Mesaba Airlines Fairchild SA-227AC accident
Fairchild SA-227AC · Accident: on ground/water collision with object while standing
From Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport (DTW) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC92LA083
- 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
- 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
Fairchild SA-227AC
- Aircraft type
- Fairchild SA-227
- 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
- N27465
- Operator
- Mesaba Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport (DTW), Detroit, MITo 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
- Standing · engine(s) operating
- 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
- On ground/water collision with object
- 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
- Driver of vehicle › Psychological condition
- Driver of vehicle › Suicide, attempted
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE AIRPLANE WAS TAXIING TO THE GATE AFTER LANDING WHEN THE FLIGHT CREW OBSERVED A VEHICLE APPROACHING THEM FROM AHEAD ON THE TAXIWAY. THEY STOPPED THE AIRPLANE. THE VEHICLE STRUCK THE AIRPLANE, PASSING THROUGH THE RIGHT ENGINE PROPELLER ARC, BETWEEN THE FUSELAGE AND RIGHT ENGINE. THE DRIVER HAD GAINED ENTRY ONTO THE TAXIWAY BY DRIVING THROUGH A LOCKED GATE AND BREAKING THE FENCE. WHEN INTERVIEWED, THE VEHICLE DRIVER SAID HE HAD BEEN DRINKING AND WANTED TO KILL HIMSELF.
Probable cause
ATTEMPTED SUICIDE BY THE VEHICLE DRIVER.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC92LA083
- Event ID
- 20001211X14508
- Case number
- NYC92LA083
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1992-04-18.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 5d563b8df314d554e6d775e44efea0319f3bc1f6fdbc024bf32c91ea91b4a110; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:47:15.495Z.