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Horizon Air Flight 2419

31 Mar 1999 · Spokane, WA, United States

Fokker F.28 MK 4000 F.28 MK 40 · Incident: airframe, component or system failure en route

From Billings Logan International Airport (BIL) to Seattle–Tacoma International Airport (SEA)

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Event

NTSB case
SEA99IA045
Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
Incident
InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
Completed
API-reported fatalities
0 · all aircraft and ground
Ground fatalities
0
OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
Airline
WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
Visual Meteorological Cond

Fokker F.28 MK 4000 F.28 MK 40

Aircraft type
Fokker F-28
Category
Airplane
RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
N477AU
Operator
Horizon Air
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Billings Logan International Airport (BIL), Billings, MTTo Seattle–Tacoma International Airport (SEA), Seattle, WA
Aircraft age
Not recorded
Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
Part 121: Air Carrier
Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
En route · cruise
First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
Airframe, component or system failure
DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
None

Cause areas

  • Hydraulic system, line › Chafed

Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

The flight crew reported that, while in cruise flight, the number 1 hydraulic (utility) fluid quantity dropped below the low red mark on the gauge. The flight crew switched to the secondary hydraulic system and diverted to a nearby airport, where a landing was made without incident. Maintenance personnel inspected the aircraft and found a hydraulic line to the flap drive motor was chafed through and leaking. The flight crew reported that this was the second time that day that the number 1 hydraulic system fluid level had dropped. Prior to the last departure, maintenance personnel had serviced the system with hydraulic fluid. On that occasion, the flight crew ran the engines and cycled the flight controls while maintenance personnel looked for leaks. No leaks were found and the aircraft departed on the next leg of the scheduled flight.

Probable cause

A chafed hydraulic line.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record SEA99IA045
Event ID
20001205X00391
Case number
SEA99IA045
Dataset
historical-pre2008
Source SHA-256
89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
  • Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
  • Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: local date, investigation status, damage. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
  • The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1999-04-01.
  • API snapshot SHA-256: 7017bc58918225183c482ecd653f70f257d08e83a335a06d3206f853fe41c856; retrieved 2026-09-18T16:57:45.537Z.