American International Flight 1827
Douglas DC-8-63 · Incident: airframe, component or system failure on approach
From Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO93IA176
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Douglas DC-8-63
- Aircraft type
- Douglas DC-8
- 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
- N870BX
- Operator
- American International
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL), Atlanta, GATo not recorded
- 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 · IFR final 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
- 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
- Company maintenance personnel › Maintenance, inspection, inadequate
- Flt control syst, aileron control cable/rod › Separation
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Toledo, OH, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
DURING THE NIGHT INSTRUMENT LANDING SYSTEM APPROACH, THE FIRST OFFICER WAS UNABLE TO KEEP THE AIRPLANE ALIGNED WITH THE LOCALIZER. THE CAPTAIN TOOK THE CONTROLS AND WAS FORCED TO UTILIZE FULL RIGHT AILERON AND FULL RIGHT AILERON TRIM TO KEEP THE AIRPLANE LEVEL. A MISSED APPROACH WAS EXECUTED AND AN EMERGENCY WAS DECLARED. THE CREW PERFORMED ANOTHER APPROACH WITH 'SEVERE AILERON PROBLEMS' BUT LANDED SAFELY. AN EXAMINATION REVEALED A SEPARATED AILERON CABLE. METALLURGICAL ANALYSIS REVEALED THAT THE CABLE WAS SEVERELY WORN, WHICH CAUSED THE SEPARATION. THE AIRPLANE UNDERWENT A 'C' CHECK INSPECTION ABOUT 2,582 HOURS PRIOR TO THE INCIDENT. NO RECORDS WERE FOUND TO INDICATE THE AILERON CABLES WERE ADEQUATELY INSPECTED OR REPLACED.
Probable cause
THE OPERATOR MAINTENANCE PERSONNEL'S FAILURE TO PERFORM AN ADEQUATE INSPECTION OF THE AIRPLANE, WHICH LED TO A WORN AILERON CABLE WHICH SEPARATED IN FLIGHT AND CAUSED A LOSS OF CONTROL.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO93IA176
- Event ID
- 20001211X13325
- Case number
- BFO93IA176
- 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: 1934c476dcae6652b6749320e96b34beec9b687dd62afd762368853ea3f97afa; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:29:07.744Z.