Aeromexpress Boeing 727-2K5 incident
Boeing 727-2K5 · Incident: airframe, component or system failure during takeoff
From Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) to Mexico City Benito Juárez International Airport (MEX)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW97IA119
- 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 727-2K5
- 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
- N909PG
- Operator
- Aeromexpress
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW)To Mexico City Benito Juárez International Airport (MEX), Mexico City
- 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
- Takeoff · roll/run
- 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, axle › Failure, total
- Landing gear, axle › Undetermined
Not plotted · Location withheld: coordinates are missing, conflicting, invalid, or have no accepted acquisition method. No substitute location has been invented.
NTSB narrative
The right hand inboard main landing gear wheel assembly departed the aircraft during the takeoff roll. The crew returned the aircraft to the departure airport and the flight landed without further incident. Visual examination revealed that the outer cone-bearing seized. The bearing race, retainer ring, and axle were damaged and the inner ring of the outer wheel bearing exhibited deformation, rubbing, cracking, and galling. None of the bearing rollers were recovered. Metallurgical examination disclosed that the inner wheel bearing migrated approximately 1.5 inches in the inboard direction. The outer bearing ring showed rub damage on the circumference of the inner and outer diameter and the bearing cage. The bolt that locked the wheel retaining nut was fractured; however, it could not be determined if the fracture of the bolt contributed to or was the result of the bearing damage. The inner ring of the outer wheel bearing displayed heat damage and localized melting. The damage of the inner ring 'appeared to be more consistent with bearing deterioration caused by inadequate or loss of preloading rather than a bearing seizure event.'
Probable cause
failure of the outer bearing for undetermined reason(s).
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW97IA119
- Event ID
- 20001208X07523
- Case number
- FTW97IA119
- 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: d41a734c0d72840ffa19df612daf0742ddf3db860b0e529a969286555a444f1d; retrieved 2026-09-18T17:41:12.405Z.