LAX92IA390 · McDonnell Douglas MD-11
Mcdonnel Douglass McDonnell Douglas MD-11 · Incident: other gear collapsed during landing
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX92IA390
- 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
- General aviation
- 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 MD-11
- Aircraft type
- McDonnell Douglas MD-11
- 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
- N90187
- Operator
- Mcdonnel Douglass
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 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 91: General Aviation
- 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
- Other gear collapsed
- 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 › Erratic
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
MCDONNELL DOUGLAS INSTRUMENTED A FLIGHT TEST MD11 TO EXPLORE TWO PREVIOUS IN SERVICE INCIDENTS OF CENTER MAIN BODY LANDING GEAR DRAG LINK FAILURES. THE TEST PROTOCOL WAS DESIGNED TO REPLICATE THE KNOWN CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE TWO IN SERVICE FAILURES. DURING THE LANDING ON THE TEST FLIGHT, A FAILURE OF THE DRAG LINK WAS INDUCED, WHICH ALLOWED THE CENTER MAIN BODY GEAR TO FOLD AFT DAMAGING THE WHEEL WELL AND ADJACENT SKIN PANELS. EXAMINATION OF THE INSTRUMENTATION DATA REVEALED THAT THE DRAG LINK FAILURE WAS THE RESULT OF A DYNAMIC INSTABILITY OF THE CENTER BODY GEAR DUE TO AN UNFAVORABLE INTERACTION BETWEEN THE CENTER BODY LANDING GEAR AND THE BRAKE CONTROL SYSTEM (INCLUDING THE ANTI SKID AND AUTO BRAKE SUB SYSTEMS). AS A CORRECTIVE ACTION, THE MANUFACTURER DEVELOPED A MODIFICATION TO THE ANTI SKID CONTROL UNIT.
Probable cause
AN UNSTABLE INTERACTION BETWEEN THE CENTER BODY MAIN LANDING GEAR AND THE BRAKE SYSTEM.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX92IA390
- Event ID
- 20001211X15709
- Case number
- LAX92IA390
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1992-09-17.
- API snapshot SHA-256: e6865ce3097e0c880fdcf98cf63d8d2eff3ebe5b43e1262df4d77a4287cc75aa; retrieved 2026-09-23T02:37:31.808Z.