Texas International Douglas DC-9-30 incident
Douglas DC-9-30 · Incident: airframe, component or system failure during takeoff
From William P. Hobby Airport (HOU) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA83IA002
- 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
Douglas DC-9-30
- Aircraft type
- Douglas DC-9
- 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
- N536TX
- Operator
- Texas International
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From William P. Hobby Airport (HOU), Houston, TXTo not recorded
- 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
- Takeoff · roll/run
- 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, tire › Failure, partial
- Landing gear, tire › Separation
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE AIRCRAFT'S RIGHT NOSE LANDING GEAR TIRE TREAD SEPARATED DURING THE TAKEOFF ROLL. THE TREAD SEPARATION RESULTED IN DAMAGE TO THE GROUND SHIFT MECHANISM, NOSE GEAR DOOR, TAXI LIGHT AND THE EE COMPARTMENT DOOR. THE FLIGHT RETURNED TO THE DEPARTURE AIRPORT. DURING THE LANDING ROLL, WITH THE ANTI-SKID "ON", NO BRAKING ACTION WAS AVAILABLE; HOWEVER, THE AIRCRAFT WAS STOPPED BY USING REVERSE THRUST. AN INVESTIGATION REVEALED THAT THE DAMAGED SHIFT MECHANISM RESULTED IN A FAULTY SIGNAL TO THE ANTI-SKID SYSTEM, PLACING THE BRAKE SYSTEM IN AN "AIRBORNE" MODE. AN INSPECTION OF THE TIRE REVEALED THAT A LINER REPAIR HAD BEEN STITCHED INTO PLACE OVER A CUT REGION. THERE WAS EVIDENCE THAT THE CUT OCCURRED FROM A PUNCTURE. AC145-4, "INSPECTION, RETREAD REPAIR, AND ALTERATIONS OF AIRCRAFT TIRES GENERALLY RECOMMENDED AGAINST ANY ATTEMPT TO REPAIR CUTS THROUGH MORE THAN 40% OF THE PLY AND SPECIFICALLY STATES THAT TIRES WITH PUNCTURES ARE NON-REPAIRABLE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DCA83IA002
- Event ID
- 20020917X04495
- Case number
- DCA83IA002
- 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: 5c9b30d818fde3b30845afcc54db896a0a430587426134bd35a448aa4e2e3a3c; retrieved 2026-09-18T21:05:36.633Z.