Alitalia Flight 664
McDonnell Douglas MD-11F · Accident: hard landing
From Rome–Fiumicino Leonardo da Vinci International Airport (FCO) to Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI94MA290
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- Airline
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
McDonnell Douglas MD-11F
- Aircraft type
- McDonnell Douglas MD-11
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- IDUPO
- Operator
- Alitalia
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Rome–Fiumicino Leonardo da Vinci International Airport (FCO), Rome, ITALYTo Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD)
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 129: Foreign
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Hard landing
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Copilot/second pilot › Flare, improper
- Copilot/second pilot › Flight controls, improper use of
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Chicago, IL, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE AIRPLANE EXPERIENCED A HARD LANDING ON INITIAL TOUCHDOWN. SUBSEQUENTLY, THE NOSE TIRES FAILED, DAMAGE OCCURRED TO THE GENERAL AREA OF THE NOSE LANDING GEAR SUPPORT STRUCTURE, AND THERE WAS FOREIGN OBJECT DAMAGE TO THE #1 AND #3 ENGINES. THE FLIGHT DATA RECORDER (FDR) DATA INDICATED THAT THE INITIAL TOUCHDOWN ACCELERATION HAD A VALUE OF 1.9488 G'S. AT THAT TIME, THE THROTTLE RESOLVER ANGLES INDICATED 52.03, 51.33 AND 49.22 DEGREES FOR THE NUMBER ONE, TWO AND THREE ENGINES, RESPECTIVELY. ALSO, THE FDR REVEALED THAT AFTER TOUCHDOWN, THE AIRPLANE EXPERIENCED FOUR OSCILLATIONS IN THE PITCH AXIS. THE MAXIMUM PITCH ANGLE DURING THIS TIME WAS +5.98 DEGREES NOSE UP, AND THE MINIMUM VALUE WAS -2.46 DEGREES NOSE DOWN. DURING THIS TIME FRAME, SPOILER POSITIONS NEVER EXCEEDED 8.0 DEGREES OF DEFLECTION AND THE NOSE WEIGHT ON WHEELS PARAMETER CHANGED FOUR TIMES.
Probable cause
THE FIRST OFFICER'S IMPROPER FLARE AND IMPROPER USE OF FLIGHT CONTROLS DURING THE LANDING FLARE/TOUCHDOWN.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI94MA290
- Event ID
- 20001206X02028
- Case number
- CHI94MA290
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 24b141b204e1e9f31baff1993f1097b01f1c2fbac10a3dbb0b650e598908ae20; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:09:25.160Z.