Atlantic Coast Airlines British Aerospace BAE3201 incident
British Aerospace BAE3201 · Incident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Buffalo Niagara International Airport (BUF) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO93IA057
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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
British Aerospace BAE3201
- Aircraft type
- British Aerospace BAE3201
- 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
- N496UE
- Operator
- Atlantic Coast Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Buffalo Niagara International Airport (BUF), Buffalo, NYTo 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- En route · climb to cruise
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Minor
Cause areas
- Door › Not secured
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
ACCORDING TO THE PILOT, AFTER THE MAIN CABIN DOOR WAS CLOSED BY RAMP PERSONNEL, HE HAD A DOOR AJAR WARNING LIGHT ON THE CAP PANEL. HE REPORTED HE HAD FLOWN THE SUBJECT AIRCRAFT FOR FOUR LEGS THE PREVIOUS DAY AND A SIMILAR SITUATION OCCURRED ON THREE OF THOSE LEGS, SO HE PULLED THE CIRCUIT BREAKER AND RESET IT AFTER 10 SECONDS. THE DOOR LIGHT WAS EXTINGUISHED, AND THE PILOTS PROCEEDED TO TAKEOFF. DURING THE CLIMB, WHILE PASSING THROUGH 4000 FEET ABOVE THE GROUND, A POPPING SOUND WAS HEARD FOLLOWED BY A RAPID DECOMPRESSION. THE PILOTS NOTED THAT THE MAIN CABIN DOOR WAS AJAR, BUT FOR SAFETY REASONS, THEY DID NOT GO TO INSPECT THE DOOR. THE PILOTS SLOWED THE AIRPLANE TO 130 KNOTS INDICATED AIRSPEED, AND AFTER LANDING, THEY NOTED THE DOOR HAD SEPARATED FROM THE AIRCRAFT. SEARCH EFFORTS WERE MADE AND THE DOOR WAS LOCATED IN A FIELD ALONG THE PATH OF THE FLIGHT. THE DOOR WAS FLOWN TO SCOTLAND FOR FURTHER EXAMINATION AT JETSTREAM AIRCRAFT LIMITED; HOWEVER, THE EXAMINATION DID NOT DISCLOSE EVIDENCE OF MECHANICAL MALFUNCTION.
Probable cause
FAILURE OF THE MAIN CABIN DOOR TO BE ADEQUATELY SECURED FOR FLIGHT FOR AN UNKNOWN REAS0N.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO93IA057
- Event ID
- 20001211X11914
- Case number
- BFO93IA057
- 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: e01b04f2eb1f1f852ab3a56563831823bedbbda0ec60028e5856a8c900504cb1; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:39:52.924Z.