Northwest Airlines Flight 1842
McDonnell Douglas DC-9-32 · Accident: gear collapsed while taxiing
From Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport / Wold–Chamberlain Field (MSP) to Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI02FA289
- 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
- Unknown
- 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-9-32
- Aircraft type
- McDonnell 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
- N941N
- Operator
- Northwest Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport / Wold–Chamberlain Field (MSP), Minneapolis, MNTo Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT), Charlotte, NC
- 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
- Taxi · to runway
- 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
- Gear collapsed
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Landing gear, main gear strut › Failure, total
- Landing gear, main gear strut › Fatigue
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane was damaged when the right main landing gear failed and collapsed during taxi for takeoff. A dark spot observed on the fracture surface showed a region with intergranular fracture features at the origin of the fracture with other areas of fatigue and intergranular fracture. Outside of the dark spot, the fracture features were consistent with overstress. Examination of the fractured landing gear revealed that small subsurface inclusions were present in the area near the fracture origin. Dissolved hydrogen content testing revealed hydrogen content ranging from 1 to 5 ppm. Residual stress tests show that the cylinder had compressive stress layers at the outer surface consistent with shot peening. The stress profiles showed maximum compressive stresses of 200 to 250 ksi transitioning to residual tensile stresses between 0.01 and 0.02 inch below the surface.
Probable cause
The fatigue failure of the main landing gear strut due to inclusions in the material, residual stresses, and dissolved hydrogen content.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI02FA289
- Event ID
- 20020925X05213
- Case number
- CHI02FA289
- 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, coordinates. 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: 1eb0e4d7a82607d5c1950d15f1253de884dec3b531b595b494bfecb290d0510d; retrieved 2026-09-18T15:57:58.094Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N941N; the operator shown is the name the NTSB's other records give its FAA operator code, NWAA.