United Airlines Boeing 767-222 incident
Boeing 767-222 · Incident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) to San Francisco International Airport (SFO)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI00IA152
- 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 767-222
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 767
- 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
- N603UA
- Operator
- United Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK), NEW YORK, NYTo San Francisco International Airport (SFO), San Francisco, CA
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- None
Cause areas
- Flt control syst, aileron control cable/rod › Frozen
- Other system › Blocked(total)
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The captain said that while in cruise flight, "...the center autopilot made an uncommanded disconnect." He said that he took control of the aircraft and found that the rudder and elevator systems appeared to be functioning normally but "...the control wheel was jammed in the straight and level position." He said that approximately 15 pounds of force was applied in order to free the control wheel. The flight was diverted and an uneventful landing was made. A postaccident examination revealed that the wheel well canted pressure deck drain lines were obstructed by debris. A Boeing service bulletin was found that recommends changes to the drain system to "...help ensure that fluid entering the canted pressure deck area will be drained out of the airplane and not leak into the wheel well area where it could freeze on the aileron control cables..." The aircraft arrived at JFK on June 6, 2000 at 1956 eastern daylight time. Weather reports for the JFK airport show rain during the night of June 6, 2000 and during the morning of June 7, 2000.
Probable cause
The blocked drain lines in the canted pressure deck and the frozen aileron cable.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI00IA152
- Event ID
- 20001212X21169
- Case number
- CHI00IA152
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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, damage. 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: 7c0bb1c9688e94e2154573cb4ab3225f1fef1986c24492fa9d0d3d8bbab38cdc; retrieved 2026-09-18T16:35:07.647Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N603UA; the operator shown is the name the NTSB's other records give its FAA operator code, UALA.