Gull Air Fokker F-27-200 incident
Fokker F-27-200 · Incident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport (DTW) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI90IA089
- 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
Fokker F-27-200
- Aircraft type
- Fokker F-27
- 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
- N270MA
- Operator
- Gull Air
- 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 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
- 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
- Loss of control on ground/water
- 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
- Pilot in command › Directional control, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
WEATHER WAS REPORTED AT APPROACH MINIMUMS WITH SNOW AND BLOWING SNOW. THE RUNWAY ENVIRONMENT WAS ACQUIRED AT OR ABOVE DECISION HEIGHT. AT TOUCHDOWN A WHITEOUT OCCURRED AND FORWARD VISIBILITY WAS REDUCED TO ZERO. THE CAPTAIN WHO WAS PILOTING THE AIRCRAFT LOST VISUAL REFERENCE TO THE RUNWAY AND SUBSEQUENTLY WAS UNABLE TO MAINTAIN DIRECTIONAL CONTROL OF THE AIRCRAFT WHEN IT DRIFTED TO THE RIGHT AND THE RIGHT MAIN LANDING GEAR CONTACTED DEEP SNOW. THE AIRCRAFT CAME TO REST IN WAIST DEEP SNOW 100 FEET OFF THE RUNWAY. THE NOSE LANDING GEAR WAS DAMAGED. NONE OF THE CREW OF THREE NOR ANY OF THE 25 PASSENGERS REPORTED INJURIES.
Probable cause
THE PILOT-IN-COMMAND'S FAILURE TO MAINTAIN DIRECTIONAL CONTROL OF THE AIRCRAFT DURING TOUCHDOWN AND ROLLOUT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI90IA089
- Event ID
- 20001212X22522
- Case number
- CHI90IA089
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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 1990-02-24.
- API snapshot SHA-256: ccdb59146147d145d2a6646e56774118836aae1709509ebdefd90b2e22a6ed42; retrieved 2026-09-18T19:04:20.815Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N270MA; the operator shown is the name the NTSB's other records give its FAA operator code, GULA.