09/06/2026
30 years ago! Cronomer Valley was one of the many companies that responded to this incident.
On September 5, 1996, FedEx Express Flight 1406 was flying from Memphis, Tennessee, to Boston when a seemingly routine cargo flight turned into a desperate emergency over New York.
The McDonnell Douglas DC-10-10CF, registration N68055, was carrying three crew members and two FedEx employees as non-revenue passengers. At about 5:42 a.m., while cruising at 33,000 feet, the cockpit's smoke and fire alarm suddenly activated, indicating smoke in the main-deck cargo compartment.
The crew immediately donned smoke masks as smoke began entering the cockpit and aircraft systems started failing. The pilots informed air traffic control that they had a serious fire emergency.
Controllers offered two possibilities: Albany County Airport, about 50 miles ahead, or Stewart International Airport in Newburgh, roughly 25 miles behind. The crew chose Stewart because it was closer and began an emergency descent.
At 5:54 a.m., the DC-10 landed safely on Runway 27 at Stewart and stopped on a taxiway, where airport firefighters were waiting. But escaping the aircraft presented another danger.
The fuselage was still pressurized, preventing the cockpit windows and doors from being opened normally. After the captain depressurized the aircraft, the crew escaped through a cockpit window while the two passengers exited through a forward door. All five people made it out alive, although the captain and flight engineer suffered minor injuries.
The situation became even more dramatic after the evacuation. Firefighters struggled to reach the source because the densely packed cargo obstructed access to the burning area.
About 40 minutes after landing, flames broke through the aircraft's fuselage. The fire continued to consume the DC-10, and firefighters finally extinguished it roughly four hours after the emergency landing. The aircraft was destroyed.
The subsequent investigation produced an unsettling conclusion: investigators could not establish exactly what ignited the fire. Extensive fire damage had destroyed or obscured crucial evidence, leaving the National Transportation Safety Board to determine only that the probable cause was an in-flight cargo fire of undetermined origin.
However, the investigation uncovered important safety concerns. Investigators found several items that appeared to be undeclared hazardous materials, including aerosol cans, containers holding acidic or alkaline liquids, and potentially flammable or combustible liquids.
A DNA synthesizer shipment also contained flammable chemicals whose presence was apparently unknown to the people who prepared and shipped it. The NTSB concluded that these findings demonstrated the danger posed by hazardous materials whose contents were not properly declared.
The investigation also examined emergency-response issues, including difficulties in quickly providing firefighters with accurate information about hazardous materials aboard the aircraft.
The NTSB subsequently issued safety recommendations addressing hazardous-materials information, emergency response and aircraft firefighting procedures.
Flight 1406 therefore became a remarkable case in which a catastrophic aircraft loss did not become a fatal crash. Five people survived because the crew recognized the danger, diverted quickly and successfully landed the burning DC-10. The final mystery, however, remained: despite an extensive investigation, investigators could never determine exactly what started the fire.
