What was the name of the October 1989 U.S. market plunge associated with the United Airlines buyout collapse?

The October 1989 U.S. market plunge associated with the failed United Airlines buyout is called the Friday the 13th mini-crash.

On Friday, October 13, 1989, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 190.58 points, or about 6.9 percent. The immediate trigger was news that a leveraged buyout of United Airlines had collapsed, but investors were already concerned about highly leveraged transactions and the health of financial markets.

The decline was much smaller than the 1987 crash, yet it demonstrated how quickly a major deal could affect broad market sentiment. Computerized trading and derivatives also contributed to uncertainty about how selling pressure moved through the system.

The event is easy to confuse with Black Monday, which occurred in October 1987. Its unusual name reflects the calendar date rather than a formal market classification, and it is also commonly called the 1989 mini-crash.