Horizon Airlines Fairchild SA227 incident
Fairchild SA227 · Incident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Portland International Airport (PDX) to Seattle–Tacoma International Airport (SEA)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA90IA085
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Unknown
Fairchild SA227
- 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
- N27442
- Operator
- Horizon Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Portland International Airport (PDX), Portland, ORTo Seattle–Tacoma International Airport (SEA), Seattle, WA
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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
- Weather condition › Icing conditions
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
WHILE DESCENDING FROM 14,000 FEET, THE SECOND ROW RIGHT SIDE CABIN WINDOW SUDDENLY BLEW OUT. AN EMERGENCY DESCENT WAS INITIATED TO THE AIRPORT WHERE THE AIRPLANE LANDED WITHOUT FURTHER INCIDENT. THE WINDOW AND FRAME WERE INSPECTED AND NOTED THAT THE FRAME AND CONNECTING BOLTS APPEARED UNDAMAGED. TWO INDENTATIONS WERE NOTED ON THE FUSELAGE JUST FORWARD OF THE WINDOW AND AFT OF THE ICE PROTECTION PLATE. PASSENGERS REPORTED THAT PRIOR TO THE WINDOW BLOW OUT, LOUD BUMPS OR THUMPS WERE HEARD.
Probable cause
DUE TO AN ICE BUILD-UP DEPARTING THE PROPELLER AND STRIKING THE CABIN WINDOW.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA90IA085
- Event ID
- 20001212X23280
- Case number
- SEA90IA085
- 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. 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: fca7f7b8de4fdd7524992d3ebd7ae03dd4cb0afe7e523e2fb3e22c2406a6106e; retrieved 2026-09-18T19:02:40.229Z.