Fedex MD11 near St. Louis on Feb 24th 2015, cargo fire indication

Last Update: May 27, 2017 / 16:29:02 GMT/Zulu time

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Photo of Fedex N584FE, McDonnell Douglas MD-11 — Fedex N584FE, McDonnell Douglas MD-11 (Photo credit: lkarasawa / Flickr / License: CC by)

Incident Facts

Date of incident
Feb 24, 2015

Classification
Accident

Airline
Fedex

Flight number
FX-1407

Departure
Memphis, United States

Destination
Minneapolis, United States

Aircraft Registration
N584FE

Aircraft Type
McDonnell Douglas MD-11

ICAO Type Designator
MD11

A Fedex McDonnell Douglas MD-11 freighter, registration N584FE performing flight FX-1407 from Memphis,TN to Minneapolis,MN (USA) with 4 crew, was enroute at FL360 about 80nm northnorthwest of St. Louis,MO (USA) when the crew received indication of a cargo fire, the automatic cargo fire suppression system activated. The crew decided to turn around and divert to St. Louis for a safe landing on runway 12L about 18 minutes later. The crew evacuated via slides, one of the crew received injuries in the evacuation and was taken to a hospital. Emergency services did not find any trace of fire, heat or smoke.

The airline reported that the fire suppression system, activated by heat, went off and foamed a cargo container.

On Apr 21st 2015 the NTSB reported that the main deck fire suppression system automatically activated. Following landing the four crew evacuated through the left main door via slides, one of the crew members received serious injuries in the evacuation. The NTSB is investigating the accident.

On May 27th 2017 the NTSB released their final report concluding the probable cause of the accident was:

a partial inflation of the 1L escape slide/raft due to undetermined reasons resulting in insufficient capability to support the weight of the crewmember.

The NTSB reported the crew received an indication from the cargo compartment, that the automated fire suppression had activated along with loud sounds from the cargo compartment prompting the crew to divert to St. Louis. Although the indication later turned out of be false, the NTSB rated the decision to divert prudent and correct. During the approach the crew decided to evacuate the aircraft through the 1L door. The aircraft landed, vacated the runway and stopped in a safe area, the 1L door was opened, the slide however did not fully deploy appearing to be hung to a strap. The first officer attempted to free it, emergency services pulled on the slide, which appeared to inflate, however, as the inflation sequence had been interrupted remained substantially underinflated and was not able to support the weight of the crew member resulting in a serious injury to the crew member. The investigation was unable to determine the causes of why the slide did not inflate to full extension.