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Atlas / NTSB / FTW92IA055

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event FTW92IA055

1992-01-07 DFW AIRPORT, Texas, United States Airport · DFW None 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

THE FAILURE OF THE AFT CONE BOLT AS RESULT OF PREEXISTING FATIGUE CRACKING DUE TO IMPROPER MAINTENANCE, AND THE FAILURE OF THE SECONDARY SUPPORT STRUCTURE AS A RESULT OF LOADS THAT EXCEEDED THE CAPACITY OF THE ATTACHING HARDWARE AND THE CRUSHABLE HONEYCOMB CORE.

Factual narrative

THE RIGHT ENGINE SEPARATED FROM THE WING AS THE AIRPLANE WAS CLIMBING THROUGH 200 FEET AFTER TAKEOFF. FOLLOWING THE ENGINE SEPARATION, THE CREW CONTINUED THE CLIMB AND WERE VECTORED FOR AN UNEVENTFUL LANDING WITHOUT FURTHER INCIDENT. ENGINE SEPARATION WAS THE RESULT OF THE FAILURE OF THE AFT CONE BOLT AND THE ENGINE SECONDARY SUPPORT ASSEMBLY. THE AFT CONE BOLT FAILED AS RESULT OF A PREEXISTING FATIGUE CRACK, WHILE THE ENGINE SECONDARY SUPPORT ASSEMBLY FAILED AS RESULT OF THE DYNAMIC LOADS THAT EXCEEDED THE DESIGNED CAPACITY OF THE MOUNTING BOLTS. THE TWO FORWARD CONE BOLTS FAILED IN OVERLOAD AS THE ENGINE SWUNG FORWARD DURING THE SEPARATION SEQUENCE. METALLURGICAL TESTING REVEALED THAT THE FATIGUE OF THE AFT CONE BOLT WAS A RESULT OF LUBRICANT INADVERTENTLY INTRODUCED INTO THE CONICAL SURFACE OF THE CONE BOLT. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_1992_FTW92IA055.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 ↗