Flight 944 · McDonnell Douglas DC-9-15
McDonnell Douglas DC-9-15 · Incident on approach
From Indianapolis International Airport (IND) to Frederick W. Smith International Airport (MEM)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI97IA212
- 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
McDonnell Douglas DC-9-15
- Aircraft type
- McDonnell Douglas DC-9
- 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
- N9348
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Indianapolis International Airport (IND), Indianapolis, INTo Frederick W. Smith International Airport (MEM)
- 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
- 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- None
Cause areas
- Flt control syst, wing spoiler system › Misrouted
- Unknown › Maintenance, alignment, improper
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Memphis, TN, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The airplane had undergone scheduled maintenance at a FAA certified Class IV repair station. The maintenance required that the spoiler control cables 17B and 18B be disconnected, and later re-connected. After scheduled maintenance was completed, the airplane was released for service. The airplane flew 52 flights before the first incident. The airplane experienced an uncommanded roll where the right wing dipped 'excessively.' Maintenance action was taken and the airplane was returned to service. Five flights later the airplane experienced another incident where the airplane abruptly rolled right The maintenance found the right inboard spoiler cables extremely loose and re-rigged the cables. The airplane was returned to service. Sixteen flights later the airplane experience another uncommanded right roll incident. The investigation found that the cable run 17B was riding on lower side of pulley for 18B and was running between cable guards at pulley for 18B. It was demonstrated that the 17B cable could be pulled down and positioned into the lower 18B roller slot by pulling down on the cable with a finger and positioning it in the pulley slot. No disassembly of parts or cable guides was required. Research of a maintenance data base revealed no previous occurrences of cable misrouting in this area. The aircraft was returned to service and no further flight control roll problems have been noted after a year of flying.
Probable cause
the spoiler cable was misrouted by unknown maintenance personnel.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI97IA212
- Event ID
- 20001208X08313
- Case number
- CHI97IA212
- 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, damage. 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: 87f0394cf02d8cdbfb5a2737afbf740bdf522da4868e397482f66b2e2bee39d4; retrieved 2026-09-18T17:28:44.534Z.