USAir Flight 1028
Fokker F28-4000 · Incident: airframe, component or system failure during landing
From Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT) to Tri-State Airport / Milton J. Ferguson Field (HTS)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC95IA065
- 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
- Incident
- 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
Fokker F28-4000
- Aircraft type
- Fokker F28
- 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
- N479AU
- Operator
- USAir
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT), Pittsburgh, PATo Tri-State Airport / Milton J. Ferguson Field (HTS)
- 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 121: Air Carrier
- 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 · landing roll
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Minor
Cause areas
- Landing gear, main gear › Fatigue
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DURING THE LANDING ROLL AFTER TOUCH DOWN, THE FLIGHT CREW OF THE COMMERCIAL PASSENGER JET NOTICED A VIBRATION THAT INCREASED IN SEVERITY, AS THE AIRPLANE DECELERATED. THIS WAS FOLLOWED BY THE AIRPLANE TILTING AND YAWING LEFT. THE PILOT-IN-COMMAND APPLIED RUDDER AND BRAKING, AND STOPPED THE AIRPLANE NEAR THE CENTER OF THE RUNWAY. EXAMINATION OF THE LEFT MAIN LANDING GEAR (MLG) REVEALED THE UPPER TORQUE HAD FAILED, WHICH ALLOWED THE SLIDING STRUT TO PIVOT, AND THE SUBSEQUENT SEPARATION OF BOTH LEFT MLG WHEELS. A TOLERANCE CHECK OF THE UPPER AND LOWER TORQUE LINKS REVEALED THE CLEVIS LUG AND THE PINTLE PIN CLEARANCES WERE OUT OF SPECIFICATIONS. SEVERAL SMALL FATIGUE CRACKS WERE OBSERVED IN THE VICINITY OF THE TORQUE LINK FRACTURE. INSPECTION CRITERIA REQUIRED THE MLG AND TOLERANCES TO BE CHECKED EVERY 1,150 HOURS, DURING THE 'B' CHECK. THE LAST INSPECTION OF THE LEFT MLG OCCURRED 475 HOURS PRIOR TO THE ACCIDENT. THE AIRPLANE RECORDS REVEALED A RECENT HISTORY OF LANDING GEAR VIBRATIONS.
Probable cause
THE FATIGUE FRACTURE OF THE LEFT MAIN LANDING GEAR UPPER TORQUE LINK.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC95IA065
- Event ID
- 20001207X03176
- Case number
- NYC95IA065
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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: 31ec39749495ec0a56ec6758a3d043b7a7f32980f03f4975992bd311f4f5837b; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:03:10.111Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N479AU; the operator shown is the name the NTSB's other records give its FAA operator code, USAA.