Boeing 747-87UF incident near Miami, Florida, January 19, 2024
On January 19, 2024 at about 3:34 am local time, a 2015 Boeing 747-87UF, registered N859GT, suffered minor damage in an incident near Miami, Florida. It was flown under scheduled airline rules (Part 121). No one was hurt; 6 people were on board or involved. The weather was visual conditions (good weather).
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The NTSB's probable cause their words, unchanged
Maintenance personnel’s improper installation and inspection of the port M borescope plug, which resulted in an engine fire.
Source: NTSB aviation accident database, copy made September 29, 2026. Docket and reports at the NTSB.
What the record shows
- Date
- January 19, 2024 · about 3:34 am local time
- Place
- Miami, Florida · map
- Type
- Incident
- Injuries
- No one was hurt; 6 people were on board or involved.
- Weather
- visual conditions (good weather)
- Aircraft
- Boeing 747-87UF, built 2015 · all 747-87UFs on the register
- Registration
- N859GT · registry record · serial 62441
- Damage
- Minor damage
- Flight
- Flight · scheduled airline rules (Part 121)
The NTSB's narrative final · quoted from the NTSB record
During the airplane’s initial climb after departure, the flight crew received engine overheat and fire warning indications for the No. 2 engine. The engine was subsequently shut down, one fire bottle was discharged, and the engine fire light extinguished. After declaring a mayday, the flight returned to the airport and made an uneventful landing. A review of the airplane’s maintenance records revealed that, 4 days before the flight, the airplane had undergone a borescope inspection of the No. 2 engine performed by a third-party vendor. The inspection required the removal of the port M borescope plug. The maintenance work card provided instructions for properly reinstalling the borescope plug to ensure that the locking feature was properly engaged. By initialing the work card, the technician who performed the work and the inspector who reviewed the work indicated that this task had been completed in accordance with the maintenance manual procedure. A postincident inspection of the No. 2 engine revealed that the engine cases were intact with no evidence of an uncontained engine failure. The inspection also revealed burn through of the thrust reverser fan duct fixed inner wall located directly over the combustor diffuser nozzle (CDN) port M borescope plug. The CDN case port M borescope plug was not secured in the engine case and was found loose in the engine cowling. The open CDN port allowed hot gases to escape from the engine, which caused thermal damage to the thrust reverser. A postincident inspection of the port M borescope plug revealed no anomalies to the plug’s material composition, dimensions, threads or locking components. The plug was threaded into an exemplar engine without binding or stiffness and locked as designed. Although the work card had been initialed by a technician and an inspector, it is likely that the port M borescope plug was not properly secured and inspected according to maintenance manual procedures and that the improperly secured plug resulted in the engine fire.
The NTSB's narratives can run to many pages; this is the opening. Read the full report at the NTSB.
About this page
Everything above comes from the NTSB's public accident database and is rewritten in plain English only where the NTSB used codes; the probable cause and narrative are the NTSB's own words. This site never names pilots, passengers or anyone else involved. A preliminary report describes what is known soon after the event and can change; the final report, with the probable cause, usually follows one to two years later and this page is refreshed when it does. Case number DCA24LA079.