Continental Airlines Boeing 727-200 accident
Boeing 727-200 · Accident: main gear collapsed during landing
From William P. Hobby Airport (HOU) to BENNETTSVILLE, NC
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW82DA139
- 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
Boeing 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
- N32717
- Operator
- Continental Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From William P. Hobby Airport (HOU), Houston, TXTo BENNETTSVILLE, NC
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Landing gear, main gear strut › Cracked
- Landing gear, main gear strut › Failure, total
- Landing gear, main gear strut › Previous damage
- Landing gear, main gear strut › Stress corrosion
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE LEFT MAIN GEAR COLLAPSED & PARTIALLY SEPARATED FROM THE ACFT STRUCTURE. EXAMINATION OF THE GEAR ASSEMBLY REVEALED A FAILED DRAG STRUT ASSEMBLY #65-57903-11. THERE WAS EVIDENCE OF A PRE-EXISTING CRACK PRIOR TO THE STRUT SEPARATION. THE STRESS CORROSION CRACKING PROBABLY INITIATED FROM PREVIOUS DAMAGE TO THE OUTER SURFACE OF THE STRUT CYLINDER RESULTING FROM A TIRE BLOWOUT INCIDENT WHICH OCCURRED ON 3/10/82. EITHER A SMALL CRACK OR GROUP OF CRACKS INITIATED IN THE STRUT AT THE TIME OF THE PRIOR DAMAGE, OR THE DAMAGE WAS SEVERE ENOUGH TO DISRUPT THE INTEGRITY OF THE SURFACE FINISH & PRODUCE A NOTCH AND/OR UNFAVORABLE RESIDUAL STRESS WHICH MADE THE STRUT SUSCEPTABLE TO STRESS CORROSION CRACKING IN THIS AREA.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW82DA139
- Event ID
- 20020917X02079
- Case number
- FTW82DA139
- 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 1982-04-19.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 5514c16b54b323fbc7ad8f996a456c7044f75e4437caec1328662a8a6bfcb6f7; retrieved 2026-09-18T21:10:34.359Z.