Eastern Metro Express de Havilland DHC-8-100 incident
de Havilland DHC-8-100 · Incident: airframe, component or system failure during initial climb
From an unrecorded airport to Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA90IA159
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
de Havilland DHC-8-100
- Aircraft type
- de Havilland DHC-8
- 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
- N800MX
- Operator
- Eastern Metro Express
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL), Atlanta, GA
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- None
Cause areas
- Flt control syst, wing spoiler system › Deployed inadvertently
- Hydraulic system, seal › Leak
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DURING AN ATTEMPTED TAKEOFF ROLL THE CREW NOTED A WARNING LIGHT INDICATING WING SPOILER DEPLOYMENT AND ABORTED THE TAKEOFF. COMPANY MAINTENANCE PERSONNEL DEACTIVATED THE WING SPOILER SYSTEM AND THE WING SPOILER WARNING SYSTEM. AFTER TAKEOFF THE CREW EXPERIENCED ROLL CONTROL DIFICULTY AND RETURNED AND LANDED. EXAMINATION REVEALED THAT THE RIGHT OUTBOARD SPOILER PANEL HAD DEPLOYED WITH NO WARNING. THE ACTUATOR WAS REMOVED AND THE HYDRAULIC SEAL WAS FOUND CUT AND LEAKING AROUND THE PISTON THAT WAS WORN BEYOND SERVICABLE LIMITS.
Probable cause
FAILURE OF SEAL IN THE HYDRAULIC ACTUATOR FOR THE RIGHT OUTBOARD WING SPOILER PANEL FOR UNKNOWN REASONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA90IA159
- Event ID
- 20001212X23755
- Case number
- MIA90IA159
- 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, damage. 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: 9c596ea062c51840f42133f8a9fd6650f98293143892dd8c9b1fa0ae4fb39b0f; retrieved 2026-09-18T19:00:55.483Z.