Grand Aire Express Dassault/SUD Fan Jet Falcon accident
Dassault/SUD Fan Jet Falcon · Accident during initial climb
From Coleman A. Young Municipal Airport (DET) to Chicago Rockford International Airport (RFD)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI01LA296
- 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
- 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
- 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
Dassault/SUD Fan Jet Falcon
- Aircraft type
- Dassault/sud FAN JET FALCON
- 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
- N617GA
- Operator
- Grand Aire Express
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Coleman A. Young Municipal Airport (DET), Detroit, MITo Chicago Rockford International Airport (RFD), Rockford, IL
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- 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
- Flightcrew › Wheels up landing, inadvertent
- Pilot in command › Aircraft preflight, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane sustained substantial damage on impact with terrain and objects after traveling off the end of the runway during a main wheels up landing. The captain reported that prior to takeoff, he closed the cargo door and the copilot confirmed the door light was out. After takeoff at an altitude of about 600 feet, the cockpit door popped open and the crew noticed the cargo door was open. The captain elected to return to land. The captain reported he requested repeatedly for gear and flaps extension, but the copilot was late in doing so and it "caused us to overshoot the runway centerline." The copilot then began calling for a go around/missed approach at which time he raised the gear and the retracted some of the flaps. The copilot reported the captain continued to descend toward the runway and overshot the runway centerline to the right. The copilot reported that at this time he lowered the gear. The nose gear extended prior to touchdown, however the main gear did not. The airplane touched down approximately 1/2 way down the runway and traveled off the end. A witness reported noticing that the exterior door latch was not down as the airplane taxied to the runway.
Probable cause
The wheels up landing performed by the flightcrew during the emergency landing and improper aircraft preflight by the pilot in command. Factors were the unsecured cargo door, the cemetery fence, and the lack of crew coordination during the flight.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI01LA296
- Event ID
- 20010830X01826
- Case number
- CHI01LA296
- 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: 1c21af38fb51b4422f2de4755d2ee404a74a537cb55dcf63c728c544accf5300; retrieved 2026-09-18T16:10:05.436Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N617GA; the operator shown is the name the NTSB's other records give its FAA operator code, GXPA.