Comair Flight 5689
Canadair CL-600-2B19 · Incident: airframe, component or system failure on approach
From CVG · Cincinnati, OH to Gerald R. Ford International Airport (GRR)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI01IA073
- 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
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Canadair CL-600-2B19
- Aircraft type
- Canadair CL-600
- 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
- N785CA
- Operator
- Comair
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From CVG · Cincinnati, OHTo Gerald R. Ford International Airport (GRR), Grand Rapids, MI
- 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
- 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
- Minor
Cause areas
- Flt control syst, wing spoiler system › Failure, partial
- Flt control syst, wing spoiler system › Fatigue
- Flt control syst, wing spoiler system › Uncommanded
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Grand Rapids, MI, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The Captain reported they were flying a visual approach following the localizer to intercept the glideslope. When flaps 45 were selected, the airplane rolled right about 15 to 20 degrees. Application of left aileron and rudder controlled the roll, and the approach was aborted. After consulting maintenance and flight operations and conducting a visual inspection, the Captain determined they had a failure of the right flight spoiler. A decision was made to land using corrected speeds per the checklist. The approach and landing were uneventful. A post-flight inspection revealed the right flight spoiler was fully deployed and the right spoiler lug had fractured and separated from the hydraulic actuator. A review of the maintenance records indicated the right flight spoiler had acquired a total of 3,987.9 cycles and 4,064 landings. Metallurgical examination revealed the aluminum spoiler lug had failed due to fatigue. Transport Canada issued an Airworthiness Directive on February 22, 2001, that required the inspection of aluminum flight spoiler lugs at 3,000 cycles, and at intervals not to exceed 500 cycles. The AD also stipulated that the installation of redesigned flight spoilers which utilized steel lugs provided terminating action to the inspection requirements. The FAA issued an AD on July 26, 2001, that required the same inspection criteria as the Transport Canada AD.
Probable cause
The uncommanded deployment of the right flight spoiler due to the fatigue fracture of the spoiler lug.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI01IA073
- Event ID
- 20010205X00392
- Case number
- CHI01IA073
- 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: 65c9ae3da377887991e9a65267895d33a92e7e692e95ad56ef47fc2e38b1e1ce; retrieved 2026-09-18T16:17:16.236Z.