United Airlines Douglas DC-10-10 incident
Douglas DC-10-10 · Incident: loss of control on ground/water during takeoff
From an unrecorded airport to Denver International Airport (DEN)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN92IA007
- 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-10-10
- Aircraft type
- 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
- N1808U
- Operator
- United Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Denver International Airport (DEN), Denver, CO
- 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
- Takeoff · roll/run
- 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
- Loss of control on ground/water
- 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
- Copilot/second pilot › Directional control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Supervision, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AS THE AIRCRAFT APPROACHED 50 KIAS ON THE TAKEOFF ROLL, IT DRIFTED RIGHT. THE FIRST OFFICER, WHO WAS MAKING THE TAKEOFF, CORRECTED WITH LEFT RUDDER. RIGHT DRIFT BECAME MORE PRONOUNCED AND HARD LEFT RUDDER WAS USED. THE CAPTAIN TOOK OVER, RETARDED ALL THREE THROTTLES, THEN ATTEMPTED TO REGAIN CONTROL BY USING ASYMMETRICAL THRUST. WHEN THIS FAILED, THE THROTTLES WERE RETARDED AND REVERSE THRUST APPLIED. POST INCIDENT INSPECTION DISCLOSED NO APPARENT DAMAGE. THE NEXT MORNING, A DIFFERENT CREW REJECTED THE TAKEOFF WHEN THE NO. 3 ENGINE FAILED. POST INCIDENT DISASSEMBLY AND INSPECTION OF THE ENGINE DISCLOSED METAL IN THE TAILPIPE, SAND AND MUD IN THE COMPRESSOR SECTION, AND A 13TH STAGE AND TWO 14TH STAGE COMPRESSOR BLADES BROKEN OFF, CAUSING EXTENSIVE DAMAGE TO BOTH THE LOW AND HIGH PRESSURE TURBINES.
Probable cause
THE CAPTAIN'S INADEQUATE SUPERVISION AND THE COPILOT'S FAILURE TO MAINTAIN DIRECTIONAL CONTROL. FACTORS WERE: THE CROSSWIND AND SNOW/ICE ON THE RUNWAY.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN92IA007
- Event ID
- 20001212X18281
- Case number
- DEN92IA007
- 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: 9f47d6c95bfe6d9fc781d94d6b46c6a35ee15d638a92151f313659f22a72a1f7; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:50:51.310Z.