USAir Fokker 100 incident
Fokker 100 · Incident: nose gear collapsed during landing
From Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT) to Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI93IA110
- 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 100
- Aircraft type
- Fokker 100
- 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
- N895US
- Operator
- USAir
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT), Charlotte, NCTo Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD)
- 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
- Nose gear collapsed
- 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
- Company/operator management › Dispatch procedures, not followed
- Landing gear, gear locking mechanism › Frozen
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Chicago, IL, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
DOWN & LOCKED INDICATION OF NOSE GEAR WAS NOT ACHIEVED FOR LANDING. CREW RECYCLED GEAR, USED ALTERNATE GEAR EXTENSION SYSTEM & MADE A FLY-BY. AFTER BEING TOLD GEAR APPEARED TO BE EXTENDED, CREW LANDED, BUT NOSE GEAR COLLAPSED AT END OF LANDING ROLL. RIGHT MAIN OUTBOARD TIRE ALSO BLEW-OUT DURING LANDING DUE TO FROZEN BRAKE. INVESTIGATION REVEALED NOSE- WHEEL WELL WAS SUSCEPTIBLE TO ICE CONTAMINATION. NOSE GEAR DOWN LOCK PLUNGER WAS FROZEN & WOULD NOT EXTEND TO DOWN & LOCKED POSITION. AT DEPARTURE AIRPORT, SLUSH HAD ACCUMULATED ON NOSE GEAR DOWN LOCK & FROZE. USE OF ALTERNATE EXTENSION SYSTEM WOULD HAVE DUMPED THE 500 PSI HYDRAULIC PRESSURE THAT NORMALLY ASSISTED IN HOLDING GEAR IN EXTENDED POSITION. USAIR PROCEDURES STATED THAT TAKEOFF SHOULD NOT BE MADE IF SLUSH OR WET SNOW IN EXCESS OF 1/2 INCH COVERED RUNWAY. AT LEAST 1 INCH OF WET SNOW & SLUSH WAS REPORTED ON DEPARTURE RUNWAY, 22 MINUTES BEFORE DEPARTURE; HOWEVER, ACTING STATION MANAGER DID NOT FOLLOW USAIR PROCEDURES THAT REQUIRED REPORTING THIS TO DISPATCHER & CAPTAIN OF FLIGHT.
Probable cause
FAILURE OF THE COMPANY STATION MANAGER TO FOLLOW PROPER DISPATCH PROCEDURES, AND ICE ACCUMULATION ON THE NOSE GEAR LOCKING MECHANISM. FACTORS RELATED TO THE INCIDENT WERE: WET SNOW (SLUSH) ON THE RUNWAY AT THE DEPARTURE AIRPORT, AND INADEQUATE DESIGN WHICH ALLOWED ICE TO RENDER THE NOSE GEAR DOWNLOCK SYSTEM INOPERATIVE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI93IA110
- Event ID
- 20001211X11938
- Case number
- CHI93IA110
- 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: bf4f688a433b01ed0d8909a9a4586dba5d844fe6112b5e94da717c2d21d3380c; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:40:17.229Z.