United Flight 232

United Airlines Flight 232

Embry Riddle Aeronautical University

Abstract

United Airlines Flight 232 crashed during an emergency landing in Sioux City, Iowa on July 19, 1989 killing 111 of the 296 people on board. The aircraft had suffered an uncontained failure of its number two engine causing a complete loss of hydraulic pressure. The cause of the accident was a manufacturing defect in the titanium fan disk and poor inspection procedures that failed to identify the defect. Flight crew experience, training and resource management prevented a catastrophic accident and the loss of all souls onboard. This accident made future flying safer by forcing manufacturers to use better production methods and to incorporate mechanical safety measures to prevent this from occurring again.

United Airlines Flight 232 was a Mcdonnel Douglas DC-10 with 296 people on board that was a scheduled flight between Denver Colorado and Philadelphia Pennsylvania with a stop in Chicago Illinois. Approximately one hour and seven minutes into the flight the titanium fan disk in the number two engine failed, disintegrated and was not contained by the engine housing. Pieces of metal, flying at several hundred miles per hour exited the nacelle on the left and right side of the engine penetrating into the tail of the DC-10. The shrapnel tore through the horizontal stabilizers and the empennage in several places, catastrophically damaging all three hydraulic systems resulting in a complete loss of hydraulic fluid and total hydraulic system loss. (Kilroy) The explosion of the engine was felt througout the entire airplane and the flight crew immediately realized they had an emergency situation. All three hydraulic systems indicated zero (Kilroy) pressure and both the First Officer and Captain found the aircraft to be unresponsive to their inputs. The flight crew was only able to continue flying the aircraft by alternating thrust from the number 1 and number 3 engines (Gates) to...