Trans World Airlines Boeing 727-231 incident
Boeing 727-231 · Incident: uncontrolled altitude deviation on approach
From Orlando International Airport (MCO) to LaGuardia Airport (LGA)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC82IA170
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Boeing 727-231
- 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
- N64323
- Operator
- Trans World Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Orlando International Airport (MCO), Orlando, FLTo LaGuardia Airport (LGA), FLUSHING, NY
- 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
- Approach · IFR final approach
- 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
- Uncontrolled altitude deviation
- 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
- Pilot in command › Flight into known adverse weather, attempted
- Weather condition › Windshear
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
TWA FLT 524, A BOEING 727-231, WAS EXECUTING AN ILS RWY 22 APCH TO LAGUARDIA AIRPORT WHEN IT ENCOUNTERED LOW LEVEL WINDSHEAR ON FINAL APCH. THE APCH WAS CONDUCTED IN IMC. THE CREW REPORTED THAT THEY BROKE OUT AND OBSERVED THE RWY CENTERLINE LIGHTS AT 100FT ABOVE DECISION HEIGHT. THE APCH WAS STABILISHED UNTIL 50-100FT AGL WHEN THE NOSE SWUNG RAPIDLY TO THE RT TO 242DEG AND A HIGH RATE OF DESCENT DEVELOPED. THE CAPTAIN APPLIED LEFT RUDDER AND FULL POWER BUT WASUNABLE TO ARREST THE DESCENT. FLT 524 TOUCHED DOWN NR THE INTXN OF RWYS 22 AND 13, BOUNCED, RETURNED TO THE RWY SURFACE AND ROLLED OUT ON THE RWY. THE NUMBER 7 AND 8 LEADING SLATS AND THEIR ACTUATORS WERE DMGD. THE RT TIP ALSO EXHIBITED MINOR DMG. THE WIND HAD CHGD FROM 230 DEG/06 KTS WHEN FLT 524 WAS AT THE OUTER MARKER TO 330 DEG/21 KTS GUSTING TO 48KTSSHORTLY AFTER TOUCHDOWN. THE CREW MONITORED THEIR WX RADAR DRG THE APCH AND NOTED A TSTM TO THE RIGHT. AN ACFT AT THE RWY 13 RUNUP PAD REPORTED THAT HEAVY RAIN AND A GUST FRONT HIT JUST PRIOR TO TWA'S TOUCHDOWN.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC82IA170
- Event ID
- 20020917X04067
- Case number
- NYC82IA170
- 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: 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: 676670de56f86c6a82ece2740955e22984452fa872182e2bb4ab1948beca750c; retrieved 2026-09-18T21:07:50.958Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: destination. The narrative states "TWA FLT 524 ... WAS EXECUTING AN ILS RWY 22 APCH TO LAGUARDIA AIRPORT" and touched down and rolled out on the runway there.