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NYC97FA098 · Boeing 767-300

22 May 1997 · Newark, NJ, United States

Boeing 767-300 · Accident: hard landing

From Milan Malpensa International Airport (LIMC) to Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR)

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Event

NTSB case
NYC97FA098
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 767-300

Aircraft type
Boeing 767
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
IDEIL
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Milan Malpensa International Airport (LIMC), MILANO, ITALYTo Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR)
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 129: Foreign
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
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 › Flare, improper

Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Newark, NJ, the place the record names. Not the accident site.

NTSB narrative

During landing with a gusty crosswind, the pilot received an onboard wind shear alert about 5 seconds prior to touchdown, and the airplane touched down with a 1.8 G load on the main landing gear, followed 2 seconds later by a 2.8 G spike on the nose landing gear. After touchdown, the first officer, the operating pilot, continued to push the control column forward, and the airplane pitched nose down, as the main landing gear alternately lifted off the ground and the ground spoilers retracted. The nose landing gear and surrounding structure were damaged. The captain and first officer had 150 hours and 68 hours respectively, in make and model. The ATIS contained, '...Low level windshear advisories are in effect...' which was acknowledged by the flight crew. The local controller had advised preceding flights prior to the airplane's arrival on frequency that, '...gain or loss of 15 knots below 300 feet reported by several aircraft...' He also gave this information to his relief about 1 minute prior to the airplane landing. However, it was not given to the accident flight. ATC controllers were not required to repeat the warning when it was on the ATIS.

Probable cause

The improper landing flare by the co-pilot and the inadequate supervision of the flight by the pilot-in-command. Other related factors were the gusty crosswind, windshear, and the lack of familiarity with the airplane by both pilots.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record NYC97FA098
Event ID
20001208X07994
Case number
NYC97FA098
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: 9f208aee44fd9347b2e29911db40f37c6a4f9e5e05333364e34ddbe5308ed022; retrieved 2026-09-18T17:33:13.662Z.