United Airlines McDonnell Douglas DC-10-10 incident
McDonnell Douglas DC-10-10 · Incident: airframe, component or system failure during landing
From Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI92IA101
- 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-10-10
- Aircraft type
- McDonnell Douglas DC-10
- 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
- N1820U
- Operator
- United Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), LOS ANGLES, CATo 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
- 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
- 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
- Landing gear, anti-skid brake system › Contamination
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Chicago, IL, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
DURING ROLLOUT, THE CAPTAIN APPLIED BRAKES TO DECELERATE THE AIRPLANE AS IT WAS TURNING TOWARDS THE TAXIWAY. THE AIRPLANE'S LEFT MAIN LANDING GEAR BRAKES, WHICH ARE NORMALLY PROTECTED BY A BRAKE ANTI-SKID SYSTEM, LOCKED THREE OF THE FOUR WHEELS SUFFICIENTLY SO THAT THE TIRES WERE SCRUBBED DOWN AND RUPTURED. THE FOURTH TIRE WAS SCRUBBED DOWN AND DEFLATED. THE CAPTAIN STOPPED THE AIRPLANE PRIOR TO ENTERING THE TAXIWAY. POST-INCIDENT INSPECTION REVEALED CONTAMINATED ELECTRICAL CONNECTORS BETWEEN THE ANTI-SKID MANIFOLDS AND THE ANTI-SKID COMPUTER RESULTING IN THE LOSS OF ANTI-SKID PROTECTION.
Probable cause
CONTAMINATED ANTI-SKID BRAKING SYSTEM ELECTRICAL CONNECTORS WHICH RESULTED IN A PARTIAL LOSS OF THE ANTI-SKID SYSTEM AND LOCKING UP OF THE BRAKES ON THE LEFT MAIN GEAR.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI92IA101
- Event ID
- 20001211X14256
- Case number
- CHI92IA101
- 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: 8f7fd15e4da3e17fe536d37a33166d76dfc7bd01665a8258d95b16b8388118ff; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:47:57.129Z.