Northwest Airlines Flight 877
Douglas DC-9-31 · Accident: gear collapsed during landing
From Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport (SDF) to Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport / Wold–Chamberlain Field (MSP)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI02FA148
- 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
Douglas DC-9-31
- Aircraft type
- Douglas DC-9
- 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
- N8986E
- Operator
- Northwest Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport (SDF), Louisville, KYTo Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport / Wold–Chamberlain Field (MSP), Minneapolis, MN
- 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
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Landing gear, main gear strut › Failure, total
- Landing gear, main gear strut › Fatigue
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During landing rollout the right main landing gear (RMLG) collasped. The captain reported a normal landing was completed by the first officer and when he took over control of the airplane "the aircraft dropped sharply to the right and we began skidding down the runway with a continous warning horn. I continued braking and the aircraft came to a stop on centerline with a significant right lean." According to the NTSB Materials Laboratory Factual Report, the outer cylinder of the RMLG was fractured through the transition area above the fused section, with the fracture located approximately 19 inches from the upper end of the cylinder. The factual report noted the fracture initiation point "lies in the parting plane for the cylinder forging. The dark spot [fracture initiation point] was orientated transverse to the gear about 28 7/8 inches from the lower end of the cylinder." According to the factual report, multiple inclusions and intergranular cracks were uncovered within the examined fracture sample. The inclusions were mostly oxides of aluminum and calcium and some inclusions contained small sulfides of iron and manganese. The report noted there were fracture features that were consistent with overstress separation "emanating from the dark spot [fracture initiation point] with mostly ductile dimple formations and some cleavage like features."
Probable cause
The failure of the right main landing gear due to fatigue.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI02FA148
- Event ID
- 20020612X00871
- Case number
- CHI02FA148
- 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, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2002-06-04.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 0cfccd5bd1b9a125dbc53b5be2af0d4c99fae2bd231c5252ab96c42fa3933219; retrieved 2026-09-18T16:02:08.165Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N8986E; the operator shown is the name the NTSB's other records give its FAA operator code, NWAA.