FlarePath
Cases › CHI02LA170 · Part 121 airline

McDonnell Douglas DC-9-82Vanguard Airlines Inc.

Kansas City, MO, USA · 2002-06-17·N140NJ

0
fatal
0
serious
No injury
highest injury
Substantial
damage
Replay the flight data301 samples · 12 parametersSRN 440,600 – SRN 440,900AnalyseThe analystOne timeline · precedents · ask the docket · what the record saysGenerateInvestigation briefFacts, cause, recorder extremes, sequence, sourcesSourceNTSB docket9 documents on data.ntsb.gov

What happened

NTSB summary, verbatim

The airplane was discovered with substantial damage to its tailskid and adjacent structure during a postflight maintenance inspection. The flight served as captain initial operating experience for the first officer who was seated in the left seat. The captain and company check airman for the flight was seated in the right seat. A jump seat rider seated in the forward cabin stated that the airplane appeared to level off and start a flare a little high. A correction was then made to reduce the pitch attitude to continue the descent. There appeared to be a high sink rate, an additional pitch change was made resulting in a firm landing.

Photographs

1the aircraft, and what the investigators found
The aircraft before the accident
Vanguard Airlines MD-82; N140NJ@FLL, April 2002 (5887407917)
Aero Icarus from Zürich, Switzerland · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Probable cause

the Board's determination
The inadequate flare by the flying pilot and the remedial action not performed by the company check airman.

Sequence of events

1 timed eventsfrom the FDR factual report · claude-fable-5-1 (in-session)
  1. SRN 440,600-440,900approach/landingp.3
    Single plot ('tailstrike2') of the approach and landing at MCI including flap position, radio altitude and pitch; no narrative in the report text

NTSB analysis

from the final report

The airplane was discovered with substantial damage to its tailskid and adjacent structure during a postflight maintenance inspection. The flight served as captain initial operating experience for the first officer who was seated in the left seat. The captain and company check airman for the flight was seated in the right seat. A jump seat rider seated in the forward cabin stated that the airplane appeared to level off and start a flare a little high. A correction was then made to reduce the pitch attitude to continue the descent. There appeared to be a high sink rate, an additional pitch change was made resulting in a firm landing.