Comair Swearingen SA-227-AC incident
Swearingen SA-227-AC · Incident: partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical) on approach
From Blue Grass Airport (LEX) to CVG · Cincinnati, OH
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI85IA084
- 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
Swearingen SA-227-AC
- Aircraft type
- Swearingen SA-227
- 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
- N3110J
- Operator
- Comair
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Blue Grass Airport (LEX), Lexington, KYTo CVG · Cincinnati, OH
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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
- Partial loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- 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
- Manufacturer › Procedure inadequate
- Propeller system/accessories, spinner › Ice
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE AIRCREW REPORTED THAT DURING FLT AT 6000 FT MSL, THEY ENCOUNTERED ICING CONDITIONS & USED THE DE-ICE & ANTI-ICE EQUIPMENT. AFTER THEY DESCENDED & WERE CLEAR OF ICING, THEY DEACTIVATED THE DE-ICE & ANTI-ICE EQUIPMENT.THE CAPT SAID HECHECKED THE PROP SPINNERS & NOTED A SMALL BUILDUP OF ICE, WHICH HE CONSIDERED AS MINIMAL, & TURNED OFF THE CONTINUOUS IGNITION. SHORTLY THEREAFTER WHILE ON FINAL APCH AT APRX 1000 FT AGL & 1 TO 1.5 MI FROM THE ARPT, THE R ENG LOST POWER WITHOUT WARNING. THE COPLT FEATHERED THE R PROP & THE APCH WAS CONTINUED. HOWEVER, AT ABOUT 200 FT AGL THE OTHER ENG ALSO LOST POWER. THE ACFT WAS LANDED WITHOUT FURTHER INCIDENT. DURING AN INVESTIGATION, ICE WAS FOUND ON THE GROUND UNDER THE WINGS. NO MECHANICAL PROBLEMS OR FUEL CONTAMINATION WERE FND. THE ACFT HAD A HISTORY OF FLAMEOUTS DUE TO ICE BUILDUP & RELEASE FROM THE SPINNERS. IGNITION SW LABELED 'NORM', 'CONT' & 'OVRD.' TO OBTAIN CONTINUOUS IGNITION IN FLT, THE SWITCH MUST HAVE BEEN IN 'OVRD.' NO SPECIFIC WARNING IN FLT MANUAL TO USE CONTINUOUS IGNITION (OVRD) IN ICING COND.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI85IA084
- Event ID
- 20001214X35476
- Case number
- CHI85IA084
- 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: 73890841a3b3efcd904ea59562403ca3dda9504b8015dfa5c15a0f28d71aad36; retrieved 2026-09-18T20:32:44.836Z.