Kalitta Charters Ii Boeing 727 200 2B6F accident
Boeing 727 200 2B6F · Accident: landing gear not configured
From Laredo International Airport (LRD) to Tuscaloosa National Airport (KTCL)
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA19LA070
- 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
Boeing 727 200 2B6F
- 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
- N720CK
- Operator
- Kalitta Charters Ii
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Laredo International Airport (LRD), Laredo, TXTo Tuscaloosa National Airport (KTCL), Tuscaloosa, AL
- Aircraft age
- About 42 years (built 1977)
- 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
- Landing
- Defining eventThe 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
- Landing gear not configured
- 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
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight from LRD to the TCL area was normal, with no weather or operational issues.
As the flight was on final approach, with the power near idle, the captain called for flaps 15 and gear down. A red status light for the nose gear illuminated indicating it was not down and locked. All flight crewmembers reported they saw the light.
The flight engineer recommended recycling the gear lever, and the First Officer recommended a go-around to troubleshoot. The Captain declined and continued the approach. He did not call for or conduct any checklists for abnormal gear operation.
The airplane landed long, and upon derotation, the forward fuselage contacted the runway with the nose gear retracted, resulting in substantial damage. The airplane came to rest with less than 500 feet of pavement remaining.
The aircraft operation manual notes that attempting to extend gear while simultaneously operating flaps at idle power may result in unreliable gear operation. A crew operating the accident airplane two days prior reported having a gear issue under those conditions. Recycling the gear lever cleared the problem.
It is likely that if the crew had conducted a go-around and completed the abnormal checklists and/or cycled the gear, the nose gear would have extended. Had it not extended, a go-around would have allowed for a more stabilized approach and landing with more runway available.
Probable cause
the captain's decision to continue the landing with an unsafe gear indication.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DCA19LA070
- Event ID
- 20190130X94935
- Case number
- DCA19LA070
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2019-01-29.
- API snapshot SHA-256: a4ae86aa1ece1921582562f0530150ad2664d648b073682218d356e4d0935306; retrieved 2026-09-16T08:34:38.965Z.