KLM - Royal Dutch Airline Boeing 747-300 incident
Boeing 747-300 · Incident: abrupt maneuver on approach
From Mexico City Benito Juárez International Airport (MEX) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW92IA010
- 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 747-300
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 747
- 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
- PHBUU
- Operator
- KLM Royal Dutch Airline
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Mexico City Benito Juárez International Airport (MEX), Mexico CityTo 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 129: Foreign
- 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
- Approach · IFR final approach
- 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
- Abrupt maneuver
- 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
- Pilot in command › Go-around, not performed
- Pilot in command › Proper alignment, not attained
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Houston, TX, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT ALLOWED THE RIGHT OUTBOARD ENGINE POD TO DRAG ON THE RUNWAY WHILE LANDING. THE INTERNATIONAL FLIGHT EXECUTED A ILS APPROACH TO RUNWAY 14 AND WHEN THEY WERE HANDED OVER TO THE TOWER, THEY REQUESTED A VISUAL APPROACH TO RUNWAY 8. THE TOWER CLEARED THE FLIGHT FOR THE SIDE STEP MANEUVER. THE CAPTAIN DELAYED INITIATING THE SIDE STEP MANEUVER UNTIL HE WAS 350 FEET AGL, AND BANKED THE AIRPLANE TO THE LEFT, ATTAINING A BANK OF 32.6 DEGREES, FOLLOWED BY 20.8 DEGREES BANK TO THE RIGHT AT 18 FEET AGL. FINAL APPROACH ALIGNMENT WAS NOT OBTAINED CAUSING THE ENGINE TO DRAG ON THE RUNWAY. A FIRE ERUPTED IN THE BOTTOM AFT SECTION OF THE ENGINE COWLING AS A RESULT OF A BROKEN FUEL FILTER DRAIN LINE. THE FIRE WAS EXTINGUISHED WITH ONBOARD FIRE SUPPRESSANTS.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S FAILURE TO ATTAIN PROPER RUNWAY ALIGNMENT PRIOR TO TOUCHDOWN AND HIS FAILURE TO INITIATE A GO AROUND TO REMEDY THE SITUATION. A FACTOR WAS THE LOW ALTITUDE AT WHICH HE INITIATED THE SIDE STEP MANEUVER FOR WHICH HE WAS CLEARED.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW92IA010
- Event ID
- 20001212X18294
- Case number
- FTW92IA010
- 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: 9221d1a736a7a712a1f55145926c7fd3b1ae7c97f9f243ce286667b6db2b898b; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:51:19.733Z.