Flight 1147 · McDonnell Douglas MD-90-30
McDonnell Douglas MD-90-30 · Incident: in flight collision with object on approach
From Kansas City International Airport (MCI) to Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN01IA036
- 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
- Unknown
- 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
- Airline
- 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
McDonnell Douglas MD-90-30
- Aircraft type
- McDonnell Douglas MD-90
- 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
- N909DA
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Kansas City International Airport (MCI), Kansas City, MOTo Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC), Salt Lake City, UT
- 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 121: Air Carrier
- 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 · IFR final approach
- 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
- In flight collision with object
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Minor
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Proper glidepath, not maintained
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Salt Lake City, UT, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The captain's first approach briefing was based on an ATIS report, indicating a CAT III ILS approach to runway 16R could be expected. When descent instructions were given, however, the descent profile was for landings to the north and this was confirmed by a revised ATIS information. The captain, who was flying the airplane, briefed the first officer for a second time for a CAT III approach to runway 34R. Improved RVR made a Category I approach feasible, and the decision was made to execute this approach. The captain said he acquired the approach lights 100 feet above minimums, and saw the threshold and runway when the airplane arrived at minimums. He disconnected the autopilot. As he began to flare, the first officer announced that sink rate was increasing. The captain attempted to increase pitch. Touchdown was "firm but not hard and rollout was normal." Upon reaching the gate, the captain notified the control tower that he had "possibly touched down short of the runway." An airport operations vehicle reported observing an MD-90 land "prior to the numbers but had not touched down in the over run." Subsequent inspection revealed debris on runway 34R. The airplane struck the approach lights 400 feet short of the runway. Two threshold lights and one light each from the 100 foot and 200 foot approach light bars were found knocked off. The airplane sustained damage to the left main wheel splash guard, and one tire was cut. A one-inch square piece of metal was lodged in the left engine noise suppression material, and there was some damage to the left engine first stage fan section. At the time of the incident, Automatic Terminal Information Service (ATIS) Sierra was current: WIND, 330 degrees at 5 knots; VISIBILITY, less than 1/4-mile, freezing fog; SKY CONDITION, indefinite ceiling 100 feet; TEMPERATURE, -6 degrees Celsius; DEW POINT, -7 degrees Celsius; ALTIMETER, 30.24 inches of mercury; REMARKS, fog dispersal ongoing.
Probable cause
the captain's failure to maintain the proper glide path. Contributing factors were the weather conditions that included low visibility and fog.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN01IA036
- Event ID
- 20010104X00013
- Case number
- DEN01IA036
- 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: 8633ffd7781a74f9daf25d8607cffc2acb1b56e412198537eacb3207976102a0; retrieved 2026-09-18T16:18:19.532Z.