MIA00LA004 · Fairchild SA227-AC
Merlin Express Fairchild SA227-AC · Accident: hard landing
From Miami International Airport (MIA) to Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport (OPF)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA00LA004
- 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
- General aviation
- 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 SA227-AC
- Aircraft type
- Fairchild SA227
- 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
- N438MA
- Operator
- Merlin Express
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Miami International Airport (MIA), Miami, FLTo Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport (OPF)
- 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 91: General Aviation
- 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 · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Pilot in command › Remedial action, not performed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
It was the first officer's leg and after bringing both power levers to flight idle while on final approach at 30-50 feet, the captain later reported hearing, 'both engines go into a ground idle.' She verified that both power levers were forward of the gate, then noted the sink rate increased. The airplane bounced then after touchdown, the captain brought both power levers to ground idle; the airplane veered to the right. She attempted to maintain runway centerline with asymmetric reverse but the airplane veered off the right side of the runway. The airplane touched down 484 feet from the approach end of the runway; distance between the first and second gouge in the runway from the right propeller indicates the ground speed was 92 knots. Examination of the airplane revealed compression wrinkles on the lower wing skin at the wing splice location. Rigging check of both engine controls revealed no evidence of improper rigging at the flight idle position; improper rigging was noted at the low and high reverse positions for the right engine. Previous discrepancies were written up pertaining to asymmetric reverse. No previous reports of high rates of descent when power levers brought to flight idle position.
Probable cause
The improper flare by the co-pilot, and the failure of the captain to take remedial action by applying power to arrest the observed high rate of descent resulting in a hard landing. A finding in the accident was the inadequate maintenance adjustment of the right engine controls which diminished directional control capability while on the runway following the hard landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA00LA004
- Event ID
- 20001212X20007
- Case number
- MIA00LA004
- 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 1999-10-12.
- API snapshot SHA-256: d6fe93767ea3198818a8a68115e44f98f50e1bc1801f89fbf8978d6f47d99788; retrieved 2026-09-22T13:55:01.822Z.