Gemini Air Cargo Flight 17
McDonnell Douglas MD-11F · Incident: overrun during landing
From Brussels Airport (EBBR) to John F. Kennedy International Airport (KJFK)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC03IA117
- 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
McDonnell Douglas MD-11F
- Aircraft type
- McDonnell Douglas MD-11
- 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
- N703GC
- Operator
- Gemini Air Cargo
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Brussels Airport (EBBR), BrusselsTo John F. Kennedy International Airport (KJFK), Jamaica, NY
- 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
- Minor
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Proper touchdown point, not obtained
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The cargo airplane was on approach to land at night, on runway 4R; an 8,400-foot-long, asphalt runway. The flight crew received the current automated terminal information service weather, which included winds from 240 degrees at 4 knots. The captain was the flying pilot. He stated that he utilized the autopilot to 500 feet, before clicking it off, and stayed on the glide slope. The airplane's landing weight was about 470,000 pounds, and it was configured for a normal approach, which included autobrakes set to minimum and 35 degrees of flaps. The captain reported that the airplane touched down between 1,500 and 1,800 feet beyond the approach end of the runway, at an airspeed of about 158 knots. The captain applied reverse thrust and everything seemed normal until he observed the alternating red and white runway lights, which seemed to be coming up fast. The captain stated that with about 3,000 feet of runway remaining, at a speed of 110 knots, he began to apply manual braking. The first officer stated he could feel the brakes grab, and the airplane's nose pitched down. The airplane departed the end of the runway and entered an Engineered Materials Arresting System (EMAS). The airplane's nose gear came to rest approximately 238 feet beyond the end of the runway, 115 feet into the EMAS. Both flight crew members reported normal cockpit indications before, during, and after the incident. Post incident examination of the airplane, which included a brake inspection and an operational check of the autobrake system, did not reveal any faults or abnormalities. A recorded radar and performance study indicated that the airplane crossed the runway threshold at an altitude of about 60 to 120 feet above the ground. The main landing gear touched down approximately 2,800 to 3,000 feet from the beginning of runway 4R, and the nose gear touched down at about 4,300 feet. The automatic braking system initiated approximately three seconds after nose wheel touchdown. The pilot initiated manual braking with about 1,400 feet of runway remaining. According to the operator's performance data for the airplane, the maximum landing weight allowed to utilized runway 4R for the incident landing configuration was 491,500 pounds in a zero wind condition, and 452,800 pounds, with a 5 knot tailwind.
Probable cause
The Captain's misjudgment of speed/distance which resulted in his failure to obtain the proper touch point resulting in an overrun. Factors in this accident were the tail wind, and night light conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC03IA117
- Event ID
- 20030612X00863
- Case number
- NYC03IA117
- 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: d5aca5c0479c8834c50f2d142544eb660d09e6eefd8b818aa4d60e15d5e465d8; retrieved 2026-09-18T15:48:12.368Z.