That Time A Load Of 737 Fuselages Ended Up In A Montana River On The Fourth Of July

On July 4, 2014, three 737 fuselages ended up in the Clark Fork River near Missoula, Montana, after a train derailment. It took several days and a lot of heavy machinery to fish them out.

Planes are built to fly, but their components are commonly transported by rail before being assembled. This incident was a multi-car derailment rather than a multi-plane crash, but it was a total loss for Boeing.

“Derailments are just part of railroading,” said Brian Panian, a retired carman with Montana Rail Link (MRL) who responded to the derailment. “This wasn’t the worst I’ve ever seen, but it might have been the most costly.”

Down The Canyon

The derailment occurred in a ravine alongside the Clark Fork River, 18 miles from Superior, Montana. The 90-car train was carrying six Boeing 737 fuselages on a BNSF Railway line from the Spirit AeroSystems factory in Wichita, Kansas, to the Boeing assembly line in Seattle, Washington.

Panian was among the first people at the scene after the derailment was reported.

“I got there with my partner,” he said. “I went towards the head end (of the train) to check out the tank cars. It wasn’t horrible, and nothing was leaking, so I didn’t think it was that bad. My partner went to check the rest of the train. We didn’t know about the fuselages.”

The specialized flat cars carrying the six fuselages had been derailed. Three fuselages remained on the ridge where the rails were, while the other three slid down the steep slope.

Panian and his partner found three fuselages at the bottom of the canyon. Two of them were partially submerged in the torrent of water below.

“By the time I got to where he was, he was like, ‘Oh, my goodness, this is bad. This is not a good deal.’ It was a bad day,” he said.

Sun Kink Cause

Boeing, the BNSF Railway, and MRL responded to the scene. Panian said inspectors determined the cause of the derailment was a sun kink, a buckle in the steel rail caused by extreme heat.

“There was a bridge right where the train derailed,” he said. “They think the bridge held strong, and then the rest of the rail leading to the bridge kinked. That’s what they determined, but that wasn’t my end of the deal.”

Panian recalled how unusual it was to have six fuselages on one train. Transporting fuselages by rail is common enough, but that was a lot for a single train.

“Boeing has cars specially built to haul these fuselages,” he said. “They usually had only two or three on one train, but for whatever reason, they had (double that) on that one.”

Priorities, Please

Everyone, especially Boeing, wanted the 737 fuselages out of the Clark Fork River. However, there are priorities when it comes to derailments.

“Trains are more important than product,” Panian said. “They used to worry about the product, but they realized they were losing more money than the product was worth by not running trains.”

The BNSF and MRL brought in bulldozers to push everything aside so new tracks could be laid, and trains could resume.

“We got trains running pretty much right away,” Panian said. “The track wasn't in that bad a condition. Cleaning up the rest of it took most of the time.”

An empty Boeing 737 weighs more than 90,700 pounds. The load limit for the flatcars carrying the fuselages is 46,000 pounds, or roughly 23 tons.

That’s a heavy load to lift out of a canyon, and there was no chance of getting these unassembled fuselages airborne. Fortunately, planes don’t have anything on trains.

“We have a crane on rails built in 1945,” Panian said. “It can lift locomotives, so the fuselages were pretty light by comparison. It’s incredible what that crane can do.”

In what was probably the most expensive and intense fish expedition in Clark Fork Canyon, the MRL crane and similar cranes from other companies recovered the fallen fuselages. By the end of July 2014, the entire area had been cleaned up.

Covering The Derailment Deficit

According to the website Aerossurance, Boeing had six 737 fuselages, fuselage panels for the 777, and wing parts for a 747 on the train when it derailed. While most of the smaller parts were recovered and salvaged, all six fuselages were scrapped.

Pacific Steel and Recycling started breaking up the fuselages on-site. Panian said Boeing was extremely concerned that if they didn’t, someone else might try.

“They were fearful that somebody might come steal parts and stuff off them,” he said. “They didn't want anything ending up on the black market.”

Boeing didn’t have any additional flatcars to haul the fuselages, and Panian said the flatcars involved in the derailment were “in such bad shape” that they couldn’t be rerailed and used.

“It was going to take a while to put them back together,” he said. “So, Boeing said, ‘The heck with it. Just crush it.’ So that’s what we did.”

The tin and aluminum in the fuselages were easy enough to salvage. According to Panian, the only part of the fuselage that couldn’t be crushed was the section where the wings are attached.

“They are so strong right there that the crusher couldn't crush them,” he said. “They had to box that section up and ship it off. But all the rest of it, they could crush.”

Paying for all this effort was a fraught process, especially since it was beyond the realm of insurance.

“BNSF was not insured for that,” Panian said. “MRL was not insured for that. I don’t know how the cost got shared, but MRL took a percentage of the cost, and BNSF and Boeing split the rest.”  

Could Have Been Worse

In total, 19 of the 90 cars in the train derailed on July 4, 2014. Six cars were empty, while the other 13 were flatcars carrying the six Boeing 737 fuselages and other aircraft parts, and cars carrying soybeans and denatured alcohol.

The total cost of the cleanup has never been released—only the higher-ups at Boeing, BNSF and MRL probably saw how enormously expensive the endeavor became. For perspective, a Boeing 737 costs $55 million to produce in 2025.

Panian said the Clark Fork Canyon derailment was intense, but it was far from the worst he had responded to during his career with MRL.

“I’ve seen quite a few derailments,” he said. “We had three major derailments in 1996, including a chlorine leak in the Albertson Gorge. That was a really bad year.”

The derailment near Albertson, Montana, on April 11, 1996, released over 129,000 pounds of liquid chlorine and 17,000 gallons of potassium cresylate. It was the largest chlorine leak in U.S. railroad history, forcing the evacuation of over 1,000 Alberton residents, many of whom reported long-term health impacts from the incident.

By comparison, the Clark Fork River derailment was simple and straightforward. Nobody was injured, and nothing toxic leaked into the water.

But Panian could confidently give the derailment one dubious distinction.

“This was the most costly one I ever dealt with,” he said. “It was a very expensive derailment.”

Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.