American Airlines Flight 535
Fokker F28 Mk 0100 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure on approach
From Tulsa International Airport (TUL) to Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW02FA003
- 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
- Unknown
- 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
Fokker F28 Mk 0100
- Aircraft type
- Fokker F28
- 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
- N1448A
- Operator
- American Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tulsa International Airport (TUL), Tulsa, OKTo Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW), DFW Airport, TX
- 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
- Approach
- 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
- Company maintenance personnel › Procedures/directives, not followed
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While on final approach to the runway the captain received an unsafe nose landing gear indication on the multi function display unit (MFDU) in the cockpit. The captain abandoned the approach and "recycled the gear per procedures to no avail." Subsequently, the airplane landed on runway 13R, rolled out, and came to a stop on the runway. An evacuation of the airplane was not initiated. A maintenance crew met the airplane on the runway and placed locking pins in the gear. Multiple simultaneous communications/conversations ensued between the maintenance crew, a maintenance supervisor, a maintenance crew chief and the flight crew. During the communications, the flight crew questioned maintenance personnel on whether or not it was necessary to strap the gear, the supervisor searched the maintenance manuals and didn't find any reference to strapping the gear, and informed the maintenance crew that it was not necessary to strap the gear prior to towing. Review of the maintenance manual found numerous warnings regarding towing the airplane with an unsafe nose landing gear indication. Meanwhile, a maintenance crew chief was informing the maintenance personnel that strapping of the gear was required; however, there was no strap at the airport. Despite a placard, located on the nose landing gear door, the maintenance crew attempted to tow the airplane without strapping the nose landing gear. Subsequently, the nose landing gear collapsed and the nose of the airplane came to rest on the towbar. The passengers were then deplaned and transported to the terminal by a bus. Examination of the nose landing gear did not reveal the reason for the down-lock plunger to engage when the nose landing gear was extended.
Probable cause
The collapse of the nose landing gear as a result of the failure of company maintenance personnel to follow the proper procedures for a towing the airplane with an unsafe nose landing gear indication. Contributing factors were the inadequate communication between the company maintenance personnel, the inaccurate instructions provided to the maintenance crew, and the failure of the nose landing gear's locking mechanism.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW02FA003
- Event ID
- 20011022X02123
- Case number
- FTW02FA003
- 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, coordinates. 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: 8a5b0c4e40b8b42b067822772896b0e3c56896265be0112472a93853d930316b; retrieved 2026-09-18T16:09:12.731Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N1448A; the operator shown is the name the NTSB's other records give its FAA operator code, AALA.