Air Midwest SAAB-Fairchild SF340 incident
SAAB-Fairchild SF340 · Incident during initial climb
From St. Louis Lambert International Airport (STL) to JIN · Joplin, MO
Event
- NTSB case
- MKC86IA058
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
SAAB-Fairchild SF340
- Aircraft type
- Saab Fairchild SF340
- 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
- N342AM
- Operator
- Air Midwest
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From St. Louis Lambert International Airport (STL), St. Louis, MOTo JIN · Joplin, MO
- 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
- 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- 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
- Landing gear, main gear › Loss, partial
- Landing gear, wheel › Failure, partial
- Landing gear, wheel › Separation
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of St. Louis, MO, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
ON INITIAL CLIMBOUT FM LAMBERT FIELD, ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI, THE CONTROL TOWER AT LAMBERT RPTD TO THE PIC OF FLT 1163 THAT ONE OF THE MAIN LANDING GEAR WHEELS HAD FALLEN OFF THE ACFT. THE ACFT WAS RETURNED AND LANDED SAFELY. INITIAL INSPECTION REVEALED WHAT APPEARED TO BE A BEARING FAILURE AND SUBSEQUENT DEPARTURE OF THE RIGHT OUTBOARD WHEEL ASSY. NO ADDITIONAL INSPECTION BY THE MANUFACTURER WAS ATTEMPTED DUE TO THE LACK OF FAILED BEARING MATERIAL FROM THE MAIN LANDING GEAR WHEEL ASSEMBLY.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MKC86IA058
- Event ID
- 20001213X32922
- Case number
- MKC86IA058
- 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: 170669609668ac1a198b489b75f214c9b275993b179cb9d94c36329087961613; retrieved 2026-09-18T20:08:34.713Z.