TWA Flight 359
McDonnell Douglas DC-9-82 · Incident: airframe, component or system failure while taxiing
From LaGuardia Airport (LGA) to St. Louis Lambert International Airport (STL)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI93IA352
- 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-9-82
- 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
- N918TW
- Operator
- TWA
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From LaGuardia Airport (LGA), NEW YORK, NYTo St. Louis Lambert International Airport (STL), MO
- 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
- Taxi · from runway
- 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
- None
Cause areas
- Hydraulic system › Failure, total
- Hydraulic system › Fatigue
- Manufacturer › Material defect
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of St. Louis, MO, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
AS THE CAPTAIN WAS TURNING THE AIRPLANE OFF THE RUNWAY FOLLOWING ITS LANDING ROLL HE SAID IT WAS '...EXTREMELY DIFFICULT TO TURN.' THE CAPTAIN SAID THE AIRPLANE TURNED TO A 45 DEGREE ANGLE TO THE RUNWAY AND WOULD GO NO FURTHER. THE STEERING SYSTEM FAILED AND THE CAPTAIN ATTEMPTED TO STOP THE AIRPLANE ON THE TAXIWAY USING BRAKES AND REVERSE THRUST. THE AIRPLANE WOULD NOT STOP AND ROLLED OFF ONTO THE GRASS AREA ADJACENT TO THE TAXIWAY. EXAMINATION OF THE BRAKE SYSTEM FOUND THE HYDRAULIC SYSTEM POWER TRANSFER UNIT'S (PTU) HOUSING WAS CRACKED AROUND ITS ENTIRE CIRCUMFERENCE. THE PTU ON THE INCIDENT AIRPLANE WAS AN EARLY STYLE UNIT ACCORDING TO THE MANUFACTURER'S SERVICE BULLETIN. THE SERVICE BULLETIN ADVISED OWNERS OF THE AIRPLANE TO REPLACE THE ORIGINAL ALUMINUM HOUSING WITH A CAST IRON TYPE. EXAMINATION OF THE PTU'S HOUSING FRACTURE SURFACES REVEALED SHRINKAGE CAVITIES, AND LARGE SILICON INCLUSIONS.
Probable cause
a fatigue failure of the power transfer unit caused by a material defect which resulted in a total hydraulic system failure.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI93IA352
- Event ID
- 20001211X13361
- Case number
- CHI93IA352
- 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: c708f8783c4e62a1729aea4f68fc1da219c2f8eb79680829f08b6dd46232f46b; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:30:20.932Z.