USAir Boeing 727-214A incident
Boeing 727-214A · Incident: airframe, component or system failure during initial climb
From an unrecorded airport to Philadelphia International Airport (PHL)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA92IA081
- 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 727-214A
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 727
- 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
- N752US
- Operator
- USAir
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Philadelphia International Airport (PHL), Philadelphia, PA
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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/operator mgmt › Insufficient standards/requirements, airman
- Flight engineer › Emergency procedure, not followed
- Flight engineer › Improper training(emergency procedure(s))
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, poor
- Pilot in command › Proper assistance, not used
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of San Juan, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
FLT LOST 'A' HYDRAULIC SYSTEM WHEN LEFT MAIN GEAR DOOR UP LINE RUPTURED DURING GEAR RETRACTION AT POINT IT HAD CHAFFED ON APU. CAPT CALLED FOR 30,000 POUNDS OF FUEL TO BE DUMPED FOLLOWED BY MANUAL EXTENSION OF THE LANDING GEAR. FLT ENG COULD NOT GET RT MAIN GEAR TO EXTEND MANUALLY. CAPT TOLD FLT ENG TO VIEW POSITION OF MAIN LANDING GEAR THROUGH VIEW PORTS IN CABIN. FLT ENG COULD NOT LOCATE THE VIEW PORTS AND RETURNED TO COCKPIT. CAPT THEN ORDERED FUEL DUMPED TO MINIMUM LEVEL AFTER WHICH A LANDING WITH RT MAIN GEAR RETRACTED WAS MADE. AFTER LANDING WHEN AIRCRAFT WAS RAISED THE RT MAIN LANDING GEAR WAS FOUND TO BE STOWED ON THE UPLOCK NORMALLY. THE GEAR WAS THEN EXTENDED FOLLOWING NORMAL MANUAL EXTENSION PROCEDURES. NO EVIDENCE OF MALFUNCTION OF THE RT MAIN GEAR WAS FOUND. THE RT MAIN GEAR EXTENDS BY CRANKING OPPOSITE DIRECTION FROM THE LEFT AND NOSE GEAR. THE FLT ENG BECAME QUALIFIED AS FLT ENG ON 11/03/91 AND HAD ACCUMULATED 200 HOURS AS FLT ENG.
Probable cause
THE FLIGHT ENGINEER'S LACK OF TRAINING IN EMERGENCY PROCEDURES AND HIS FAILURE TO FOLLOW PUBLISHED EMERGENCY PROCEDURES, RESULTING IN HIS NOT BEING ABLE TO MANUALLY EXTEND THE RIGHT MAIN LANDING GEAR, FOLLOWING THE LOSS OF THE 'A' HYDRAULIC SYSTEM. CONTRIBUTING TO THE INCIDENT WAS THE CAPTAINS FAILURE TO EXHAUST ALL AVAILABLE RESOURCES AND TIME IN ATTEMPTS TO EXTEND THE RIGHT MAIN LANDING GEAR PRIOR TO LANDING WITH THE GEAR RETRACTED.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA92IA081
- Event ID
- 20001211X14150
- Case number
- MIA92IA081
- 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: f01ac4deecd8242396e5ef5666b8048c49c33eebe31621d22d3269f2c6dda275; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:48:25.700Z.