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ExpressJet Airlines Embraer ERJ-145LR accident

6 Jan 2003 · Cleveland, OH, United States

Embraer ERJ-145LR · Accident: overrun during landing

From Bradley International Airport (BDL) to Cleveland Hopkins International Airport (CLE)

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Event

NTSB case
NYC03FA035
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
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

Embraer ERJ-145LR

Aircraft type
Embraer ERJ-145
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
N16571
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Bradley International Airport (BDL), Windsor Locks, CTTo Cleveland Hopkins International Airport (CLE), Cleveland, OH
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
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 › Go-around, not performed
  • Pilot in command › Proper touchdown point, not attained

Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

The pilots initiated an approach to runway 6L, which was snow covered, and had a useable landing distance of 6,000 feet. The last winds from the tower were 340 degrees at 22 kts, with gusts to 35 knots. The maximum demonstrated crosswind for the airplane was 30 knots. The ATIS contained runway condition data that was 1 hour old. Inside the final approach fix, the captain elected to land with the wing flaps set at 22 degrees, rather than 45 degrees due to the wind. The Vref was adjusted to 138 kts, however, the final 38 seconds of flight was above 138 kts, and the final 7 seconds of flight was above 150 kts. In the final eight seconds of flight, the radar altimeter was less than 15 feet. However, the pilot continued with the landing and did not go-around. Touchdown occurred at an airspeed of 150 kts, about 1,523 feet from the departure end of the runway, and 2,308 feet from the ILS localizer antenna, which the airplane struck after it overran the runway. According to the company flight manual, with flaps set at 22 degrees, and a wet runway, the actual landing distance would have been 4,260 feet. When interviewed, the flight crew reported they had not checked landing distance. The FAA had published a NOTAM 26 days prior to the accident, which raised the landing minimums for the runway from 4,000 ft RVR to 5,000 ft RVR. The NOTAM was not in the airline's data base, and the company had no backup method for determining if they had all NOTAMS. The last RVR transmitted to the flight crew was 4,000 ft. The local controller did not update the flight crew with the latest RVR, or braking action reports as required. There was no requirement for the local controller to notify the pilots that the airport was below landing minimums even though the controllers were required to be aware of the approach minimums.

Probable cause

The captain's failure to attain a proper touchdown on runway, and his subsequent failure to perform a go-around, both of which resulted in a runway overrun. Factors were the company's inadequate dispatch procedures with their failure to provide all NOTAMS for the airport to the flight crew, and the snow covered runway.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record NYC03FA035
Event ID
20030109X00039
Case number
NYC03FA035
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, coordinates. 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: 5e8c92df22f464b909ff7fc1682ad4f8b1518276a2175ee2c0429be513f9df0f; retrieved 2026-09-18T15:56:21.328Z.