Sunbird Airlines Cessna 402C accident
Cessna 402C · Accident: overrun during landing
From Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT) to Hickory Regional Airport (HKY)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL84FA185
- 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
Cessna 402C
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 402
- 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
- N3132M
- Operator
- Sunbird Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT), Charlotte, NCTo Hickory Regional Airport (HKY)
- 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
- Landing · landing roll
- 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
- Overrun
- 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
- Pilot in command › Aborted landing, not performed
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, misjudged
- Pilot in command › Proper touchdown point, exceeded
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Hickory, NC, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
DURING THE ILS APCH TO RWY 24 (6400 FT LONG), VISUAL CONTACT WITH THE RWY WAS ESTABLISHED AT APRX 500 FT AGL AND THE ACFT WAS INDICATING 'ONE DOT' HIGH ON THE GLIDE SLOPE. WITNESSES STATED THE ACFT TOUCHED DOWN PAST THE HALFWAY POINT ON THE RWY WITH FULL FLAPS IN MODERATE RAIN. A 5 KT TAILWIND WAS PRESENT AT THE TIME AND THE RWY CONTAINED A .8% DOWNSLOPE. UPON APPLICATION OF THE BRAKES, THE PLT FOUND THEM INEFFECTIVE AND CALLED FOR FLAPS UP. BRAKING WAS STILL INEFFECTIVE AND THE PLT ELECTED TO GROUND LOOP THE ACFT TO STOP. LEFT TURNING SKID MARKS WERE FOUND STARTING 300 FEET BEFORE THE END OF THE RWY. THEY CONTINUED 120 FT BEYOND THE RWY UNTIL THE ACFT TRAVELED OFF AN EMBANKMENT. APRX3 INCHES OF WATER WAS PRESENT ON THE RWY WHEN THE ACCIDENT OCCURRED. THE ACFT TRAVELED 120 FT BEYOND THE EMBANKMENT AND COLLIDED WITH UPSLOPING TERRAIN ON THE OTHER SIDE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL84FA185
- Event ID
- 20001214X39462
- Case number
- ATL84FA185
- 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. 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: e8e915f43b1e15246fea6d5500573bd38cc327f7f77702f6b6359dc44ffbe065; retrieved 2026-09-18T20:41:08.794Z.