Trans World Airlines Boeing 727-231 incident
Boeing 727-231 · Incident: main gear collapsed during landing
From Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) to Norfolk International Airport (ORF)
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO87IA008
- 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 727-231
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 727
- 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
- N64323
- Operator
- Trans World Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA), Washington, DCTo Norfolk International Airport (ORF), Norfolk, VA
- 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
- 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
- Main 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, emergency extension assembly › Failure, total
- Landing gear, main gear shock absorbing strut › Fatigue
- Landing gear, main gear shock absorbing strut › Stress corrosion
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DURING THE LANDING ROLL THE R MAIN GEAR COLLAPSED. A FLIGHT ATTENDANT RECEIVED MINOR INJURIES DURING EVACUATION OF THE ACFT. EXAMINATION OF THE ACFT DISCLOSED THAT THE SHOCK STRUT CYLINDER FRACTURED CIRCUMFERENTIALLY; ABOUT 10 INCHES BELOW THE TOP OF THE CYLINDER. METALLURGICAL EXAMINATION OF THE FRACTURE SURFACE REVEALED EVIDENCE OF PRE-EXISTING FATIGUE CRACKING.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO87IA008
- Event ID
- 20001213X35110
- Case number
- BFO87IA008
- 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: 2067b2da5ee570a68fc3196e9036b2e7052650d8b574de84fe82582d42c651ed; retrieved 2026-09-18T19:48:26.493Z.