FLIGHT FINDINGSAVIATION OCCURRENCE MAP
Back to map

Gemini Air Cargo Flight 17

30 May 2003 · Jamaica, NY, United States

McDonnell Douglas MD-11F · Incident: overrun during landing

From Brussels Airport (EBBR) to John F. Kennedy International Airport (KJFK)

Report a problem

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

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
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.