United Airlines Boeing 727-222 accident
Boeing 727-222 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Seattle–Tacoma International Airport (SEA) to Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport (ANC)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's injuries. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC87FA021
- 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
- Accident
- 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 727-222
- 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
- N7635U
- Operator
- United Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Seattle–Tacoma International Airport (SEA), Seattle, WATo Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport (ANC), Anchorage, AK
- 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- 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
- Weather condition › Turbulence
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
ABOUT 10 MIN BEFORE ARRIVAL, THE ACFT SUDDENLY ENCOUNTERED TURBULENCE WHICH ONE OCCUPANT DESCRIBED AS A SINGLE TREMENDOUS JOLT. THE MISHAP OCCURRED WHILE THE ACFT WAS APRX 39 MILES EAST OF ANCHORAGE INTL ARPT AND WAS DESCENDING THRU 10,000 FT. THE SEAT BELT SIGN WAS ON & THE FLIGHT ATTENDANTS (F/A'S) WERE PREPARING THE CABIN FOR LANDING. ONE PASSENGER & ONE F/A WERE SERIOUSLY INJURED; THE OTHER THREE F/A'S & THREE OF THE PASSENGERS RECEIVED MINOR INJURIES. THERE WAS A SIGMET WHICH WARNED OF POSSIBLE TURBULENCE IN THE AREA.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC87FA021
- Event ID
- 20001213X35287
- Case number
- ANC87FA021
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1986-12-16.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 8853280658a9bb200cd6dd9e35523785a4bbcf044ef4a11f6ba0e0fe23de721e; retrieved 2026-09-18T19:46:31.225Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N7635U; the operator shown is the name the NTSB's other records give its FAA operator code, UALA.