USAir Flight 479
Fokker F100 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure during landing
From General Mitchell International Airport (MKE) to Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA98FA025
- 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
Fokker F100
- Aircraft type
- Fokker F100
- 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
- N865US
- Operator
- USAir
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From General Mitchell International Airport (MKE), Milwaukee, WITo Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT)
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Company maintenance personnel › Instructions, written/verbal, improper
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Charlotte, NC, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The Fokker F100 was on landing rollout when the right main landing gear collapsed. Review of company maintenance records revealed the torque link damper on the right main landing gear was serviced using a company maintenance task/job card. The procedures did not follow the maintenance procedures listed in the aircraft manufacturer's maintenance manual, and the required tools (replenishing gun) was not available to service the torque link damper assembly. Examination of the failed components by the NTSB Materials Laboratory Division revealed fractures from the main fitting had a chevron pattern caused by overstress originated at the base of the upper torque link attach lug. No preexisting cracks were noted.
Probable cause
Improper written instructions (job/task card) by company maintenance personnel. The procedures did not reflect the correct manufactures maintenance manual servicing procedure, and did not ensure that the proper tool (replenishing gun) was available for the servicing of the torque link damper. This resulted in the improper servicing of the damper, and subsequent collapse of the right main landing gear on landing rollout.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA98FA025
- Event ID
- 20001208X09214
- Case number
- MIA98FA025
- 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: e61923678df1ea2e092c8993acbf1a0b7c3d0eef4b2097b8125bdccae0a8d646; retrieved 2026-09-18T17:18:49.981Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N865US; the operator shown is the name the NTSB's other records give its FAA operator code, USAA.