BFO89LA013 · Swearingen SA-226T
Swearingen SA-226T · Accident: hard landing
From W83 · Ashland, VA to W09 · Leesburg, VA
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO89LA013
- 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
Swearingen SA-226T
- Aircraft type
- Swearingen SA-226
- 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
- N263CM
- Operator
- John T. Rocca · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From W83 · Ashland, VATo W09 · Leesburg, VA
- 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
- 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
- Pilot in command › Flare, improper
- Pilot in command › Porpoise/pilot-induced oscillation, inadvertent
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Washington, DC, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT RPRTD HE WAS FLYING AN AUTOPILOT COUPLED ILS APCH WHEN THE YAW DAMPER & AUTOPILOT DISENGAGED. AFTER SOME DIFFICULTY, THE PLT WAS ABLE TO KEEP THE AUTOPILOT ENGAGED. HE SAID HE DISENGAGED THE AUTOPILOT ON FINAL APCH AT AN ALT OF APRX 250' AGL. HE LOWERED FULL FLAPS & SLOWED THE ACFT TO 107 KTS. THE PLT STATED THAT AFTER THE ACFT TOUCHED DOWN & TRAVELED APRX 1000', ITS NOSE BEGAN TO RISE & OSCILLATE. HE ABORTED THE LNDG, BUT HE WAS UNABLE TO GET AN UP & LOCKED INDICATION FOR THE NOSE GEAR, ALTHOUGH IT WOULD LOCK DOWN. AFTER MAKING A FLY-BY TO VERIFY THE GEAR POSITION, HE MADE A 'SLOW' LNDG. THE PLT RPRTD THAT ALTHOUGH A SLIGHT OSCILLATION WAS NOTED DRG THE LNDG, HE FORCEFULLY HELD THE NOSE DOWN AS HE SLOWED THE ACFT. TESTING & EVALUATION OF THE AUTOPILOT SYSTEM FAILED TO DISCLOSE ANY DISCREPANCY WHICH WOULD HAVE RESULTED IN THE OSCILLATIONS.
Probable cause
PILOTS FAILURE TO MAINTAIN CONTROL OF THE AIRPLANE DURING A TOUCH AND GO LANDING.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO89LA013
- Event ID
- 20001213X27216
- Case number
- BFO89LA013
- 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: 150298f190a60513f9a963d6350e75cb27f40fded3fca079727542266f3937d3; retrieved 2026-09-23T08:17:03.494Z.