19981021045479I

(-5) On October 21, 1998, at approximately 17:54 EDT, a Boeing B-737-401 aircraft, operated by us airways as flight 165 experienced minor damage and became disabled due to a failed nose landing gear torque link while landing on runway 27R at Philadelphia International Airport (phl). Visual meteorological conditions prevailed at the time of the incident. The flight was conducted under 14 CFR part 121 and originated from baltimore-washington international airport (bwi). Crash fire rescue vehicles responded as a precaution, but were not needed since no injuries to passengers or crew ensued and no emergency evacuation was required. The aircraft was towed to the passenger terminal without further incident. Subsequent on site investigation determined that the lower nose gear torque link at cracked horizontally across the casting and became separated, causing the upper torque link and the remainder of the attached lower torque link to fly up into the aircraft lower fuselage. This resulted in loss of nose wheel steering and further damage to the lower TCAS antenna and antenna doubler plate located aft of the nose gear well, just forward of the e&e bay. P/n number of the failed nose landing gear torque link is Boeing p/n:65-45288-14CPT-1238. The crew did not report a hard landing, however the flight data recorder was removed for data transcription. This analysis did not yield any abnormalities related to a hard landing. The aircraft was returned to service after repairs were made. This included the removal and replacement of the entire nose gear assembly, p/n:65-73762-21, s/n "off". XC91724, s/n "on". XC90033. Additional structural repairs were made to the TCAS doubler plate and replacement of the TCAS antenna in accordance with us airways engineering authorization 62818 and engineering order 5389717. The failed torque link was sent for analysis by engineering and the carrier's certificate management unit is following up on those results. AEA-FSDO-17 considers this investigation closed.