USAir Boeing 737-200 incident
Boeing 737-200 · Incident during landing
From Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) to Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC86IA215
- 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
Boeing 737-200
- 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
- N319US
- Operator
- USAir
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW), Dallas, TXTo Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT), Pittsburgh, PA
- 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
- 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
- Copilot/second pilot › Incapacitation
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Pittsburgh, PA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
CO-PLT WAS FLYING ACFT ON SHORT FINAL APPROACH/LANDING. CAPT OBSERVED CO-PLT HAVING DIFFICULTY MAINTAINING GLIDESLOPE AND AIRSPEEDS. CO-PLT STOPPED FLYING THE ACFT. CAPT TOOK CONTROL AT 50' AGL AND LANDED SAFELY. MEDICAL HELP REQUESTED AND RECEIVED FROM CABIN AND GATE. CO-PLT HAD RAPID BREATHING, WEAK PULSE, COLD SWEAT AND SEVERE TREMBLING. CO-PLT OBSERVED BY MEDICS FOR 30 MINUTES BEFORE GOING HOME. CO-PLT REMOVED FROM FLT STATUS AND MEDICALLY EXAMINED - EVENT DIAGNOSED RELATED TO STRESS, EMOTION AND FATIGUE. CO-PLT RETURNED TO FLIGHT STATUS WITH LINECHECK CAPTAIN. PERFORMANCE WAS SUB-STANDARD DUE TO SIMILIAR SYMPTOMS. FURTHER MEDICAL EXAM CONDUCTED. CO-PLT ADMITTED HEAVY USE OF ALCOHOL. SUBSEQUENT DIAGNOSIS WAS ANXIETY DISORDER COMPLICATED BY ALCOHOL ABUSE. FAA REVOKED 1ST CLASS MEDICAL CITING ALCOHOLISM.NO TOX TESTS CONDUCTED AT TIME OF INCIDENT - SPECIFIC CAUSE OF INCAPACITATION UNDETERMINED.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC86IA215
- Event ID
- 20001213X34297
- Case number
- NYC86IA215
- 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: 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 1986-07-07.
- API snapshot SHA-256: f7870c6e57e260e30e6423507288bb91b16d1e9696b4c4ecb99d6c49cdbe5777; retrieved 2026-09-18T19:58:10.697Z.