Air Midwest Fairchild Swearingen SA226TC accident
Fairchild Swearingen SA226TC · Accident: airframe, component or system failure on approach
From Drake Field (FYV) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW85FA308
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Fairchild Swearingen SA226TC
- Aircraft type
- Fairchild Swearingen SA226
- 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
- N5356M
- Operator
- Air Midwest
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Drake Field (FYV), Fayetteville, ARTo not recorded
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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
- Electrical system, voltage regulator › Failure, total
- Landing gear, normal retraction/extension assembly › Inoperative
- Pilot in command › Checklist, improper use of
- Pilot in command › Wheels up landing, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE AIRCRAFT SUSTAINED SUBSTANTIAL DAMAGE WHEN IT LANDED WITH THE GEAR UP. THE PILOTS REPORTED LOWERING THE GEAR, BUT DID NOT CONFIRM THE GEAR POSITION. THE TOWER TRANSMITTED A WARNING, BUT THE CREW DID NOT RESPOND. SUBSEQUENT INVESTIGATION REVEALED A MALFUNCTION IN THE VOLTAGE REGULATORS ON BOTH GENERATORS. THE BATTERY VOLTAGE AVAILABLE WAS NOT SUFFICIENT TO INITIATE GEAR EXTENSION. MANUAL GEAR EXTENSION WAS AVAILABLE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW85FA308
- Event ID
- 20001214X37469
- Case number
- FTW85FA308
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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. 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: aa5ee2641bc7100e5ae1ad050c1cf5f962516aebb9e65ef9e64adf10c43c2448; retrieved 2026-09-18T20:17:24.835Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N5356M; the operator shown is the name the NTSB's other records give its FAA operator code, AMWA.