Air Canada Boeing 727-233 incident
Boeing 727-233 · Incident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From LaGuardia Airport (LGA) to Montreal / Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport (CYUL)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC82IA137
- 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
Boeing 727-233
- 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
- CGAAA
- Operator
- Air Canada
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From LaGuardia Airport (LGA), FLUSHING, NYTo Montreal / Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport (CYUL), Montreal
- 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 129: Foreign
- 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 · climb to 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
- 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
- Company maintenance personnel › Maintenance, lubrication, inadequate
- Flight control, leading edge flap attachment › Fatigue
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DURING INITIAL CLIMB, THE AMBER LEADING EDGE FLAT LIGHT REMAINED LIT AFTER FLAP RETRACTION FROM 5 DEGREES TO 2 DEGREES. MODERATE AILERON AND RUDDER INPUTS WERE REQUIRED TO MAINTAIN WINGS LEVEL FLIGHT. AFTER CYCLING THE FLAPS FROM 5 BACK TO 2 DEGREES, THE SAME CONDITION EXISTED AND THE SECOND OFFICER CONFIRMED THAT THE NO. 7 SLAT WAS NOT RETRACTING. THE FLAPS WERE THEN EXTENDED TO 15 DEGREES, ELIMINATING THE ROLLING TENDENCY, AND THE FLIGHT RETURNED TO LAGUARDIA. SUBSEQUENT INSPECTION REVEALED THAT AN INBOARD SLAT TRACK ROLLER SUPPORT BOLT FOR THE NO. 7 SLAT HAD FAILED. THE ROLLER WAS FOUND LODGED BETWEEN THE INBOARD TRACK AND WING STRUCTURE. THE ROLLER WAS SEIZED WITH SEVERAL BEARINGS MISSING. LITTLE LUBRICATION WAS EVIDENT. THE BOLT FRACTURED THROUGH A LUBRICATION HOLE THAT THE ROLLER MOUNTS OVER. BOLT FRACTURE FACES EXHIBITED STRIATIONS AND CUPPING. TOTAL TIME ON BOLT AND ROLLER WAS 18,815 HOURS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC82IA137
- Event ID
- 20020917X04065
- Case number
- NYC82IA137
- 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: b8c7dd6aafe13f664a59e1e419c92915eacc73e4b11837861873259075b8f203; retrieved 2026-09-18T21:08:31.037Z.