TWA Flight 782
Boeing 727-232 · Incident: airframe, component or system failure on approach
From Orlando International Airport (MCO) to John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's aircraft involved. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC96IA169
- 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
Boeing 727-232 Possible conflict
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 727
- 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
- N24343
- Operator
- TWA
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Orlando International Airport (MCO), Orlando, FLTo John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK), Jamaica, NY
- 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
- Approach · IFR final approach
- 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
- Flight control, leading edge flap attachment › Fatigue
- Unknown › Maintenance, rebuild/remanufacture, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The Boeing 727-231 was on final approach with the landing gear down and locked and the flaps at 15 degrees. When the flaps were extended to 30 degrees, the airplane started to roll right. Controllability was assessed and found to be satisfactory for continuation of the approach and landing. Postlanding examination of the airplane revealed the inboard section of the fore flap on the right wing had separated from the airplane. The separated flap section was located in a street of Howard Beach, NY about 2.5 miles from the approach end of runway 13L. Metallurgical examination of the respective attachment fitting revealed a fatigue crack that had originated from grinding marks on the fitting. The source of the grinding marks, (original manufacturer or rebuilder) was not determined. During maintenance, the fitting is inspected visually during a 'C' check (at 1690 hour intervals), which had last occurred 1030 hours before the occurrence.
Probable cause
fatigue failure of the fore flap attachment fitting, due to grinding marks on the fitting.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC96IA169
- Event ID
- 20001208X06598
- Case number
- NYC96IA169
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1996-08-16.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 815f14262e872f911d12584946503fee34136c29f612ae5741d8128a88e4783b; retrieved 2026-09-18T17:47:19.328Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N24343; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.