Embodiments of User Equipment (UE) and methods for fast handover failure recovery in a 3GPP LTE network are generally described herein. In some embodiments, the UE may initiate handover (HO) failure recovery by transmission of a random-access channel (RACH) 2 message when both a radio-link failure (RLF) timer and a time-to trigger (TTT) timer are concurrently running. The RACH 2 message may be a message transmitted on a random-access channel for radio-resource control (RRC) connection re-establishment. The RLF timer may be activated as part of a radio-link monitoring (RLM) process based on radio-link conditions with a serving cell, and the TTT timer may have been activated as part of a HO process based on a measurement reporting event.