Eastern Airlines Boeing B-727-200 incident
Boeing B-727-200 · Incident: airframe, component or system failure during initial climb
From PBI · West Palm Beach, FL to John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA83IA075
- 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 B-727-200
- 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
- N8831E
- Operator
- Eastern Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From PBI · West Palm Beach, FLTo John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK), Jamaica, NY
- 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
- Minor
Cause areas
- Landing gear, normal retraction/extension assembly › Undetermined
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Miami, FL, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
DURING GEAR RETRACTION AFTER TAKEOFF, THE AIRCREW NOTED THAT THE LEFT MAIN LANDING GEAR (MLG) DOOR WARNING LIGHT REMAINED ILLUMINATED. THE LANDING GEAR CONTROL WAS CYCLED, BUT THE CONDITION WAS NOT CORRECTED. ATTEMPTS TO EXTEND THE LEFT MLG WERE ALSO UNSUCCESSFUL. DURING TOWER FLY-BY'S, THE AIRCREW WERE ADVISED THAT THE NOSE & RIGHT MLG WERE DOWN; HOWEVER, THE LEFT MLG WAS ONLY PARTIALLY EXTENDED & THE LEFT MLG DOOR WAS IN AN APRX 45 DEG POSITION. SUBSEQUENTLYA WHEELS UP LANDING WAS MADE. AFTER BEING HOISTED, THE LEFT MLG WAS FOUND HANGING DOWN & WEDGED ON THE DOOR. ALL GEAR WERE EXTENDED & THE ACFT WAS TOWED FROM THE RWY. AN EXAM REVEALED NO DISCREPANCIES EXCEPT THE LEFT MGL DOOR ACTUATOR MOUNTING BOLTS & A SERRATED FITTING WERE LOOSE. THE SYSTEM MALFUNCTION COULD NOT BE DUPLICATED. THE ACFT WAS EQUIPPED WITH AN ORIGINAL PRODUCTION MLG SAFETY BAR TO PREVENT INTERFERENCE BETWEEN THE DOOR & GEAR DURING EMERGENCY EXTENSION WITHOUT HYD PRESSURE. HOWEVER, IT WAS NOT DESIGNED TO WITHSTAND DOOR CLOSING PRESSURES (HYD & AIR).
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA83IA075
- Event ID
- 20001214X42267
- Case number
- MIA83IA075
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1983-02-16.
- API snapshot SHA-256: e419c8715bf97148d4e82fd1015cd219b77cfb710af746eea8d5501bfda722a2; retrieved 2026-09-18T21:01:42.174Z.