Delta Air Lines Flight 191 was a regularly scheduled Delta Air Lines domestic service from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to Los Angeles with an intermediate stop at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW). On August 2, 1985, the Lockheed L-1011 TriStar operating Flight 191 encountered a microburst while on approach to land at DFW. The aircraft impacted ground just over one mile (1.6 km) short of the runway, struck a car near the airport, collided with two water tanks, and disintegrated. 137 people died and 25 others were injured in the crash. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determined that the crash resulted from the flight crew’s decision to fly through a thunderstorm, the lack of procedures or training to avoid or escape microbursts, and the lack of hazard information on wind shear. Forecasts of microbursts improved in the following years, with USAir Flight 1016 being the only subsequent microburst-induced crash of a commercial, fixed-wing aircraft in the United States as of 2024.
Of the 152 passengers, 128 were killed by the crash. Twelve of the 24 survivors were seated in a cluster near the tail of the aircraft. The NTSB report lists 126 passenger fatalities rather than 128, but notes that two of the passengers listed as survivors died more than 30 days after the crash, on September 13 and October 4, 1985. Of the dead, 73 originated from the Miami metropolitan area; 45 were from Broward County, 19 were from Palm Beach County, and 9 were from Dade County. One of the passengers was Don Estridge, known to the world as the father of the IBM PC; he died aboard the flight along with his wife. Two IBM summer interns, four IBM employees from the IBM branch office in Burbank, California, and six additional family members of IBM employees also perished.
Crash
At 18:03:46, the approach controller once again asked Flight 191 to reduce its speed, this time to 150 knots (170 mph), and then handed the flight over to the tower controller. Twelve seconds later, the captain radioed the tower and said, “Tower[:] Delta one ninety one heavy, out here in the rain, feels good.”: 130 The tower controller advised Flight 191 that the wind was blowing at 5 knots (5.8 mph; 2.6 m/s) with gusts up to 15 knots (17 mph; 7.7 m/s), which the captain acknowledged. The flight crew lowered the landing gear and extended their flaps for landing. At 18:04:18, Price commented, “Lightning coming out of that one. … Right ahead of us.” The captain called out that they were at 1,000 feet (300 m) at 18:05:05. Fourteen seconds later, he cautioned Price to watch his airspeed. At the same time, the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) captured the beginning of a sound identified as rain hitting the cockpit. The captain warned Price, “You’re gonna lose it all of a sudden, there it is.” At 18:05:26, the captain told Price, “Push it up, push it way up.” Several seconds later, the CVR recorded the sound of the engines spooling up. Connors then said, “That’s it.” At 18:05:36, Connors exclaimed, “Hang on to the son of a bitch!” From this point, the aircraft began a descent from which it never recovered. The angle of attack (AOA) was over 30° and began to vary wildly over the next few seconds. The pitch angle began to sink and the aircraft started descending below the glideslope.
At 18:05:44, with the aircraft descending at more than 50 feet per second (15 m/s; 34 mph) the ground proximity warning system (GPWS) sounded. The captain responded by declaring “TOGA”, aviation shorthand for the order to apply maximum thrust and abort a landing by going around. The first officer responded by pulling up and raising the nose of the aircraft, which slowed but did not stop the plane’s descent. At 18:05:52, still descending at a rate around 10 feet per second (3.0 m/s; 6.8 mph), the aircraft’s landing gear made contact with a plowed field 6,336 feet (1,931 m) north of the runway and 360 feet (110 m) east of the runway centerline. Remaining structurally intact, Flight 191 remained on the ground while rolling at high speed across the farmland. The main landing gear left shallow depressions in the field that extended for 240 feet (73 m) before disappearing and reappearing a few times as the aircraft approached Texas State Highway 114.
The aircraft struck a highway street light, and its nose gear touched down on the westbound lane of Highway 114, skidding across the road at at least 200 miles per hour (170 kn; 320 km/h). The aircraft’s left engine hit a 1971 Toyota Celica driven by 28-year-old William Mayberry, killing him instantly. As the aircraft continued south, it hit two more street lights on the eastbound side of the highway and began fragmenting. The left horizontal stabilizer, some engine pieces, portions of the wing control surfaces, and parts of the nose gear came off the aircraft as it continued along the ground. Some witnesses later testified that fire was emerging from the left wing root. Surviving passengers reported that fire began entering the cabin through the left wall while the plane was still moving. A survivor stated that he watched passengers attempt to escape the fire by unbuckling their seatbelt and try to flee, but were sucked out of the plane, while others who stayed caught on fire due to leaking jet fuel. He only survived due to being doused by rain from openings in the plane. The aircraft’s motion across open land ended when it crashed into two water tanks on the edge of the airport property; the aircraft grazed one water tank about 1,700 feet (520 m) south of Highway 114, and then struck the second one. As the left-wing and nose struck the water tank, the fuselage rotated counterclockwise and was engulfed in a fireball. The fuselage from the nose rearward to row 34 was destroyed. The tail section emerged from the fireball, skidding backward, and came to rest on its left side before wind gusts rotated it upright.
