Orion Air Grumman G-159 accident
Grumman G-159 · Accident: overrun during landing
From McGhee Tyson Airport (TYS) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA83AA032
- 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
Grumman G-159
- Aircraft type
- Grumman G-159
- 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
- N68TG
- Operator
- Orion Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From McGhee Tyson Airport (TYS), Knoxville, TNTo 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
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, misjudged
- Pilot in command › Distance, misjudged
- Pilot in command › Go-around, not performed
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Blountville, TN, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE COPLT STATED THAT WHEN HE BEGAN THE APCH TO THE DESTINATION ARPT, THE WEATHER CONDITION WAS HAZY & HE DELAYED HIS DESCENT SLIGHTLY UNTIL HE LOCATED THE ARPT. WHEN HE SAW THE RWY, HE BELIEVED THAT THEY WERE A LITTLE TOO CLOSE, SO HE INDICATED TO THE CAPTAIN THAT HE WOULD LIKE TO MAKE A 360 DEG TURN. AT THAT POINT, THE CAPTAIN ASSUMED CONTROL OF THE ACFT & CONTINUED THE APCH TO RWY 4. ACCORDING TO WITNESSES, THE ACFT TOUCHED DOWNED LONG. ACCORDING TO THE CAPTAIN, HE TRIED SEVERAL APPLICATIONS OF THE NORMAL BRAKING SYS, BUT GOT NO RESPONSE. HE THEN TRIED THE EMERGENCY BRAKES & ASKED THE COPLT TO GET ON THE BRAKES, BUT REPORTED THERE WAS NO BRAKING. SUBSEQUENTLY THE ACFT WENT OFF THE END OF THE RWY, WENT OVER AN EMBANKMENT & HIT A FENCE. IT CAME TO REST ON A 2ND EMBANKMENT WHERE IT EXPLODED & BURNED. TIRE MARKS WITH EVIDENCE OF BRAKING ACTION WERE FOUND STARTING 2377 FT BEYOND THE RWY THRESHOLD. A REQUIRED FIELD LENGTH OF APRX 2600 FT WAS CALCULATED FOR LNDG. NO PREIMPACT PART FAILURE/MALFUNCTION WAS FOUND. VASI LIGHTS WERE INOP.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DCA83AA032
- Event ID
- 20001214X43700
- Case number
- DCA83AA032
- 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 1983-07-16.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 985a28bfa4ee9b51ebab0e1f8b8f5d95b3c98493dd521965349efa1b8f296b65; retrieved 2026-09-18T20:56:39.361Z.