McDonnell Douglas MD-90

The MD-90 has a very good record for an airliner of its age. Up to 7 October 2026, in about 3.9 million passenger flights since 1995, it has one fatal event, and that one was not caused by the aircraft: gasoline smuggled on board exploded in an overhead bin as a Uni Air jet landed in 1999, killing one person. The catch today is not safety but scarcity. Only about 5 of the 116 built are still listed in service, and you are very unlikely to board one.

What the MD-90 is

McDonnell Douglas built the MD-90 as the last big step of the DC-9 line. It is a stretched MD-80 with about 155 seats, five abreast, two engines at the tail and a T-tail. The key change was the engines: modern IAE V2500 turbofans, the same family used on the A320, in place of the noisy Pratt & Whitney JT8D. It also got a glass cockpit. The flight controls stayed conventional, not fly-by-wireFly-by-wireA flight control system in which the pilot's inputs go to computers, which then move the control surfaces. Many such systems also stop unsafe manoeuvres.More in the glossary.

It first flew in 1993 and entered service with Delta in 1995. All production aircraft were the MD-90-30 version. Sales were slow, and after Boeing bought McDonnell Douglas in 1997 the line closed in 2000. The smaller sister design survived as the Boeing 717.

Who flew it, and where it is now

Delta Air Lines ended up with the largest fleet, after buying second-hand aircraft from other carriers, and flew the MD-90 on US domestic routes until June 2020. In Asia, Japan Air System (later part of Japan Airlines), China Eastern, China Northern and Uni Air, the regional sister of EVA Air, flew it on busy short routes. Saudia had a large domestic fleet, and Lion Air used second-hand MD-90s in Indonesia in the late 2000s. All of these have retired the type.

The one fatal event

On 24 August 1999 a Uni Air MD-90 landed at Hualien in Taiwan after a 25-minute flight from Taipei. An explosion and fire broke out in an overhead bin. Investigators found that gasoline had been carried on board in sealed bleach and softener bottles; vapour from a leak was ignited by a motorcycle battery that shorted in a nearby bin as the aircraft touched down. One person died and 28 were injured. The report blamed the hazardous goods and gaps in airport screening, not the aircraft. A court convicted the man who supplied the bottles, but a retrial was later ordered. Our data counts it as an accident, so it is in the score.

The write-offs without deaths

Three other MD-90s were written offHull lossAn accident in which an aircraft is destroyed or damaged beyond economic repair. People may or may not be hurt.More in the glossary in 2009, each with no one hurt. In February a Lion Air jet landed at Batam with its nose gear up after a broken water deflector jammed it. In March another Lion Air MD-90 touched down off the centreline in rain at Jakarta after an unstable approach and slid sideways off the runway. In May a Saudia crew on an empty positioning flight to Riyadh disarmed the automatic ground spoilers to try a manual landing, the spoilers never fully deployed, and the jet ran off the side of the runway. All three were crew or maintenance failures, not design flaws.

How a short, clean record is scored

One fatal event in about 3.9 million flights is a small sample, so our methodology weighs it against the average record of jets of the same design generation. The MD-90 scores well on that basis, though not as perfect.

How to tell if you are on one

Flight trackers show the ICAO code MD90. From outside it looks like an MD-80, but the engine nacelles at the tail are much fatter. If a charter or small airline lists one, its operator and regulator matter more than the type's history.