Delta Air Lines Boeing 727-232 incident
Boeing 727-232 · Incident: main gear collapsed during landing
From Frederick W. Smith International Airport (MEM) to LaGuardia Airport (LGA)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL86IA054
- 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 727-232
- 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
- N403DA
- Operator
- Delta Air Lines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Frederick W. Smith International Airport (MEM), Memphis, TNTo LaGuardia Airport (LGA), NEW YORK, 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
- 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, main gear strut › Fatigue
- Landing gear, main gear strut › Stress corrosion
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE AIRCREW RPRTD THAT WHEN THE LANDING GEAR WAS RETRACTED AFTER TAKEOFF, THE L MAIN GEAR INDICATED UNSAFE & THERE WAS AN UNSAFE DOOR INDICATION. THEY RECYCLED THE GEAR, BUT OBSERVED THE SAME INDICATIONS. THE GEAR HANDLE WAS THEN PUT IN THE NEUTRAL PSN & THE L MAIN GEAR EXTENDED TO A DOWN & LOCKED PSN. THE CAPT DECIDED TO RETURN TO MEMPHIS & MAKE A PRECAUTIONARY LANDING. AFTER THE GEAR EXTENSION CYCLE, ALL GEAR INDICATED DOWN & SAFE. ALSO, TWR PSNL CONFIRMED THE GEARAPPEARED TO BE DOWN. HOWEVER, AFTER TOUCHDOWN, THE L WING BEGAN SETTLING, BUT THE AIRCREW KEPT THE ACFT ON THE RWY. AN EMERG EVACUATION WAS INITIATED, BUT THE SLIDE AT THE L FWD DOOR DID NOT INFLATE. AN INVESTIGATION REVEALED THE L GEAR OUTER CYLINDER, PN 65-57901-19, HAD FAILED FROM FATIGUE. A STRESS CORROSION CRACK HAD INITIATED ON THE OUTER DIAMETER OFTHE STRUT CYLINDER WHERE A STRAP HAD OBSCURED THE CORROSION. THERE WAS NO HISTORY OF A HARD LANDING. NO PRESSURE WAS FND IN THE INFLATION BOTTLE FOR THE L FWD DOOR SLIDE. NO REASON WAS FND FOR A LOSS OF PRESSURE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL86IA054
- Event ID
- 20010110X00111
- Case number
- ATL86IA054
- 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: 1958a6b4eb3a764386cd611cf4d0228f02f946b3163191a4baad4f2a1e6946b2; retrieved 2026-09-18T20:09:53.661Z.