BFO96LA008 · Grumman American G-1159
The Air Group Grumman American G-1159 · Accident: undershoot during landing
From Iqaluit Airport (CYFB) to Cleveland Hopkins International Airport (CLE)
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO96LA008
- 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
Grumman American G-1159
- Aircraft type
- Grumman American G-1159
- 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
- N635AV
- Operator
- The Air Group
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Iqaluit Airport (CYFB), FROBISHERTo Cleveland Hopkins International Airport (CLE), OH
- 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
- 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
- Undershoot
- 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
- Pilot in command › Proper touchdown point, not attained
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Cleveland, OH, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The pilots stated that the flight departed Canada with a stop in Ohio to drop off a passenger and to clear customs. They stated that the flight was uneventful, and they received the ATIS and NOTAMS for the airport. The published NOTAM stated in part: RY 5R-23L NE 1899 ft. clsd due to construction. The copilot stated that as they approached the runway, he did not see any construction, so he assumed the NOTAM was for the departure end of runway 23L. He stated that he used the normal aiming points for the approach, and did not see the barricades until it was too late to avoid them. He stated that the bright sun restricted his visibility and he was unaware of a displaced threshold for runway 23L. The pilot in the right seat stated that he was also blinded by the sunglare. Both pilots reported that they had flown into this airport many times and that there was no mechanical malfunction. They stated that the accident could have been prevented if they had touched down farther along the runway.
Probable cause
the pilots' failure to attain the proper touchdown point and avoid obstacles (construction barricades) during the landing flare/touchdown. Related factors were: the sunglare, which limited in the pilots' visual lookout during the approach, and the unavailable (barricaded) section of the runway.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO96LA008
- Event ID
- 20001207X04647
- Case number
- BFO96LA008
- 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: 0746d92060993a08b72926e885db72a94fe90e2d88cef467101cf47d9fdf5183; retrieved 2026-09-22T23:09:59.794Z.