Kuwait Airlines Flight 091
Boeing 747-269BC · Incident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Ellington Airport (EFD) to Joint Base Andrews (ADW)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW93IA125
- 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 747-269BC
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 747
- 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
- 9KADD
- Operator
- Kuwait Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ellington Airport (EFD), Houston, TXTo Joint Base Andrews (ADW), Camp Springs, MD
- 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
- En route · climb to cruise
- 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
- Wing, skin › Delamination
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Alexandria, LA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
A SLIGHT VIBRATION WAS FELT AS THE AIRPLANE WAS CLIMBING THROUGH FL310 FOR AN ASSIGNED ALTITUDE OF FL390 DURING A DOMESTIC IFR CROSS COUNTRY FLIGHT. A PASSENGER SEATED ON THE LEFT SIDE OF THE AIRPLANE OBSERVED PORTIONS OF THE SKIN ON A NON-STRUCTURAL WING PANEL ON THE LEFT WING PEELING OFF AND SEPARATING FROM THE WING AND INFORMED A CREWMENBER OF THE CONDITION. A PRECAUTINARY LANDING WAS MADE WITHOUT FURTHER INCIDENT. EXAMINATION OF THE AIRPLANE REVEALED THAT A SECTION, 48 INCHES WIDE BY 31 INCHES LONG, HAD SEPARATED FROM THE TRAILING EDGE OF THE FIXED TRAILING EDGE UPPER PANEL ON THE LEFT WING. ADDITIONALLY, A THREE INCH PORTION OF THE TRAILING EDGE ON THE LEFT FORE FLAP PANEL WAS ALSO DAMAGED, AND SEPARATED FROM THE AIRPLANE. ACCORDING TO MAINTENANCE PERSONNEL CONTRACTED BY THE OPERATOR, THE DELAMINATION OF THE HONYCOMB PANEL WAS THE RESULT OF WATER CONTAMINATION.
Probable cause
THE INFLIGHT DELAMINATION OF THE WING PANEL SKIN. FACTORS WERE THE WATER CONTAMINATION OF THE HONEYCOMB PANEL.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW93IA125
- Event ID
- 20001211X12153
- Case number
- FTW93IA125
- 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: 33978def441662470c24a98232c8c0cdc96f2a5b71dbcf951a14b737a6f2c112; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:38:57.652Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for 9KADD; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.