United Airlines McDonnell Douglas DC-10-10 accident
McDonnell Douglas DC-10-10 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Boston Logan International Airport (BOS) to San Francisco International Airport (SFO)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX82AA259
- 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
McDonnell Douglas DC-10-10
- Aircraft type
- McDonnell Douglas DC-10
- 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
- N1815U
- Operator
- United Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Boston Logan International Airport (BOS), Boston, MATo San Francisco International Airport (SFO), San Francisco, CA
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- 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
- Flight attendant › Seat belt, not used
- Passenger › Seat belt, not used
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Morton, WY, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
WHILE FLYING IN GOOD WX OVER CENTRAL WYOMING, THE CAPTAIN NOTED A GENTLE WAVE MOTION THAT CAUSED THE AUTOTHROTTLES TO REACT. THEREFORE, HE DISENGAGED THE AUTOTHROTTLES AND AUTOPILOT. THE ACFT HAD LOST 250 FT DRG THE WAVE MOTION, SO THE CAPTAIN TURNED ON THE SEAT BELT SIGN & BEGAN A CLIMB BACK TO 39,000 FT. ABOUT 30 SEC LATER (APRX 4 MIN AFT THE INITIAL WAVE ACTION), THE ACFT EXPERIENCED A SHARP JOLT. THE VERT "G" FORCES WENT FROM MINUS .6 TO POSITIVE 1.6 G IN APRX 1.25 SEC. THE AIR WAS SMOOTH AFTER THE JOLT & NO AFCT SYS WAS AFFECTED. A DOCTOR TREATED THE INJURED WHILE THE FLT CONTINUED TO DESTINATION. A WX SUMMARY INDICATED THAT THE ACFT HAD ENCOUNTERED A MOUNTAIN WAVE AND/OR TURBULENCE WINDSHEAR NEAR THE TROPOPAUSE. INDICATIONS NORMALLY USED TO FORECAST WAVES WERE NOT PRESENT UNTIL THE APPROXIMATE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX82AA259
- Event ID
- 20020917X03515
- Case number
- LAX82AA259
- 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: 2b5b0d5e12673c747402e4f47b41703e18a4c21c0e04a5ee923db95af4fca69e; retrieved 2026-09-18T21:08:09.248Z.