NTSB CAROL · Event
Event DCA18CA266
Aircraft involved
Probable cause & findings
The captain's improper control of the airplane during the landing flare.
Factual narrative
On July 31, 2018, about 1315 eastern daylight time, American Airlines flight 89, a Boeing 757-223, N192AN, experienced a hard landing at Philadelphia International Airport (PHL), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. There were no injuries to the 181 passengers and crew onboard. The airplane was substantially damaged. The regularly scheduled international passenger flight was operated under the provisions of 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 121 from Shannon International Airport (SNN), Shannon, Ireland, to PHL. The captain was the pilot flying and the first officer was the pilot monitoring. The flight crew stated that the ILS 09R approach was normal and the airplane landed in the touchdown zone. The captain stated that as the airplane touched down the nose pitched up abruptly when the spoilers auto-deployed but that he quickly countered the pitch up and flew the nose back on to the runway. As the flight was taxiing to the gate a flight attendant called on the interphone to inform the crew that they had heard an unusual noise during landing. At the time of landing, the winds were reported to be from 130 degrees at 5 knots, with no gusts. Postflight examination of the airplane found that the aft pressure bulkhead was buckled. The skin was worn through around Station (STA) 1720 to the pressure bulkhead, and the skin was wrinkled from STA 1701 to STA 1743 and Stringer 23L to 23R. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database Retrieved: 2026-02-12
NTSB Findings
Hierarchical cause / factor breakdown from the FAA bulk avdata database. Each finding tagged C (Cause) or F (Factor).
- C Personnel issues-Action/decision-Action-Incorrect action performance-Pilot - C
Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file
NTSB_2018_DCA18CA266.txt.
Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb.
Full investigation docket on
data.ntsb.gov ↗.
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Related research
What the literature says.
Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type. Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.
- Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons 1993 · Journal article (JAAER)
A Cost Analysis: Re-Engining a Boeing 727-200 (Advanced) Versus Buying a New Boeing 757-200
The Boeing 727-200 and 757-200 are both narrowbody aircraft designed for short- to medium-range flights carrying 164 to 214 passengers.
- NASA NTRS 2019 · Abstract
Mode Transitions in Glass Cockpit Aircraft: Results of a Field Study
One consequence of increased levels of automation in complex control systems is the presence of modes. A mode is a particular configuration of a control system that defines how human command inputs ar…
- NASA NTRS 2019 · Preprint (Draft being sent to journal)
Pathway Concepts Experiment for Head-Down Synthetic Vision Displays
Eight 757 commercial airline captains flew 22 approaches using the Reno Sparks 16R Visual Arrival under simulated Category I conditions.
- NASA NTRS 2019 · Preprint (Draft being sent to journal)
Convectively Induced Turbulence Encountered During NASA's Fall-2000 Flight Experiments
Aircraft encounters with atmospheric turbulence are a leading cause of in-flight injuries aboard commercial airliners and cost the airlines millions of dollars each year.
- NASA NTRS 2019 · Other
Human-Centered Design of Human-Computer-Human Dialogs in Aerospace Systems
A series of ongoing research programs at Georgia Tech established a need for a simulation support tool for aircraft computer-based aids.
- NASA NTRS 2019 · Contractor Report (CR)
Human factors of advanced technology (glass cockpit) transport aircraft
A three-year study of airline crews at two U.S. airlines who were flying an advanced technology aircraft, the Boeing 757 is discussed.
Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗