Britt Airways Fairchild SA-266TC accident
Fairchild SA-266TC · Accident: complete gear collapsed during takeoff
From an unrecorded airport to Quincy Regional Airport Baldwin Field (UIN)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's aircraft involved. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI86FA235
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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
Fairchild SA-266TC Narrative disagrees
- Aircraft type
- Fairchild SA-266
- 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
- N327BA
- Operator
- Britt Airways
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo Quincy Regional Airport Baldwin Field (UIN), Quincy, IL
- 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
- Takeoff · roll/run
- 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
- Complete gear collapsed
- 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
- Manufacturer › Acft/equip, inadequate control location
- Manufacturer › Acft/equip, inadequate design
- Pilot in command › Aircraft handling, improper
- Pilot in command › Gear down and locked, inadvertent deactivation
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
ALL LANDING GEAR ON THE AIRCRAFT PREMATURELY RETRACTED DURING TAKOFF ROTATION. THE CAPTAIN ABORTED THE TAKEOFF AND THE AIRCRAFT SLID TO A STOP ON THE RUNWAY. SUBSEQUENT GEAR RETRACTION TESTS REVEALED NO MECHANICAL MALFUNCTIONS WITHIN THE LANDING GEAR SYSTEM. SA-226 SERIES AIRCRAFT ARE PRONE TO INADVERTENT GEAR RETRACTIONS DUE TO THE LOCATION OF THE GEAR SELECTOR LEVER NEAR THE PILOT'S RIGHT KNEE. IT IS EASY TO ACCIDENTLY MOVE THE LEVER OUT OF THE 'DOWN' DETENT. IN THIS ACCIDENT THE CAPTAIN ABORTED THE TAKEOFF DURING ROTATION AT APPROX 113 KTS. V1 SPEED FOR THIS TAKEOFF WAS 108 KTS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI86FA235
- Event ID
- 20001213X34735
- Case number
- CHI86FA235
- 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. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1986-09-25.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 5ea81a39d0eaf573b84dad37302a5c2329c556986e0d36dfcfaf1760f90a104f; retrieved 2026-09-18T19:54:21.105Z.