Britt Airways Aerospatiale ATR42-300 incident
Aerospatiale ATR42-300 · Incident: abrupt maneuver on approach
From Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (BWI) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA93IA027
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Aerospatiale ATR42-300
- Aircraft type
- Aerospatiale ATR42
- 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
- N99838
- Operator
- Britt Airways
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (BWI), Baltimore, MDTo 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
- Approach
- 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
- Abrupt maneuver
- 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
- Pilot in command › Throttle/power control, improper use of
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Newark, NJ, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
FLIGHT 3444 ENCOUNTERED SEVERE TURBULENCE AND ICING CONDITIONS WHILE ON APPROACH TO RUNWAY 4R AT NEWARK INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT. AN ANALYSIS OF THE WEATHER REVEALED THAT THERE WERE 'STRONG HORIZONTAL GUSTS' AND SEVERE TURBULENCE IN THE NEWARK AREA BELOW 5,000 FEET. ALSO, THE FLIGHTCREW STATED THAT THEY HAD BEEN FLYING IN ICING CONDITIONS THAT CONSISTED OF A MIXTURE OF RIME AND CLEAR ICE. THE CAPTAIN STATED THAT HE OBSERVED ABOUT 3 INCHES OF ICE ON TOP OF THE WING, BEHIND THE LEADING EDGE WING BOOT. APPROVED PROCEDURES FOR FLIGHT IN ICING CONDITIONS REQUIRE THE PROPELLER SPEED BE MAINTAINED AT 86 PERCENT OR HIGHER TO PREVENT UNEVEN ICE ACCUMULATION OF THE WING. THE DFDR INFORMATION REVEALED THE CREW HAD THE PROPELLER SPEED AT 77 PERCENT, 9 PERCENT THE REQUIRED MINIMUM.
Probable cause
THE FLIGHTCREW'S FAILURE TO FOLLOW APPROVED PROCEDURES THAT REQUIRED A MINIMUM PROPELLER SPPED WHILE FLYING IN ICING CONDITION. CONTRIBUTING TO THE LOSS OF ROLL CONTROL WERE THE ENCOUNTERS WITH SEVERE TURBULENCE AND ICING CONDITIONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DCA93IA027
- Event ID
- 20001211X11962
- Case number
- DCA93IA027
- 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: da6631e30fbe863040b016f4338d8c723462b701cc686b268cd2aae7c433a175; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:40:40.663Z.