CHI94LA186 · Hawker Siddeley DH-125-3A
D.B. Aviation/Ditka Hawker Siddeley DH-125-3A · Accident: hard landing
From Chicago Executive Airport (PWK) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI94LA186
- 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
- Accident
- 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
- General aviation
- 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
Hawker Siddeley DH-125-3A
- Aircraft type
- Hawker Siddeley DH-125
- 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
- N900CD
- Operator
- D.B. Aviation/Ditka
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Chicago Executive Airport (PWK), Wheeling, ILTo not recorded
- 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 91: General Aviation
- 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Hard landing
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Flt control syst, yoke/control stick › Jammed
- Pilot in command › Miscellaneous equipment, disregarded
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE CORPORATE JET'S SINK RATE INCREASED DURING SHORT FINAL APPROACH. THE C0PILOT APPLIED ELEVATOR BACK PRESSURE AND NOSE UP TRIM. THE SINK RATE CONTINUED TO INCREASE. THE CAPTAIN OBSERVED THE COPILOT'S EFFORTS AND BEGAN APPLYING BACK PRESSURE ON HIS CONTROL YOKE. THROUGH COMBINED EFFORTS OF BOTH PILOTS THEY WERE ABLE TO INCREASE THE PITCH ENOUGH THAT THE AIRPLANE TOUCHED DOWN ON THE MAIN GEAR FIRST. HOWEVER, THE TOUCHDOWN WAS HARD. THE ON-SCENE INVESTIGATION REVEALED THAT A TRIP MANIFEST CONTAINER WAS LODGED BETWEEN THE COPILOT'S CONTROL YOKE COLUMN AND SEAT FRAME. THE PILOTS STATED THE CONTAINER IS REQUIRED TO BE CARRIED IN THE COCKPIT DURING FLIGHTS. BOTH PILOTS SAID THERE IS NO DESIGNATED SPACE IN THE COCKPIT TO RETAIN THE CONTAINER.
Probable cause
was the pilot-in-command disregarding the location of the flight manifest container in the cockpit. Factor's associated with the accident were a jammed control column and inadequate procedures for the use and storage of the flight manifest container on the part of company management.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI94LA186
- Event ID
- 20001206X01264
- Case number
- CHI94LA186
- 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: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 66a9fd56abfab6c4cbadafb4230fa0aa3ab39eefe99aae1bd82e95ca37c6180c; retrieved 2026-09-23T01:03:38.461Z.