Flight 524 · McDonnell Douglas DC-9-32
McDonnell Douglas DC-9-32 · Incident: overrun during landing
From Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) to Savannah Hilton Head International Airport (SAV)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL96IA056
- 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
McDonnell Douglas DC-9-32
- Aircraft type
- McDonnell Douglas DC-9
- 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
- N936VV
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL), Atlanta, GATo Savannah Hilton Head International Airport (SAV)
- 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 · landing roll
- 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
- Overrun
- 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
- Copilot/second pilot › Proper touchdown point, misjudged
- Pilot in command › Supervision, inadequate
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Savannah, GA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The flight was issued radar vectors for a visual approach to runway 36. The before landing checklist was completed, and all aircraft systems were operational for the landing. The flight crew reported that the airplane touched down approximately 2,500 feet from the threshold of the 7003 foot long concrete runway. During the landing roll, the first officer, who was flying the airplane, applied normal braking, but the airplane did not decelerate as expected. When the captain realized that the airplane was not decelerating, he took the flight controls and applied heavy braking; again, there was no noticeable deceleration. The airplane rolled off the departure end of runway 36 and stopped in approximately a foot of mud. A review of flight data recorder landing data revealed that the aircraft touchdown airspeed was 127 knots indicated airspeed. After touchdown, the airplane rolled 2500 feet before coming to a full stop 43 seconds later. According to the DC-9 aircraft operating manual, the target touchdown point is 1000 feet from the runway threshold. A witness reported that the airplane touched down approximately 4000 feet from the threshold. The prescribed landing airspeed for this flight was 127 knots.
Probable cause
the copilot's misjudgment of the landing touchdown point, and the pilot-in-command's inadequate supervision.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL96IA056
- Event ID
- 20001208X05211
- Case number
- ATL96IA056
- 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, damage. 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: 635ef552ebb63d5fa6772042ede4c12b1c5812b30c19d238e2736857b44a0c15; retrieved 2026-09-18T17:53:05.647Z.