Eastern Airlines Flight 29
Lockheed L-1011 · Incident: airframe, component or system failure during landing
From LaGuardia Airport (LGA) to Miami International Airport (MIA)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA82IA102
- 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
Lockheed L-1011
- Aircraft type
- Lockheed L-1011
- 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
- N333EA
- Operator
- Eastern Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From LaGuardia Airport (LGA), NEW YORK, NYTo Miami International Airport (MIA), Miami, FL
- 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
- 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, main gear shock absorbing strut › Corroded
- Landing gear, main gear shock absorbing strut › Failure, total
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Miami, FL, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
EASTERN AIRLINES FLIGHT 29, A LOCKHEED L-1011, SCHEDULED FLIGHT FROM NEW YORK LANDED AT MIAMI INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT. DURING THE LANDING ROLL, THE CREW NOTICED A RED WARNING LIGHT ON THE LEFT MAIN LANDING GEAR. THE AIRCRAFT COMPLETED THE LANDING ROLL AT WHICH TIME PROVISIONS WERE MADE TO DEPLANE. EXAMINATION OF THE LEFT LANDING GEAR SHOWED A COMPLETE FRACTURE OF THE MAIN LANDING GEAR STRUT CYLINDER ORGINATING FROM THE BORE OF THE INBOARD RETRACT ACTUATOR. EXAMINATION OF THE CRACKS REVEALED EVIDENCE OF STRESS CORROSION.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA82IA102
- Event ID
- 20020917X02421
- Case number
- MIA82IA102
- 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. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1982-04-21.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 72c1795ac7229bf66a656feed1ab31829a6589dc80b4f6593f1dd6fd749a0df1; retrieved 2026-09-18T21:10:31.267Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: destination. The narrative states "EASTERN AIRLINES FLIGHT 29 ... SCHEDULED FLIGHT FROM NEW YORK LANDED AT MIAMI INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT".