Pan American World Airways Lockheed L-1011-385-3 L-1011-385 accident
Lockheed L-1011-385-3 L-1011-385 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure during initial climb
From Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) to Miami International Airport (MIA)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX84LA349
- 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
Lockheed L-1011-385-3 L-1011-385
- Aircraft type
- Lockheed L-1011
- 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
- N501PA
- Operator
- Pan American World Airways
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), Los Angeles, CATo Miami International Airport (MIA), Miami, FL
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Landing gear, normal retraction/extension assembly › Failure, total
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
SHORTLY AFTER THE AIRCREW MOVED THE GEAR HANDLE FROM 'UP' TO 'OFF', DURING INITIAL CLIMB, THEY HEARD A LOUD BANG IN THE NOSEWHEEL AREA. THEY RETURNED TO THE ARPT & LANDED AFTER DUMPING FUEL. AN EXAM REVEALED THAT BOTH LOWER ATTACH LUGS ON THE NOSE GEAR CRANK ASSEMBLY HAD FAILED & ALLOWED THE RETRACT ACTUATOR ARM TO PENETRATE THE WHEEL WELL BULKHEAD & CARGO COMPARTMENT FLOOR. A METALLURGICAL EXAM REVEALED THAT THE LEFT LUG HAD FAILED IN OVERLOAD AFTER FAILURE OF THE RIGHT LUG. THE FRACTURE SURFACE OF THE RIGHT LUG WAS TOO BADLY DAMAGED FOR AN EVALUATION; HOWEVER, SOME INTERGRANULAR CORROSION WAS NOTED IN THE REMAINING FRACTURE FACE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX84LA349
- Event ID
- 20001214X39980
- Case number
- LAX84LA349
- 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: afc7e12d5fd56761109afeaf310ef65be83abe2dcb764c24fc8ef5dfe5401821; retrieved 2026-09-18T20:40:27.681Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N501PA; the operator shown is the name the NTSB's other records give its FAA operator code, PAAA.