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Atlas / NTSB / CHI88IA040

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event CHI88IA040

1988-01-09 MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota, United States None 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Registry · N618US

FAA Aircraft Registry record.

Make / Model

BOEING 747-251F

Year of manufacture

1975 · 13 years old at event

Engine

P & W JT9D-3A

Seats / Engines

495 seats · 4 engines

Last airworthiness date

19750829

ADS-B equipped

Yes — Mode-S A80E49

Registrant of record

LOGISTIC AIR INC

Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).

Aircraft involved

Factual narrative

AIRCRAFT EXPERIENCED A LOSS OF AILERON CTL WHEN ICE FORMED AROUND AILERON CONTROL CABLES AND RESTRICTED THEIR MOVEMENT. WATER DRAINING THROUGH OPEN PLENUM DRAINS IN THE MAIN LANDING GEAR WHEEL WELL FROZE WHEN EXPOSED TO BELOW FREEZING TEMPERATURES AT 35,000 FT. THE FLIGHT CREW WAS ABLE TO REGAIN LIMITED CONTROL BY USING VERY HEAVY CONTROL INPUTS. THE ACFT WAS LANDED UNEVENTFULLY AFTER DIVERTING TO THE NEAREST SUITABLE AIRPORT. MAINTENANCE PERSONNEL REPORTED THAT THE DRAINS WERE INADVERTENTLY LEFT OPEN. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_1988_CHI88IA040.txt. Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb. Full investigation docket on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

Related research

What the literature says.

Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type or causal vocabulary (maintenance). Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.

Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗