latch the door completely without any indication to the crew that it was not safely closed. A separate locking system was supposed to ensure this could not happen but proved to be inadequate. McDonnell Douglas instituted a number of minor changes to the system in an attempt to avoid a repeat. These were unsuccessful. On March 3, 1974, the rear cargo door of Turkish Airlines Flight 981 experienced the same failure and blew open, causing the aircraft to lose all control and crash in a forest near Paris, France. This crash killed all 346 people on board.
Aircraft The aircraft involved in the accident was a McDonnell Douglas DC-10-10, registered as N103AA. It was equipped with three General Electric CF6-6D engines.
Accident details Flight 96 was a regularly scheduled flight from Los Angeles International Airport to LaGuardia Airport with intermediate stops at Detroit Metropolitan Airport and Buffalo Niagara International Airport. On June 12, it was being flown by a DC-10-10, registration N103AA, with a flight crew consisting of Captain Bryce McCormick (age 52), First Officer Peter "Page" Whitney (34), and Flight Engineer Clayton Burke (50). McCormick was a highly experienced pilot, having amassed more than 24,000 flight hours throughout his flying career. Whitney and Burke were also seasoned airmen with approximately 7,900 flight hours and 13,900 flight hours, respectively. Among them, the crew had accumulated 176 hours of flight time in the DC-10.
The flight left Los Angeles 46 minutes after its scheduled 1:30pm departure due to passenger loading and traffic, and arrived in Detroit at 6:36pm. In Detroit, the majority of the passengers disembarked, and the aircraft took on new passengers and cargo. Leaving Detroit, the aircraft had 56passengers and 11crew. The aircraft departed at 7:20pm, climbing to for a hold, before capturing V-554 (a victor airway) and climbing to FL210 ().
At 7:25pm, while climbing through , at , the crew heard a distinct "thud" and dirt in the cockpit flew up into their faces. The "thud" was the sound of the rearmost cargo door breaking off, causing a sudden decompression that also caused part of the floor at the rear of the cabin to partially give way. Captain McCormick momentarily believed they had suffered a mid-air collision and the cockpit windows had been smashed. At the same time, the rudder pedals moved to their full-right position and the engine controls moved to idle. McCormick immediately took manual control of the aircraft and attempted to re-apply power, finding that engines1 and 3 would respond normally, but engine2, in the tail, would not allow its controls to be moved, as control cables had been severed when the floor gave way. McCormick managed to level off and stabilize the speed at , although at this speed control was very sluggish. They declared an emergency and requested routing back to Detroit.
During the decompression, a sizeable quantity of the cargo stored in the hold was sucked through the now open cargo door and ejected from the DC-10; this included a long casket with a body inside, which was being transported to Buffalo.
In the cabin, the flight attendants saw a "fog" form within the cabin and immediately recognized it as a depressurization. Two crews were in the rear lounge area, and the floor under their feet partially collapsed into the cargo hold, giving them both minor injuries. In spite of this, the cabin crew immediately attempted to ensure the oxygen masks had deployed properly, but having occurred below the limit, the masks had not deployed. One of the attendants obtained a walk-around oxygen bottle and called the cockpit on the intercom to inform them that the damage was in the rear of the aircraft. On instructions from the cockpit, the attendants instructed the passengers on emergency landing procedures. A number of passengers later reported that the aircraft safety cards proved useful in locating the nearest exit.
The aircraft returned to Detroit, but, when the crew set the flaps to 35degrees for landing, the aircraft stabilized in a descent rate that was far too fast for landing. By applying power to the No.1 and No.3 engines, McCormick managed to level off the nose and reduce the descent rate to 700ft/min. At 7:44pm, the aircraft touched down down runway 03R, immediately veering to the right and eventually leaving the runway surface. First Officer Whitney applied full reverse thrust to the left engine and idled the right one, straightening the aircraft's path, and eventually starting to bring the aircraft back to the runway. The aircraft stopped from the end of the runway, with the nose and left gear on the runway and the right on the grass beside it. It happened that while training to convert his expertise to flying the DC-10, McCormick had practiced, in a simulator, controlling the plane with the throttles in this fashion, in the worst-case scenario of a hydraulic failure. A similar technique was used on another DC-10 in 1989 following a complete loss of hydraulic pressure on United Airlines Flight 232.
Investigation The problem that caused the accident was immediately obvious, as the rear cargo door was missing and had caused severe damage to the left horizontal stabilizer as it blew off. Investigators immediately studied the maintenance history and found that on March 3, 1972, three months before the accident, the handlers reported that the door had not latched electrically and had to be closed manually. On May 30, McDonnell Douglas issued Service Bulletin 52–27, DC-10 SC 612, which called for the upgrading of the electrical wiring that drove the latches because "Three operators have reported failure of the electrical latch actuators to latch/unlatch the cargo doors. Latch actuator failure is attributed to an excessive voltage drop reducing the output torque to the actuator. This condition may prevent electrical latching/unlatching of the hooks." The modification was not compulsory, however, and had not been carried out on N103AA, the plane involved in the accident.
Investigators interviewed the ground crew in Detroit and learned that the cargo loader who operated the rear door had found it extremely difficult to close. He stated that he closed the door electrically, and waited for the sound of the actuator motors to stop. When they did, he attempted to operate the locking handle but found it very difficult to close. He managed to get the latch to lock only by applying force with his knee, but he noticed that the vent plug (see below) was not entirely closed. He brought this to the attention of a mechanic, who cleared the flight. The flight engineer reported that the "door ajar" warning light on his panel was not lit at any time during the taxi out or flight.
Examination of the aircraft and the cargo door, which was recovered largely intact in Windsor, demonstrated that the latches had never rotated to their locked position. In their locked position, pressure on the door presses the latches further shut, and no force is transmitted into the actuator system that closes and opens them. With the latches only partially closed, forces on the door were transmitted back into the actuator, eventually overwhelming it at about . The rapid depressurization when the door broke off caused the floor above it to partially cave in, which pulled the rudder cable to its extension limit and severed several other operating cables.
Cause of door failure
Passenger doors on the DC-10 are of the plug variety, which prevents the doors from opening while the aircraft is pressurized. The cargo door, however, is not. Due to its large area, the cargo door on the DC-10 could not be swung inside the fuselage without taking up a considerable amount of valuable cargo space. Instead, the door swung outward, allowing cargo to be stored directly behind it. The outward-opening door, in theory, allowed it to be "blown open" by the pressure inside the cargo area.
To prevent this, the DC-10 used a "fail-safe" latching system held in place by "over top dead center latches", five C-shaped latches mounted on a common torque shaft that are rotated over fixed latching pins ("spools") fixed to the fuselage. Because of their shape, when the latches are in the proper position, pressure on the door does not place torque on the latches that could cause them to open, and further seats them on the pins. Normally the latches are opened and closed by a screw jack powered by an electric actuator motor.
Because the wiring powering the actuator motor was too small, it was possible for the voltage delivered to the motor to drop too low for it to operate as designed under high loads. In these cases, the motor would stop turning even if the latches had not rotated over the pins. Since the operators listened for the motors to stop as an indication of their complete rotation, a failure in the drive system during operation would erroneously indicate that the door was properly latched.
To ensure this rotation had completed and the latches were in the proper position, the DC-10 cargo door also included a separate locking mechanism. The locks consisting of small pins that were slid horizontally through holes on the back of the latches, between the latch and the frame of the aircraft. When the pins were in place, they mechanically prevented movement back into the open position, so even the actuator motor could no longer open them. If the latches were not in their correct positions, the pins could not enter the holes, and the operating handle on the outside of the door would remain open and visually indicate that there was a problem. Additionally, the handle moved a metal plug into a vent cut in the outer door panel; if the vent was not plugged the door would not retain pressure, eliminating any force on the door. Lastly, there was an indicator light in the cockpit that would remain on if the door was not correctly latched.