America West Airlines Boeing 737-2A6 incident
Boeing 737-2A6 · Incident: loss of control on ground/water during landing
From Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX) to Durango La Plata County Airport (DRO)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN87IA059
- 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
Boeing 737-2A6
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 737
- 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
- N145AW
- Operator
- America West Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX), Phoenix, AZTo Durango La Plata County Airport (DRO), Durango, CO
- 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 · landing roll
- 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
- None
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Compensation for wind conditions, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AMERICA WEST AIRLINES FLT 166, A BOEING 737, DEPARTED PHOENIX, AZ, EN ROUTE TO DURANGO, CO. DURING THE ILS APCH TO DURANGO'S RWY 02 IN IMC, THE CAPTAIN USED A 10-15 DEGREE CRAB ANGLE TO MAINTAIN THE LOCALIZER COURSE. UPON TOUCHDOWN APRX 1000-1300 FT FROM RWY THRESHOLD, THE SPEEDBRAKES DEPLOYED AUTOMATICALLY. THE ACFT STARTED TO DRIFT TO THE LEFT OF RWY CENTERLINE. THE CAPTAIN APPLIED RIGHT RUDDER AND RIGHT NOSEWHEEL STEERING WITH NEGATIVE RESULTS. REVERSE THRUST WAS NOT EMPLOYED. APRX 3000 FT FROM THE RWY THRESHOLD, THE LEFT MAIN LANDING GEAR SANK IN SOFT SNOW ALONG THE RWY EDGE AND AIRCRAFT VEERED TO THE LEFT AND CAME TO A HALT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN87IA059
- Event ID
- 20001213X30218
- Case number
- DEN87IA059
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (6)
- 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, damage. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1987-02-26.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 581609d22dcd60def777275c6195c5872714fc4b212c11eb57215e97d4add61b; retrieved 2026-09-18T19:42:56.080Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N145AW; the operator shown is the name the NTSB's other records give its FAA operator code, AWXA.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: destination. The narrative states the flight "DEPARTED PHOENIX, AZ, EN ROUTE TO DURANGO, CO" and landed on Durango's runway 02; the destination was not recorded.