MarkAir Flight 523
Boeing 737-400 · Accident: hard landing
From Kansas City International Airport (MCI) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW95LA170
- 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
- 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
Boeing 737-400
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 737
- 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
- EICEU
- Operator
- MarkAir
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Kansas City International Airport (MCI), Kansas City, MOTo 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 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
- 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
- Copilot/second pilot › Proper descent rate, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE APPROACH BRIEFING, RADIOS, INSTRUMENTS, AND SPEED BUGS WERE SET UP FOR A PLANNED LANDING ON RUNWAY 17R. THE FIRST OFFICER, WHO WAS FLYING, INADVERTENTLY ALIGNED THE AIRPLANE WITH RUNWAY 17L AND THE FLIGHT WAS SUBSEQUENTLY CLEARED TO LAND ON THAT RUNWAY. AT 500 FEET AGL, THE GLIDESLOPE AURAL WARNING SOUNDED. AT 100 FEET, THE GROUND PROXIMITY WARNING SYSTEM'S SINK RATE WARNING SOUNDED, AND THE FIRST OFFICER ADDED POWER. AT 50 FEET AND OVER THE RUNWAY THRESHOLD, AIRSPEED DETERIORATED. THE FIRST OFFICER APPLIED ADDITIONAL POWER AND THE CAPTAIN ADDED MAXIMUM THRUST AND FORWARD CONTROL YOKE PRESSURE. ACCORDING TO THE CREW, 'A HARD LANDING WAS MADE.' A REVIEW OF CONTROL TOWER TAPES REVEALED THE WINDS VARIED FROM 180 TO 200 DEGREES AND 10 TO 27 KNOTS. MOMENTS BEFORE THE FLIGHT LANDED, ANOTHER LANDING AIRPLANE REPORTED A 10-KNOT LOSS OF AIRSPEED AT 100 FEET. THE AIRPLANE SUSTAINED DAMAGE TO THE PRESSURE VESSEL AND STRUCTURAL STRINGERS.
Probable cause
PROPER DESCENT RATE NOT MAINTAINED BY THE FIRST OFFICER, RESULTING IN A HARD LANDING. FACTORS WERE UNFAVORABLE WIND CONDITIONS AND THE CAPTAIN'S INADEQUATE SUPERVISION OF THE FIRST OFFICER.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW95LA170
- Event ID
- 20001207X03295
- Case number
- FTW95LA170
- 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. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1995-04-14.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 19d500d6ba49a6f97fbf601254f621de9f9ac8ba6ca7eba55aa09bb3f44c5763; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:01:43.113Z.