Ccair British Aerospace 3101 accident
British Aerospace 3101 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT) to Raleigh County Memorial Airport (BKW)
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA91MA019
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
British Aerospace 3101
- Aircraft type
- British Aerospace 3101
- 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
- N167PC
- Operator
- Ccair
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT), Charlotte, NCTo Raleigh County Memorial Airport (BKW)
- 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 · descent
- 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Flight into known adverse weather, continued
- Stabilizer › Ice
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
ACFT WAS DISPATCHED WITH INOP AIRFRAME DEICE SYS, THO AN OPNL DEICE SYS WAS RQRD FOR FLT IN KNOWN ICG CONDS. DRG DSCNT TO LND, ACFT ENCTRD LGT ICG CONDS. CAPT BELIEVED ACFT COULD 'HANDLE IT' & CONTD DSCNT. AS HE BGN ILS FINAL APCH, HE NOTED SGFNT INCR OF ICE ACCUMULATION & USED HIGHER THAN NML APCH SPD. AS FULL (50 DEG) FLAPS WERE SET, ACFT BGN BUFFET & PITCHED NOSE DWN. CAPT CORRECTED WITH FULL BACK PRES ON CTL COLUMN, BUT ACFT LNDD HARD, GEAR COLLAPSED & ACFT SLID ABT 3600' TO A STOP. NO PREIMPACT MECH ANOMALY WAS FND, EXCEPT FOR INOP DEICE SYS. INV REVEALED PLTS HAD RCVD PRINTOUT OF WX FM CO COMPUTER SYS WITH SFC OBS & TRML FCST, BUT NO AREA FCST (FA). PLTS & GND PSNL WERE NOT AWARE THAT FA WAS AVAIL AT CO WX TRML. FA FCSTD LGT & OCNL MOD RIME & MXD ICG IN CLDS & PRECIP ABV FRZG LVL. WX DTRTD, BUT PLTS DID NOT REQ INFLT WX INFO OR PIREPS. FLT MNL NOTED TAILPLANE ICE MAY CAUSE NOSE DWN TRIM CHG WITH FLAP EXTN. THERE WAS EVIDENCE OF TAIL PLANE STALL, LACK OF CO TRNG IN COLD WX OPNS, DEFICIENCIES IN USE OF DEICING SYS, & LACK OF FAA SURVEILLANCE.
Probable cause
FLIGHT INTO KNOWN ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS BY THE PILOT, WHICH RESULTED IN ICE ACCUMULATION ON THE AIRCRAFT AND SUBSEQUENT LOSS OF AIRCRAFT CONTROL (TAIL PLANE STALL) AS THE FLAPS WERE FULLY EXTENDED. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: THE PILOT'S INADEQUATE USE OF THE PREFLIGHT BRIEFING SERVICE, INADEQUATE TRAINING PROVIDED TO THE PILOTS BY COMPANY/MANAGEMENT PERSONNEL, INADEQUATE SURVEILLANCE BY THE FAA, AND ICING CONDITIONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DCA91MA019
- Event ID
- 20001212X16303
- Case number
- DCA91MA019
- 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 1991-01-31.
- API snapshot SHA-256: cde6e8d2693faa06d4781fdc57ea940161a44c37801f31968c797885d1fef49f; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:57:00.679Z.