American Airlines McDonnell Douglas DC-9-82 incident
McDonnell Douglas DC-9-82 · Incident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD) to Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport / Wold–Chamberlain Field (MSP)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI87IA100
- 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
- Unknown
McDonnell Douglas DC-9-82
- Aircraft type
- McDonnell Douglas DC-9
- 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
- N409AA
- Operator
- American Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD), Chicago, ILTo Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport / Wold–Chamberlain Field (MSP), Minneapolis, MN
- 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 · descent
- 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
- Total loss of engine power (mechanical 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
- Turbine assembly, nozzle retention › Disintegrated
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE AIRCRAFT LANDED UNEVENTFULLY AFTER THE RIGHT ENGINE FAILED DURING A DESCENT. THE SHUTDOWN OCCURRED AFTER FAILED ANTIROTATION PINS ALLOWED GAS LOADS TO DRIVE NORMALLY STATIONARY THIRD STAGE VANE CLUSTERS IN THE LOW PRESSURE TURBINE AREA. ROTATION OF THE CLUSTERS IN THEIR CHANNEL ALLOWED THE CLUSTERS TO MACHINE THEMSELVES OUT THROUGH THE LOW PRESSURE TURBINE CASE. EVIDENCE INDICATES THAT 23 OF THE 44 THIRD STAGE VANE ANTI-ROTATION PINS RUPTURED FOLLOWED BY FRACTURE OF THE REMAINING PINS FROM SHEAR OVERLOAD. THE PIN STRESS RUPTURE WAS THE RESULT OF BENDING STRESSES ON THE VANE PINS FROM VANE TWIST & PIN MATERIAL CREEP. A DESIGN TASK WAS INITIATED IN 1986 TO PROVIDE A MORE DURABLE PIN AND IN MAY 1987 P&W RELEASED A NEW MATERIAL, INCO 901 NON-STEPPED, ANTI-ROTATION PIN, PN 803995, TO REPLACE THE PN 599714 TINIDUR PIN.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI87IA100
- Event ID
- 20001213X30398
- Case number
- CHI87IA100
- 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. 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: 75e91fc018595964a6ce16dbc9b9fd84bc5ed5eca0f9a0b4b55864fcdb67c0aa; retrieved 2026-09-18T19:41:57.456Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N409AA; the operator shown is the name the NTSB's other records give its FAA operator code, AALA.